Polar Frontiers: A Background Book on The Arctic, The Antarctic, and Mankind

viii, 264 pp. 8vo. Notes, bibliography, and index follow text. begins by writing of the archaeological work in the Arctic, which revealed much of the ways of ancient man in the region, the kinds of people these ancients were, how they lived, and where they came from originally. This is followed by a brief history of exploration and discovery, not culminating, as many histories do, with Peary's arrival at the North Pole, but going on to polar flight and continuing to the present. We are also given a detailed - sometimes fascinating, sometimes chilling - account of whaling and sealing, including restrictions and the lack of them. The flora and fauna of the Arctic are described as well as scientific cooperation among nations in research on polar ice, the Arctic as a military objective, the discovery and exploitation of oil and other minerals, and the environmental controversy, including Amchitka. The section on the Antarctic follows the same pattern, in general, allowing for the differences in the two regions and the fact that the Antarctic has not yet been developed to the same extent as the Arctic."