are Frederiksthal, the nearest to Cape Farewell, Godthaab, the residence of the governor of South Greenland, Julianshaab and Lichtenau, on the site of the old Icelandic colonies, in the Southern Inspectorate; and Godhavn, on Disco Island, the residence of the governor of North Greenland, and Upernavik, in lat. 72° 40' N., which, except the little hamlet of Tasiusak, a few miles further north, is the northernmost settlement on the continent, and the most northerly per manent settlement in the world.

In summer, the Greenland settlements are regularly visited by vessels from Denmark, which bring the necessary stores and take away the oil of seals, wal ruses, and whales, the skins of reindeer, bear, fox, &c., and the feathers and eggs of the eider duck, &c. British whaling vessels from Dundee and Peterhead pass up the western coast in summer, and touch at various points. But the chief interest of Greenland lies in the fact that the long channel, which is open in some seasons to beyond lat. 82° N., is the great highway for Polar exploration, and it was by this way that the Alert and other expeditions have tried to reach the Pole. From the 4 est, Captain, now Sir George, Nares in command, which was hemmed in by the ice barrier in lat. 829 27 N., sledge parties were sent out. The one under Commander Markham pushed north over the frozen sea for 40 days, and on May 12th, 1876, reached his furthest northerly foint -83° 20′ 26". Lieutenant Greeley, of the United States navy, reached 83° 24 in 1883, and Peary, in 1900, reached 83° 50', in the extreme

north of Greenland.

BRITISH ARCTIC AMERICA.

BRITISH ARCTIC AMERICA is politically included in the vast Dominion of Canada, but in truth "the entire Polar regions of America, from Bering Strait to Baffin Bay and the whole territory of Greenland, nominally owned by three different powers-Denmark, Britain, and the United States-are the domain of the one race which can wrest a living from them; one of vast antiquity, which has adapted itself through ages of evolution to its terrible environ

ments-the Eskimo."

of

These people of Arctic America are not savages, in the ordinary meaning the term, and, although physical or intellectual progress is impossible, they show no little capacity, patience, and ingenuity in sustaining themselves at all amidst such desolate surroundings, in a region where no plant-food except a few wild berries can be had-a region for the most part entirely deprived of communication with the outside world, and even the most accessible places of which are completely isolated during the long and gloomy winter, when furious storms sweep over the iceberg-laden seas and the air is thick with blinding Such is the land of the Eskimos or "raw meat eaters," as they are nicknamed by the Algonquin Indians of the neighbouring mainland

mist and snow.

their own native name is Innuit or "the people."

British Arctic America includes not only the apparently inextricable maze of "lands" and islands, intersected by innumerable channels, straits, and sounds, but also the inhospitable shores of the adjoining mainland, which stretches polenorth and west of this great inland sea, two small peninsulas-Melville Peninward in the great Peninsula of Labrador, to the cast of Hudson Bay, To the 1. In 189. Dr. Nansen, a Swedish traveller, led a in the Fram, and subsequent sledge journey mow-shoes, enduring severe hardships and cold 86° 33' N., the highest yet attained. travelled across the stupendous ice-covering on cord was beaten, in 1900, by Abruzzi, who reached

Icientific expedition across Greenland. The party

on the way. In 1895, in his remarkable voyage

across the ice, he reached 86° 14, but this re

sula and Boothia Felix-also run northward; the one reaching the 70° N. lat., and the other-the most northerly point of the American mainland-attaining a point (lat. 72° N.) only 1,260 miles from the North Pole itself.

An attentive examination of a good map will show that the mass of "lands" and islands to the north o. is irregular and deeply indented coast is resolvable into two great divisions, and that these again may be grouped into smaller divisions, so that a clear and definite idea' may be gained of the absolute and relative position of the various members of what may be termed, as a whole, the Arctic Archipelago, a term which some geographers limit to the Parry Islands and North Devon. The long and continuous channel-formed by Lancaster Sound, Barrow Strait, Melville Sound, and McClure Strait-leading from Baffin Bay westwards to the open ocean and Bering Strait, may be taken as the main line of demarcation. To the north of it are the Parry Islands and North Devon and the long coastland, of which the eastern and part of the northern margin only has been traced, and which, under various names-North Lincoln, Ellesmere Land, Grinnell Land, and Grant Land-stretches north along the western side of Smith Sound, Kane Bay and Robeson Channel, a

To the south of the channel referred to, the Arctic Archipelago is resolvable into three groups-the eastern, which includes the long Baffin Land, extending along the western side of Baffin Bay and Davis Strait, from Lancaster Sound to Hudson Strait; the central, which includes the two large islands of North Somerset and Prince of Wales Land, separated from each other by Peel Sound; and the western, which con ists of one large central mass-Prince Albert and Victoria Land-and two islands, Banks Land, separated from it by Prince of Wales Strait on the north-west, and King William's Land, separated from it on the south-east by Victoria Strait. The central mass is divided from the adjoining mainland by the Dolphin Strait, Coronation Gulf, and Dease Strait. Boothia Peninsula is divided from North Somerset by Bellot Strait, while the adjoining Melville Peninsula is separated from Baffin Land by the narrow Fury and Hecla Strait and the broad Fox Channel, which leads into Hudson Strait and Bay. All these and other islands and channels are inseparably linked with the memory of the brave men who risked their lives in the vain endeavour to open up a highway between the Atlantic and the Pacific, and of those who perished in the search for the North-West Passage, the most famous of whom, Sir John Franklin, with the Erebus and Terror, went north in 1845, and was last seen by some whalers in Melville Bay. The search for the missing vessels was energetically prosecuted, but it was not until 1850 that a clue was found, namely, a cairn and three graves on Beechey Island. In the same year, Capt. McClure, in the Investigator, entered the Arctic Ocean through Bering Strait, but was frozen up in Prince of Wales Strait, whence Melville Sound could be seen. Seven years later, Capt. M'Clintock took the Fox north and wintered in Bellot Strait, whence sledge parties were sent out, and on Cape Victory, on the north-western coast of King William's Land, the long-sought-for record of the Franklin Expedition was found, It seems that the expedition had wintered at Beechey Island and had pushed south towards King William's Land, but the ships had been beset in the ice near Cape Felix, Franklin had died, and the survivors had abandoned the vessels, and had started overland for Back's Fish River. A few reached the mainland, but not one lived to tell the tale. 'Ninety miles more of open water and Franklin and his heroic

1. Such an idea is absolutely necessary to an intelligent perusal of the deeply interesting annals of Arctic Exploration, and especially those connected with the search for, and the discovery of, the NorthWest Passage.

2. The Arctic Islands have recently been formed into a Provisional District under the name of Franklin.

followers would have won the prize they sought." But the North-West Passage, of which they were indeed the first discoverers, can never be utilized as a commercial highway between the two great oceans, the channels, by which the passage might under unusually favourable circumstances be made, being generally ice-bound.'

ALASKA.

The vast Territory of Alaska, which has an area of 531,000 square miles, or ten times that of England and Wales, embraces the extreme north-western portion of the continent, together with the long chain of the Aleutian Islands, and a disputed strip of the coast and the adjacent islands to the south of Mount St. Elias.

The 1,500 islands, that skirt the south-western coast of Alaska, are the northern portion of the great archipelago, which ends in Vancouver Island. The largest of the Alaskan islands is Prince of Wales Island; on Baranoff Island, the next in size, is SITKA or New Archangel, the capital of the territory.

From the lofty mountains which border this intricate coast, thousands of glaciers push down the fiords into the sea, their edges constantly breaking off in icebergs. North of the archipelago, Mount Fairweather rises sheer from the shores of Glacier Bay to a height of 15,500 feet, but another equally grand snow-covered peak, Mount St. Elias, rises to 18, 100 feet (3,000 feet higher), while the adjoining Mount Logan, in British territory, is 19.515 feet in height. Mount McKinley, in the interior of Alaska, is the loftiest elevation in North America, being 20,464 feet above sea-level.

The Yukon, the largest of Alaskan rivers and one of the great rivers of the world, has a course of 2,400 miles from its source in British Columbia to its outlets into the Bering Sea. This "Amazon of Arctic America" pours into the sea an immense amount of water, more perhaps than the Mississippi itself, but an enormous mud-bank bars its mouth, and its navigation is limited to smail steamers, which enter the river by a channel from Norton Sound on the north. There are large forests of excellent timber-spruce and white cedar being the most valuable trees-in the south, but the climate is too humid and the summer too short to permit anything to be grown besides garden vegetables. Timber and ice are exported, but Alaska is chiefly valuable for its gold deposits, its fisheries, and its furs. Great numbers of fur-seals and sea otters are cap

tured.

and of silver 169,000 025.,

The output of gold in 1905 was 722,000 OzS., valued at three millions, and twenty thousand pounds, respectively. A railway, 112 miles in length, connects the port of SKAGWAY with the Canadian gold region on the Yukon. Other towns are NOME, on the west coast, Juneau, the seat of government, Sitka, and Fairbanks (on the Tanana River).

Chinese.

The inhabitants of this vast territory, which was acquired by purchase by the United States from Russia in 1867, do not exceed 64,000 in number, of whom about 20,000 are white, mostly engaged in gold mining, about 1,500 halfciste Russians and Indians, and a number of Indians in the Sitkan archipelago and the mainland-the rest are Innuits or Eskimos, Aleuts or Aleutians, and Eskimo settlements are found along the shores of Bering Sea and the Arctic Ocean. The island of Kodiak, the trade centre of Alaska, and the adjoining peninsula of Aliaska and the long chain of the Aleutian Islands, are inhabited by the Aleuts, an uncivilized race of hunters of the Mongolian type similar to the Eskimos. The slaughter of fur-seals on the Pribyloff IslandsSt. Paul and St. George -in the Bering Sea, has been enormous, but the seal fishing is now carried on under restrictions, which limit the take and enforce a

close season.

round the northern coast of Asia is almost as valueless for all practical purposes, although some

1. The longer but more open North-East Passage attempts have been made to open up communica

tion with Siberia by sea,

BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.

BRITISH NORTH AMERICA embraces the whole of the northern half of the continent, except Greenland and Alaska. This immense territory, which is nearly as large as all Europe, is, with the exception of Newfoundland and Labrador and the small islands of St. Pierre and Miquelon off the south coast of Newfoundland, included in the Dominion of Canada.

The Colony of Newfoundland and Labrador, its dependency, are thus the only parts of the British possessions in North America not included in the Dominion, and as they stand, as it were, at the threshold of the New World, and Newfoundland itself is the nearest land to Europe-St. John's, Newfoundland, being only 1,665 miles from Galway, in Ireland-we will describe them first.

NEWFOUNDLAND.

NEWFOUNDLAND,' the oldest and, in many respects, the most peculiar British Colony, is a large island at the mouth of the Gulf of St. Lawrence. With an area of over 42,700 square miles, or one-sixth larger than that of Ireland, and with inexhaustible fisheries and large tracts of rich agricultural, mineral, and timber lands, the colony has a population of only 222,600 or less than that of Hull.

The island is triangular in shape--the three extreme points being Cape Norman on the north, Cape Ray on the south-west, and Cape Race on the south-east. The coast-line, 2,000 miles in length, is deeply indented by several deep bays, such as Hare, White, Notre Dame, Bonavista, Trinity, and Conception Bays on the east coast; St. Mary's, Placentia, Fortune, and Hermitage Bays on the south coast; and St. George Bay and the Bay of Islands on the west coast. The south-eastern part of the island-the Peninsula of Avalonis almost cut off from the main portion by Trinity Bay on the north and Placentia Bay on the south. Hundreds of islands fringe the coast, two of them -Miquelon and St. Pierre-belong to France. One of them, Belle Isle, gives its name to the narrow channel-the Strait of Belle Isle-which separates Newfoundland from Labrador. Most of these inlets form excellent harbours, well sheltered and with safe anchorages.

The interior of Newfoundland has, until recent years, remained a terra incognita, and even yet Avalon Peninsula is the only part of the island containing any settlement more than a mile from the coast. The greater portion appears to be an undulating prairie, watered by so many rivers and containing so many lakes that fully one-third of the island is covered with water. Grand Pond (185 square miles) is the largest lake, and the River of Exploits (150 miles) the longest river.

the

The climate is not so extreme as that of Canada, being much milder in winter and not nearly so hot in summer, and, in spite of the fogs which prevail on 'banks' and occasionally extend to the island, the people are exceptionally healthy. Although the island could support an agricultural population numbered by millions, agriculture is practically unknown, and cod-fishing in summer, and

Newfoundland was first discovered by Nor- | Cabot in 1497. The first settlement was made in wegians about the year 1000, and was visited by 1623, and the first governor was appointed in 1728

seal hunting in winter and spring, are the chief occupations of the people. The cod-fishery on the Grand Banks of Newfoundland is the most important in the world, but the islanders depend chiefly upon the less risky shore fishery.1

The trade of Newfoundland, which amounts to over 44 millions sterling a year, consists in the export of dried cod, cod-oil, lobsters, herring, seal-oil, sealskins, and other products of the fisheries, with iron and copper ore, and the import of textile fabrics, coal, hardware and food stuffs. About a fourth of the trade is carried on with the United Kingdom-the rest is principally with Canada and the United States. Enormous quantities of fish are sent to Catholic countries such as Brasil, Spain, and Portugal,

Newfoundland possesses responsible government. The Governor is appointed by the Crown; the House of Assembly is elected by the people every four years. The Revenue and Expenditure each amount to about half a million sterling a year.

The capital, ST. JOHN'S, is a town of over 30,000 people, beautifully situated on a splendid harbour-"one of the very best on the Atlantic coast" on the eastern side of the Peninsula of Avalon. It is now connected by ral with Harbour Grace (7), on the west side of Conception Bay, and Placentia, on Placentia Bay. The railway has been extended westwards across the island, so as to open up the rich timber and agricultural lands in the interior and along the west coast. The copper mines on the eastern side of the island have been very productive, and coal, plumbago, and other useful minerals abound. Valuable beds of iron ore are worked on Bell Island in Conception Bay.

LABRADOR.

The adjoining coast territory of Labrador, from the Strait of Belle Isle on the south, to Cape Chudleigh, at the entrance of Hudson Strait, on the north, is politically attached to Newfound

land.

Some of the most valuable fisheries-cod, herring, trout, and salmon-in the world, are found off the coast of this sterile region. There is a resident population of about 4,000, which is increased to 50,000 during the fishing season, Nain and Hopedale are the chief settlements, and there are also a few posts of the Hudson Bay Company. Estimated area over 120,000 square miles.

ST. PIERRE-MIQUELON.

St. Pierre and Miquelon are two small islands off the south coast of Newfoundland. They belong to France, and are the sole remnants of her once vast North American possessions.

These barren and rocky islets, only 100 square miles in area, have a popula tion of 6,000 and are visited by between 2,000 and 3,000 ships every year, principally French vessels engaged in cod fishing. These islands are held under the Treaty of Utrecht (1713), by which also certain fishing rights were accorded to the French off the coast of Newfoundland, between Cape Ray, northward through the Strait of Belle Isle, and then eastward to Cape St. John; but the nized, the French claimed exclusive right of fishery along the coast. This Treaty was so carelessly worded, that, although Englan is sovereignty is recog claim France renounced in the Convention of 1904, retaining the right to fish

in territorial waters between the above named capes.

Newfoundland amounts to about 2 mi lion quintals. fue annual catch on the banks and shores

2. The Atlantic Cables terminate at Trinity Bay,

on the east coast,