The record-union. [volume] (Sacramento, Calif.) 1891-1903, 1895-11-09
PROBLEM OF ARCTIC LIFE.
How Plants and Animals Exist in That
Region.
Mysteries of Nature-Helcyon Days FOR
Flowers and Birds-The Animals
Do Not Hibernate.

The persistence of animal life in the
region of Arctic cold appears only less
unacountable than it's presence in the
ocean abyss. The eXister of deep-Sea
creatures in perpetual u~tkness, and
under a weight of waters four miles
deep, was incredible, because inconcelV-
able. The existence of life in Arctic
darkness and Arctic cold is unaccOunta-
BILE, because it seems to be of necessity
intolerable. Granting that highly or
ganized creatures can exist there, it
is passing strange that they should con-
sent to do so, or make a voluntary hab-
itation in that hell of cold and darkness
which Morse fancy imagined as place
of torment more appalling than the
lake of liquid fire. One would have
thought Arctic life must cease, because,
even if possible, it was not worth living;
that there would be a voluntary exodus
of beasts. as of birds, before the winter
setting of the sun: and the SlOWer-mOV-
ing mammals would 60 to return no
more.
Yet in the deep seas the incOnceiva-
bic has been found to exist; highly or
ganiZed creatures live and are repro
duced where no light penetrates, where
no plants grow, in eternal cold, and IN
a pressure twenty times greater than
that which drives a railway train; and
in the Arctic circle mammalian animals,
birds and plants, endure five months
night and a temperature far lower
than that of the deep seas. The lowest
found to- be % degrees Fair. below
freezing point. That of the polar
temperature of the ocean abyss was
night falls 20 degrees to 80 degrees.
The cold endured by the Arctic animals
is almost as astonishing as the pressure
borne by the creatures of the deep sea;
yet in neither is there any notable
change in structure to meet these con-
ditions The Arctic mammals do not
differ greatly from those of kindred
species found elsewhere. Why, then,
do they stay where they are? And
how do they continue to endure the
plague of darkness and the desperate
cold?
The problem is explained in part by
A. Trevor attye, in a suggestive and
well-written paper, read before the
British Association, on Life and Its
Conditions in Arctic Lands"
In the first he attaches due import
ance to the beneficent effect on life of the
nightless Arctic summer. At KOlguev,
which lies at no great distance north
y
into six months of perpetual sunlight
and six of unbroken night. The never
setting sun of the first forces the powers
of life at high preSSure-"life beating
strongly under perpetual sunlight; life.
and the propagation of life, by birds as
DANGEROUSLY, by flowers S brightly as
in the lands of the south" OF the flow
ers, "buttercups, dandelions, forgetme
not, hawkweed, cuckoo-fiower. sedum
and saxiifrage are found in blossom,
and no English meadow can outvie
these Arctic pastures in masses of pur-
pie and blue and gold But these are
halcyon days of the Polar region. When
the winter and darkness settle down on
the land, the birds, ducks, geese,
knots, sanderlings and plovers fly
south, except the raven, the ptarmi-
gan and two species of gull. But with
these remain all the mammals, not only
| the whales and seals, but the land
creatures. all of whom might if they
| chose, migrate-reindeer, musk sheep.