AERIAL EXPLORATION OF THE ARCTIC REGIONS. 215 



This popular delusion which pictures the Arctic regions as the 

 abode of perpetual freezing, is so prevalent and general, that some 

 explanation is demanded. 



The special characteristic of Arctic climate is a cold and long 

 winter and a short and hot summer. The winter is intensely cold 

 simply because the sun never shines, and the summer is very hot be- 

 cause the sun is always above the horizon, and, unless hidden by 

 clouds or mist, is continually shining. The summer heat of Siberia 

 is intense, and the vegetation proportionately luxuriant. I have 

 walked over a few thousand miles in the sunny South, but never was 

 more oppressed with the heat than in walking up the Tromsdal to 

 visit an encampment of Laplanders in the summer of 1856. 



On the 17th July I noted the temperature on board the steam 

 packet when we were about three degrees north of the Arctic circle. 

 It stood at 77 well shaded in a saloon under the deck ; it was 92 in 

 the " rok lugar," a little smoking saloon built on deck ; and 108 in 

 the sun on deck. This was out at sea, where the heat was less op- 

 pressive than on shore. The summers of Arctic Norway are very vari- 

 able on account of the occasional prevalence of misty weather. The 

 balloon would be above much of the mist, and would probably enjoy 

 a more equable temperature during the twenty-four hours than in 

 any part of the world where the sun sets at night. 



I am aware that the above is not in accordance with the experience 

 of the Arctic explorers who have summered in such places as Smith's 

 Sound. I am now about to perpetrate something like a heresy by 

 maintaining that the summer climate there experienced by these ex- 

 plorers is quite exceptional, is not due to the latitude, but to causes 

 that have hitherto escaped the notice of the explorers themselves and 

 of physical geographers generally. The following explanation will 

 probably render my view of this subject intelligible : 



As already stated, the barrier fringe that has stopped the progress of 

 Arctic explorers is a broken mountainous shore down which is pouring 

 a multitude of glaciers into the sea. The ice of these glaciers is, of 

 course, fresh-water ice. Now, we know that when ice is mixed with 

 salt water we obtain what is called " a freezing mixture" a reduction 

 of temperature far below the freezing point, due to the absorption^of 

 heat by the liquefaction of the ice. Thus the heat of the continu- 

 ously shining summer sun at this particular part of the Arctic region is 

 continuously absorbed by this powerful action, and a severity quite 

 exceptional is thereby produced. Every observant tourist who has 

 crossed an Alpine glacier on a hot summer day has felt the sudden 

 change of climate that he encounters on stepping from terra firma on 

 to the ice, and in which he remains immersed as long as he is on the 

 glacier. How much greater must be this depression of temperature, 

 where the glacier ice is broken up and is floating in sea-water, to pro- 

 duce a vast area of freezing mixture, which would speedily biing the 

 hottest blasts from the Sahara down to many degrees below the freez- 

 ing point. 



A similar cause retards the beginning of summer in Arctic Norway 

 and in Finland and Siberia. So long as the winter snow remains un- 

 melted, i.e. till about the middle or end of June, the air is kept cold, 

 all the solar heat being expended in the work of thawing. This work 

 finished, then the warming power of a non-setting sun becomes evi- 

 dent, and the continuously accumulating heat of his rays displays its 



