The Oologists' Record, September i, 1922. 



" abundant, no swelLis noticeable in the heaviest gale, and the 

 " waves on the patches of open water are only such as one may 

 " find on a pond or a small lake." 



Mr. Stefansson points out, too, that an ice-floe is by no means 

 such an inconvenient place of refuge as we might imagine. 



" To people little acquainted with the Arctic, as most of us are, 

 " and misinformed, as nearly all of us are, there appear to be many 

 " arguments against the Polar route. Few of these rest on any 

 " reality. Indeed, where we imagine positive difficulties there 

 " may be positive advantages. Take, for instance, the matter of 

 " summer temperature. 



" We have all of us learned in school that, per square mile per 

 " hour, there is more heat received from the sun at the earth's 

 " Equator than anywhere else ; but in the minds of most of us 

 " this truth is only a half-truth, and therefore the most dangerous 

 " sort of error, for we have commonly failed to grasp its inter- 

 " pretative corollary, that while each hour of sunlight brings most 

 " heat to the Equator, the hours of sunlight per day in summer 

 " increase in number as we go north. 



" This would give a perfect balance if the sunlight lengthened 

 " proportionally as the heat per hour lessened. That is not the 

 " case. As you go north, the length of day in midsummer increases 

 " more rapidly than the amount of heat per hour decreases ; so 

 " that, although the heat per hour received at Winnipeg is less than 

 " it is in New Orleans, the amount of heat received per day is greater. 

 " That is one reason why Winnipeg is frequently hotter than New 

 " Orleans in July. 



" For something like five weeks every summer, more heat per 

 " day is received from the sun on a square mile in the Arctic than at 

 " the Equator. If the North Pole were located on an extensive 

 " low land, remote from high mountains or any large bodies of water, 

 " it would be about as hot as the Equator on the fourth of July. 

 " There is, however, at the Pole, and in many places in the remote 

 " north, a local refrigeration that tempers what otherwise would 

 " be unbearable heat. The winters are long, and under certain 

 " conditions a great deal of ' cold ' may be stored up. 



" In the Polar basin we have an ocean thousands of miles across, 

 " and thousands of feet deep, and all this water during the long 

 " winter is chilled to the vicinity of 30° Fahr. above zero. 



" There is also a certain amount of ice floating around on the 



