CHAPTER XLII. 



ARCTIC AND ANTARCTIC REGIONS. 



The Polar Regions extend respectively from the Arctic and Antarctic 

 circles, in 66° 32' N. and S., to the north and south poles, the circles being 

 1,408 geographical miles from the poles. The intense cold and the difficul- 

 ties of ice navigation have made the discovery and examination of these 

 regions a slow and hazardous task. Millions of square miles are still entirely 

 unknown. Notwithstanding, the discovery of the North Pole by Cook and 

 Peary, this vast area must still remain unexplored. 



The Arctic circle is a ring running a little south of the northern shores 

 of America, Asia and Europe, so that those shores form a fringe within the 

 Polar Regions, and are its boundary to the south, except that three openings 

 — those of the North Atlantic, of Davis Strait, and of Bering's Strait. 



The width of the approach to this region by the Atlantic Ocean in its 

 narrowest part is 660 miles, from the Norwegian Islands of Lofoten to Cape 

 Hodgson, on the east coast of Greenland. The width of the approach by 

 Davis Strait in the narrowest part, which is nearly on the Arctic circle, is 

 165 miles; and the width of Bering Strait is 45 miles. Thus out of the whole 

 ring of 8,640 miles along which the Arctic circle passes about 900 miles is 

 over water. 



The South Polar Region, unlike the northern region, is almost covered 

 by ocean, and the only extensive land being far to the south. It was of 

 course entirely unknown to the ancients and to the early navigators of modern 

 Europe, although a theory prevailed among geographers that a great conti- 

 nent existed around the South Pole : the "Terra Australis Incognito." It is 

 believed that the Antarctic Regions will be very much more difficult to explore 

 than the Arctic Regions. 



THE HEMISPHERE. 



The Hemisphere is one of the halves into which the earth may be sup- 

 posed to be divided. It is common to speak of the Eastern Hemisphere and 



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