Evening star., 1953-06-29
Thirty-one Expeditions
To Study Arctic Areas
Experts Will Seek Truces
Of Man and Aged Moses
By Thomos R. Henry

This will be a busy summer in the
Far North.
Thirty-one Arctic and sub-Arctic ex-
peditions. sponsored jointly by the Arc
tic Institute Of North America and the
Office of Naval Research, will be in the
field. The detectives range from ex-
ploration Of the almost unknown
mountains OF Bafln Land to collections
of so million-year- moses and
search for stone artifacts of long,
vanished peoples The investigators will
cover the country from Little Diomede
Island in the west to Greenland.
Five to Study Traces of Man.
Five of the expeditions are concerned
with archaeology and ethnology. due to
recent findings which have upset long.
standing assumptions regarding the
first coming Of man to this continent
out of Asia.
Under the direction of DIR. Frederick
de Laguna. professor of anthropology at
Bryn Mawr, excavations will be made
at the site of prehistoric village on
Knight Island, near Yakatuk, Alaska.
The purpose is to trace the history of
distinct aboriginal culture patterns
which spread all over the American
Arctic.
At the same time Df. William Quaide
Of the University of California will carry
out geological investigations to date
prehistoric land connections between
Alaska and Asia over which the earliest
migrants between the two continents
are supposed to have come.
To Study Moisture and Moses.
Two projects in widely separated
fields are related to problems of Arctic
engineering and agriculture. DR.. Lyman
J. Chapman Of the Ontario Research
Foundation will install a battery Of
evapotranspirometers at Norman Wells.
Northwest Territories, in an effort to
determine the moisture cycle in north
ern latitudes and its influence on
ground conditions.
DR.. and Mrs. William C. Steere Of
Stanford University will investigate the
geographical distribution of certain
MOSES whose presence serves as a re-
liable index of the character Of the
underlying layer of permafrost. Some
OF these MOSES have persisted, DR..
Steere believes, since the tertiary geo.
logical period when the climate of the
north polar region was much milder
than today. Most of the perhaps lux
uriouS vegetation of the period became
extinct or retreated southwark with the
climatic change.
Still another study will take Karen
Friedman, economist of the United
States Department of Agriculture, to
study the current transition of Green
lands economy which has resulted from
the gradual warming of the coastal
waters and the consequent disappear
ance of the seal population that for
merly supported the people of West
Greenland. Mrs. Friedman believes
recent developments in Greenland af-
ford an unusual example Of the eco
nomic advancement of an under -devel-
oped area.
Parties Vary in Size.
The research parties. range in size
from single investigators to the 13-man
team headed by Col. P. D. Baird, di-
rector of the Arctic Institutes Montreal
office, which will conduct psychological,
geological and biological Investigations
of the Penny Highland ice cap on Baff1n
Island. This party already is in the
field.
Most of the scientists plan to remain
in the field until the start of the Arctic
winter in mid-September. They will
travel by canoe, Eskimo boat, dog sled,
local airplanes and on foot. One Brit
ish scientist, a Dane and Norwegian.
in addition to United States and Cana
dian scientists, share the Institutes
grants.
The summers work will raise to a
total of l40 the expeditions and re-
search projects sponsored by the Arctic
Institute in the past five years. 1t Is
a Joint United States-C Canadian orga1i-
zation of Arctic experts with head
quarters in Washington and Montreal.