226 TERRORS AND MYSTERIES OF THE POLAR REGION 



the North, far enough for them to return with vivid tales of marvel 

 and adventure. The earliest of whom there is any record is an 

 ancient Greek mariner, Pytheas, who sailed north until he came to 

 an island which he named the Land of Thule. This may have been 

 the Shetlands ; it may have been Iceland ; but wherever it was, this 

 ancient mariner found it far from agreeable, in spite of the fact 

 that the sun did not set while he was there. This prolonged day- 

 light caused him much uneasiness, and he hastened farther to the 

 north, with the hope of finding better conditions, but the farther 

 he went the more curious and extraordinary he found the region 

 to be. The sun, which had at first refused to set, now refused to 

 rise, and he found himself in perpetual darkness instead of per- 

 petual day. More than that, he tells how he came to a great dark 

 wall rising up out of the sea, beyond which he could discern noth- 

 ing, while at the same time something seized and held his ship 

 motionless on the water, so that the winds could not move it and 

 the anchor would not sink. He was quite convinced in his own 

 mind to what place he had come; the wall in front of him was the 

 parapet which ran round the edge of the world to prevent people 1 

 from falling over, and, like a wise man, he hastened home, where 

 he told his friends that he had penetrated to the limits of the earth. 

 What the Arctic regions were then, they are to-day; but we, 

 with a greater knowledge, are able to understand what was incom- 

 prehensible to the ancient Greek navigator. At the limit of the ice 

 two phenomena are met with which explain the fanciful legend of 

 Pytheas. As summer gives place to the cold of autumn, and as 

 winter gives way to the mild temperature of spring, there comes 

 down upon the water a dense mass of fog, to which the name "frost- 

 smoke" is given. It would appear, as it rolled along the surface of 

 the ocean, a veritable wall to one accustomed to the clear atmosphere 

 of the Mediterranean, and a thin sheet of ice might give the mean- 

 ing to the "something" which he encountered. As for the succes- 

 sion of perpetual day and perpetual night, these are ordinary phe- 

 nomena of the polar circle. 



