TROUBLES OF EXPLORER U9 



sight to relieve the monotony of frost. We (he and his two Eskimo compan- 

 ions) were the only pulsating creatures in a dead world of ice." 



The heat at midsummer in the polar region is hardly ever above the 

 freezing point; at midwinter, the cold is so intense that one's eyes would 

 freeze in their sockets if exposed to it. And there are other strange and 

 terrifying features. 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 or fog, to which the name of "frost-smoke" is given. 

 An ancient Greek mariner, Pytheas, who sailed far north, was led by this 

 "frost smoke" to give a curious account of his trip. He was there during 

 the six months' darkness, and he says he came to a great dark. wall rising up 

 out of the sea. He could not see beyond it. At the same time, according to 

 his story, something seized his ship and held it motionless on the water, so 

 the winds could not move it. He supposed he had come to a place where a 

 parapet ran around the world to keep men from falling over (for in the time 

 of this explorer, of course, men believed the world was flat). So this voyager 

 hurried home and told his friends he had reached the limits of the earth. 



Later navigators saw sights some of which are to be experienced today. 

 Many of these mariners got far enough north to see the great icebergs, floating 

 majestically in the sea and towering like mountains. Some saw the animals 

 that dwell in the far north — the polar bear with its coat of shaggy white, fur ; 

 the walrus, with its gleaming tusks hanging down from its upper jaws; the 

 ungainly seals ; the penguins, strange birds with short stumps of wings and 

 uncouth cries; and whales, spouting and floundering in the sea. 



The sounds are sometimes as terrifying as the sights. The frosty air 

 carries noises a long distance. When Commander Peary was on a far north- 

 ern island he says he heard the voices of men talking a mile away. 



"In the depth of winter," says a writer, "when the cold has its icy grip on 

 everything, the silence is unbroken- along the shores of the Polar Sea ; but 

 when the frost sets in, and again when the winter gives way to spring, there is 

 abundance of noise. As the frost comes down along the coast, rocks are split 

 asunder with a noise of big guns, and the sound goes booming away across 

 the frozen tracts, startling the slouching bear in his lonely haunts, and causing 

 him to give vent to his hoarse, barking roar in answer. The ice, just forming 

 into sheets, creaks and cracks as the rising or falling tide strains it along the 

 shore ; fragments falling loose upon its skid across the surface with the ringing 

 sound which travels so far. In the spring the melting ice-floes groan as they 



