ting oil used by most of the
world, and the chief supply was obtained from the whales slaughtered in
north polar regions.

Holland sent whaling ships to the arctic as early as 1613, and for two
centuries whaling fleets of different nations frequented these seas.
During the early part of the seventeenth century--the most profitable
period--upward of three hundred Dutch ships and fifteen thousand men
annually visited Spitzbergen. It is estimated that in two centuries
America, England, and Holland obtained from the arctic regions products
amounting to one thousand million dollars, the greatest items by far
being whale oil and whalebone. Great quantities of fossil ivory have
been obtained from the New Siberian Island, the very soil of which seems
in great part to be made up of the bones and tusks of the extinct
mammoth.

Much valuable scientific information has been gained by meteorological
and magnetic observations. The north magnetic pole, toward which the
north-seeking end of the compass needle points, has been located on the
west side of Boothia Peninsula. At this place the dipping needle stands
vertical. It must be borne in mind that the north pole of the earth and
the north magnetic pole are two entirely different points. As a matter
of fact, if the mariner be in the arctic waters north of Boothia
Peninsula his compass points south.

The arctic currents have been carefully studied with valuable results,
and it has been found that the drift of the polar ice-floe is constantly
to the eastward. Snow-white arctic reindeer in considerable numbers have
been recently found; and Peary found seals within two hundred miles of
the north pole. The Greenland seal seems to enjoy seas filled with ice,
spending part of the time in the water and part on the ice-floe.

[Illustration: Musk ox]

It is now known that Greenland is an ice-capped island very sparsely
inhabited along the coast by Eskimos. A few hundred of these hardy
people live along the Greenland coast from Cape York up to latitude
seventy-eight degrees, cut off by the surrounding ice-cap from the rest
of the world. They are the most northern known inhabitants.

Peary found the northern coast of Greenland well stocked with both
animal and vegetable life. Bears, wolves, hares, and musk oxen were seen
in considerable numbers.

A most important fact discovered by Hall was that the most northerly
part of Greenland is comparatively free from ice, the largest known area