50 Importance of Fresh Air. . [January^ 



that around the pole all was ocean life instead of frigid death. Thus 

 was the veil penetrated ; surprise seized upon the philosophical specu- 

 lator, and now the world is busy at the re-solution of this wonderful 

 problem of a Northern Sea. 



First, The Doctor represents those waters as limpid as any summer 

 sea. By what process in nature can that high latitude so modify the 

 temperature of the air as to leave the sea unfrozen ? Where the Doctor 

 wintered, the thermometer often stood at 60 degrees below zero, and yet 

 in a still more northerly clime there is a sea which never is frozen. 

 Science stands stupefied — for all its axioms are repudiated, and new 

 laws are to reconcile the facts to theory. 



Sscond, Bird and fish life is there existent in the utmost profusion. 

 There the awk and eider duck range in unlimited freedom, while whales 

 and walrus sport in such herds as make the waters swarm with their 

 liuge merriment. Can these all live without proper food ? Does the 

 duck infest these regions without its berries, and grasses, and bulbs, for 

 sustenance ? Here, then, is another query for the speculator to answer, 

 and the mystery of that Xorthern Sea grows more and more exciting. 



Over the grand ice barrier which Dr. Kane passed was a new land, 

 and he called it Washington, giving names also to the bays and capes. 

 Beyond this is that sea, and that sea bathes the intangible Xorth Pole — 

 it holds the mystery of the Northern Lights in its keeping — it keeps 

 the secret (»f its own life within its bosom ; will man ever solve that 

 secret, and open up that unknown world ? We shall patiently await in 

 hope ; f-tr in our minds is a vague thought floating that the sea which 

 whirls around the pole of this earth holds in its keeping the key to a 

 thousand mysteries, and we have faith to think that in our years — 

 should they be three score or more — that mythic sea shall give up its 

 long kept secret. 



IINIPORTANCE OF FRESH AIR 



Dr. Griscom, lecturing in New York upon the importance of air, a 

 fact of which builders do not seem to be sufficiently aware in the con- 

 struction of houses, says the lungs can contain about twelve pints of 

 air, though nine and a half pints is as much as is inhaled at a single 

 inspiration. In ordinary and placid breathing we inhale about one pint 



