THE ARCTIC SEAS. 



Perhaps in few respects is the character of mo- 

 dern times contrasted with that of antiquity in a 

 higher degree, than in that enterprising spirit which 

 prompts men to penetrate distant regions, submit- 

 ting to unheard-of privations, and braving new diffi- 

 culties and dangers, not only from the stimulus of 

 expected gain, but often from the mere love of 

 knowledge, a desire of gratifying that insatiable and 

 laudable curiosity, in which all science has its origin. 

 The ancient nations, bold and intelligent as they 

 were, knew little of geographical research : pre- 

 cluded from venturing to the north by the dread of 

 frost, and to the south by the scorching heat of the 

 sun, both of which their fears so magnified that they 

 deemed it physically impossible for man to exist in 

 either the one or the other; their expeditions, in 

 peace and war, seem to have been well-nigh bounded 

 by the temperate zone. Thus it happened, that up 

 to the fifteenth century hardly a fourth of the habit- 

 able globe was known to the polished nations of 

 Europe. But then a new era commenced: the dis- 

 covery of one important law, that the magnetized 

 needle points always northward, gave a precision to 

 navigation, and inspired a degree of confidence in 

 the mariner, which ^>on led to highly interesting 

 and unexpected results. The torrid zone was tra- 



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