File:The new book of the dog; a comprehensive natural history of British dogs and their foreign relatives, with chapters on law, breeding, kennel management, and veterinary treatment (1907) (20117495733).jpg

Title: The new book of the dog; a comprehensive natural history of British dogs and their foreign relatives, with chapters on law, breeding, kennel management, and veterinary treatment
Identifier: cu31924001170848 (find matches)
Year: 1907 (1900s)
Authors: Leighton, Robert, 1859-
Subjects: Dogs
Publisher: London, Paris, New York, Toronto & Melbourne, Cassell and Company, Limited
Contributing Library: Cornell University Library
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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'•^k^ SAMOYEDE DOGS HARNESSED TO ANTARCTIC SLEDGE. THE NEAR MIDDLE DOG IS MRS. RINGER'S OUSSA. CHAPTER LX. y\RCTIC AND OTHER DRAUGHT DOGS. " Unmeet we should do As the doings of wolves are, Raising wrongs 'gainst each other As the dogs of the Norns, The gyeedv ones nourished In waste steads of the earth." Lay of Hamdir. THE uncivilised Polar tribes, both those \\-ho inhabited the Siberian tundras, and the Eskimos of America and Greenland, liad discovered long before Arctic expeditions had begun, a safe and easy means of traversing the barren, trackless regions of the frozen North: namely the sledge dra\\Ti by dogs They were a semi- nomadic people, moving their habitations at certain seasons of the year in accordance with the varying facilities for procuring food, and the need for a convenient method of locomotion by land and the absence of auA' other animal fitted for the work of hauling hea\'3' burdens very naturally caused them to enlist the services of the dog. Nor could a more adaptable animal have been chosen for tra'/eliing over frozen ground and icebound seas, had these inhabitants of the frigid zone been at liberty to select from the fauna of the whole earth. Had the horse been possible, or the reindeer easily available, the necessity of adding fodder to the loaded sleds was an insuperable diffi- culty ; but the dog was carnivorous, and could feed on blubber, walrus skin, fish, bear, or musk ox, obtained in the course of the journey, or even on the carcases of his own kind ; and his tractable character, the combined strength of an obedient pack, and the perfect fitness of the animal for the work requnx'd, rendered the choice so ob\'ious that there can hardly have been a time when the Arctic peoples were ignorant of the dog's value. The Eskimos are not an artistic race ; but the few ancient records rudely inscribed on rock or bone give proof that in the very earliest times their sledges were drawn b-\' dogs. In the sixteenth century Martin Frobisher, who voyaged to Greenland in search of gold, and the early navigators who penetrated far into the Arctic seas to seek a north-west passage, observed with interest the practical uses to which the wolf-hke dog of the north was put. In later times the European explorers recognised the advantage of imitating the Eskimo method of locomo-

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