Burton Island (AGB 1) - Naval Cruise Book

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ARTIC WILDLIFE - . , -,, One of the most interesting parts of our trip to the north is the seeing of Arctic wild-life. POLAR BEAR .OFF THE STARBOARD BEAM brings every available sailor to the rails. . The polar bear, having selected for his home the Arctic ice-pack, has been comparatively unmolested by man. He is seldom hunted except by the Eskimos, who enjoy the flavor of meat which is too strong for the average white man's palate. Fur traders find little demand for the coarsely furred pelt which is usually used as a rug or as a trophy. During the past 20 years only 1500'pelts have been reported shipped down from the Arctic. Alaskan game laws consider the polar bear a fur bearer and allow three per license per year. For the interested, a license can be purchased for 850. It has been estimated that approximately 3000 inhabit the northern part of Alaska. This monarch of the ice is one of the largest of the sur- viving members of the bear family, with big males often weighing 1500 to 1600 pounds, and females from 850 to 900 pounds. They measure up to 12 feet in length. Largely car- nivorous, his favorite food is the seal, but he will turn to fish, porpoise, a stranded whale, roots, seaweed and grass when no other food is available. They are powerful swim- mers and are occasionally seen many miles from any ice flow. Like other members of the bear family, his vision is not good and his hearing poor. His acute sense of smell. however, more than atones for the other sensory defects. He is able to smell bacon rind, which is placed on the stack of the ship, from great distances. - It is possible to look over the plains and see great herds of caribou. The various species of caribou have long been important to the natives. of the Arctic, as the buffalo was to the American Indian. The Eskimos utilize the entire caribou -the meat for food, the hide for clothing, bedding, etc., and the bones and antlers for tools. The smaller domesticated a V . is .. - . gl 4, rfb' .Q 9' if ' n f f - ' A . ,W ,X fy if were my S s Q X si Sf reindeer, a cousin from Asia and Europe, were Alaska at thebeginning of this century, but with poor re- sults. Efforts to introduce reindeer meat on the American market have been unsuccessful because of. the great trans- portation cost. Caribou and .reindeer are the only members of the deer family in which both the males and females are antlered. Even the young, one month old fawn bears a spike. The antlers are flattened much look moose antlers and have distinctive shovels projecting down over the face. Caribou have extremely large hooves which enable them to traverse boggy grounds and soft snow. Males average about 7 feet in length and weigh from 200 to 300, pounds. He is herd-bound, depending on safety in numbers. He wanders great distances in search of his native ffood, which consists of lichens, sedges and grasses. He is also an excellent swimmers and his the hollow hairs of his pelt make him very buoyant as well as insulated. His hide is consideredthe best material for Arc- tic clothing -because it is so warm and durable for its weight. No article on Arctic wild-life would be complete yvliill- out some mention of the herds of walrus that sit on their ice floes, eyeing the BURTON ISLAND as she goes -by. Al- though the flesh is used for food and the hide for covering of boats, the greatest economic value of the Walrus is its ivory.- The total retail value of carved ivory sold annually BP' preaches the S200,0000 figure. It is believed that the ma- Jority winter on the Siberian side of the Bering Sea. In the summer they move up into the Bering Straits and the Chilk- chr Sea area. The females bear their young in the spring of the Year, and are most ade-pt at placing them between their tusks and necks to carry them out of the paths of dan: 8913 Manyha picture has been taken by the shutter bug When We passed a herd numbering thousands, -taking life eaSY 011 the 106- n It 1S a very amusing thing to watch them 1'31Se UD' Off the lCe,'bark'and take tothe water, afterwe passed them, and when we could have done them harm had we S9 desired. Of course, they are supposedly the dumbest ani- malS 111 the W01'1d QHYWHY, so they are just doing what comes natllfally- Just being natural. may make them more alll- teulgfmt tha!! We give them credit for being, however, and that-is to their credit. '

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LET'S TURN OCEANOGRAPH IC! The U. S. Hydrographic Ofiice, under whose orders the BURTON ISLAND operates on many of its cruises, is concerned with the physical properties and characteristics of all the seas. Through observation of the te-mperature, salinity, and the bottom content, and the .seasonal changes, valuablevinformation useful in times of peace and war is obtained. . The torpedo-shaped instrument used to meas- ure water temperature down to depths of 900 feet is called a BATHYTHERMOGBAPH or, as it is known aboard ship, a B.T. Within the B.T. is a copper tube filled with Xylene, which upon contact with the water expands or contracts ac- cording to the temperature of the water. This expansion or contraction causes a stylusto make a trace on a smoked glass slide. Each B.T.shas a slide graph with temperature versus depth, over which can be viewed the smoke slide and the tem- perature read directly in degrees Fahrenheit at any depth withinwitsf-range. as A - The NANSEN BOTTLES are yellow cylinders which are lowered at stations chosen by the Hydrographic Oiiice. These stations are merely areas that would provide information desired by that ofiice, from samples of water and mud taken from the iioor of the sea or ocean. E Attached to the NANSEN BOTTLES are two reversing thermometers, which are calibrated to trap the measured amount of mercury for the temperature at which they reverse. Unprotected thermometers fones encased so that the read- ings are the result of pressures and tempera- turesj are paired with the protected thermome- ters lwhich are not affected by the pressurej at random below 100 meters depth in order to de- termine the depth a-t which they reversed. With these readings a curve is drawn, taking into con- sideration the angle of the wire with the vertical. The temperature of the water is measured from surface to bottom. The weights which are at- tached, called MESSENGERS, are designed to slide freely down the wire. They are attached to the bottles and trip and reverse the bottles ahead of -it. Upon being reversed, both ends of the bottle close, entrapping a sample of water. A After the bottle is closed, a bottom sampler is lowered from the end of the line, which comes in contact with the bottom, tripping a lever. This shuts the jaws and collects a sample of the bot- tom which, with the water taken in the NANSEN BOTTLES, is used for analysis and study. With more and more attention being diverted toward the Arctic area the information obtained will prove invaluable in the future,