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The Life of Charles Wilkes, American Naval Officer and Explorer

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Charles Wilkes (1798–1877) was an American naval officer and explorer. Wilkes was born in New York City on April 3, 1798. He entered the navy as a midshipman in 1818, did service during the next few years in Mediterranean and Pacific areas, and in 1832–1833 did survey work in Narragansett Bay, which led to his appointment in Washington, D.C., to head a depot of charts and instruments that eventually became the United States Naval Observatory. In 1838 Wilkes was put in command of an important expedition for scientific exploration that took him to several island groups of the South Pacific, Australia, the Antarctic coastal areas now known as Wilkes Land, the Hawaiian Islands, the northwest coast of the United States, and islands of Oceania, completing a voyage around the world before his return to New York in the summer of 1842. During the next 20 years his main occupation was the preparation of records of this expedition. He wrote a 5-volume Narrative of the United States Explori...
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The Life Story of Hubert Wilkins, Australian Polar Explorer and Aviator

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Hubert Wilkins (1888–1958) was an Australian polar explorer and aviator who made the first west-to-east Arctic aerial crossing. Born in Mount Bryan East, Australia, on Oct. 31, 1888, George Hubert Wilkins was educated in electrical engineering at the School of Mines and Industries in Adelaide, after which he took up photography and learned the fundamentals of flying. As a newsreel photographer, he covered (1912–1913) the Balkan War for British newspaper and motion-picture concerns. The American explorer Vilhjalmur Stefansson selected Wilkins as official photographer for the Canadian Arctic Expedition (1913–1917), and his loyalty and devotion to the aims of the expedition resulted in his promotion to second in command. In September 1917, during World War I, Wilkins joined the Australian Flying Corps on the French front as a photographer. In 1919 he competed, unsuccessfully, for the London Daily Mail prize of $50,000 for a flight from England to Australia. Wilkins was second in co...
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Arctic Ice Islands - Formation and U. S. Research Stations

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Ice Island, a large, tabular piece of glacial ice adrift in the Arctic or the Antarctic oceans. Arctic ice islands are less common and generally smaller than Antarctic ice islands, or icebergs (see Iceberg), but their location makes them more useful and durable for research. Scientists have used drifting ice stations since the Soviet Union established North Pole I on floe ice in May 1937, but ice islands have been found preferable because they are longer-lasting. Formation of Arctic Ice Islands The glaciers of Canada's Ellesmere Island form a massive ice shelf that floats on the water at the ocean edge and yet remains attached to the shore. Progressive advances of the glaciers push the shelf seaward, and the combined action of winds, tides, and waves breaks loose large pieces of the ice. The ice islands then drift with the polar pack ice in the clockwise current of the Beaufort Sea area. The islands sometimes are many square miles in extent. Their surface appearance is distinc...
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British Antarctic Territory Facts

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British Antarctic Territory is a colony that extends between 20° and 80° west longitude and from latitude 60° south to the South Pole. It consists of the South Orkney and South Shetland islands and a wedge of Antarctica, including the Antarctic Peninsula and the islands adjacent to the peninsula. Most of the islands are rugged, with many glaciers, and the Antarctic Peninsula is mountainous, Mt. Andrew Jackson rising to about 13,700 feet (4,175 meters). A snow-covered plateau extends along the peninsula at a height declining from about 7,000 feet (2,100 meters) in the south to about 4,000 feet (1,200 meters) in the north. Covered by ice, the continental area is fringed by ice shelves 800 feet (240 meters) thick. The territory has no permanent inhabitants, but there are scientific and field stations manned by scientists and technicians. The area was discovered in 1819–1821 and taken possession of by Britain over the period to 1832. The territory, created in 1962, is administered...
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Geographical Regions of Europe: Europe to the Urals

In area, the European Russian Federation is as large as the other six regions of peninsular Europe put together, but its population is less than half as great. This is a reflection of the marginal quality of its land, which, despite an overall topographic uniformity, runs the gamut of climate, vegetation, and soil types. Rolling plains dominate the landscape of the region, but northwest of Moscow, along the middle Volga River, and in eastern Ukraine are hills whose elevations exceed 1,000 feet (300 meters). Because of its vast extent, the region drains in four different directions: northward into the Arctic Ocean, northwestward into the Baltic Sea, southwestward into the Black Sea, and southeastward into the Caspian Sea. The largest rivers in each of these drainage basins are the Northern Dvina, the Western Dvina, the Dnieper, and the Volga, respectively. Temperatures decline toward the north and east, while precipitation decreases toward the south and east. As a re...
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Geographical Regions of Europe: The Northern Frontier

The three Scandinavian states—Denmark, Norway, and Sweden—together with Finland and Iceland form the most sparsely settled region in Europe, an indication of the marginality of their environment. Owing to topography and climate, nearly three fourths of Norway and fully seven-eighths of Iceland is unproductive land, incapable of supporting trees or crops. Most of the remaining one fourth of Norway is in forest, as is over one half of Sweden and nearly three fourths of Finland. In lowland Denmark, with its deep, lime-rich soils, the proportions are reversed—nearly three-fourths of the country being in crops or in pasture.   However, Denmark is almost totally lacking in minerals, except for limestone, sand, and clay. Iceland, too, being volcanic in origin, has no minerals of consequence, and such metals as Norway and Finland possess are mostly low-grade. Sweden, however, has large deposits of high-grade iron ore, in its central and northern areas. Norway mines c...
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Geographical Regions of Europe: The Eastern Crush Zone

Two major lowland corridors cross eastern Europe: the northern plain, within which virtually the entire territory of Poland lies, and the Danube Valley, which is shared by Hungary, Croatia, Yugoslavia, and Romania. Between them lie the low mountains and plateaus of Bohemia and Moravia and the higher alpine peaks of the Tatra in Slovakia, as well as the arc of the Carpathians and the Transylvanian Alps in Romania. South of the Danube are the mountain cores of Yugoslavia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Albania, and Bulgaria. The first four countries lie amid the Dinaric Alps, and the last is traversed by the Balkan and Rhodope ranges. Bulgaria's principal lowland area is the valley of the Maritsa River, which opens southeastward toward Turkey and the Aegean Sea. The climate of the east is continental, with cold snowy winters and warm humid summers. There is precipitation at all seasons, but it is insufficient to support a forest cover in the lower plains areas ...
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