216 SCIENCE IN" SHOUT CHAPTERS. 



remarkable effect on vegetable life, and everything capable of being 

 warmed. These peculiarities of Arctic climate must become exag- 

 gerated as the Pole is approached, the winter cold still more intense, 

 and the accumulation of summer heat still greater. In the neighbor- 

 hood of the North Cape, where these contrasts astonish English 

 visitors, where inland summer travelling becomes intolerable on 

 account of the clouds of mosquitoes, the continuous sunshine only 

 lasts from May llth to August 1st. At the North Pole the sun would 

 visibly remain above the horizon during about seven months from 

 the first week in March to the first week in October (this includes the 

 effect of refraction and the prolonged summer of the northern hemi- 

 sphere due to the eccentricity of the earth's orbit). 



This continuance of sunshine, in ppite of the moderate altitude of 

 the solar orb, may produce a very genial summer climate at the Pole. 

 I say " may," because mere latitude is only one of the elements of 

 climate, especially in high latitudes. Very much depends upon sur- 

 face configuration and the distribution of land and water. The 

 region in which our Arctic expedition ships have been ice-bound 

 combines all the most unfavorable conditions of Arctic summer cli- 

 mate. It is extremely improbable that those conditions are main- 

 tained all the way to the Pole. We know the configuration of Arctic 

 Europe and Arctic Asia, that they are masses of land spreading out 

 northward round the Arctic circle and narrowing southward to angu- 

 lar terminations. The southward configuration and northward out- 

 spreading of North America are the same, but we cannot follow the 

 northern portion to its boundary as we may that of Europe and Asia, 

 both of which terminate in an Arctic Ocean. Greenland is remarka- 

 bly like Scandinavia ; Davis's Strait, Baffin's Bay, and Smith's Sound 

 corresponding with the Baltic and the Gulf of Bothnia. The deep 

 fiords of Greenland, like those of Scandinavia, are on its western 

 side, and the present condition of Greenland corresponds to that of 

 Norway during the milder period of the last glacial epoch. If the 

 analogy is maintained a little further north than our explorers have 

 yet reached we must come upon a Polar sea, just as we come upon 

 the White Sea and the open Arctic Ocean if we simply travel between 

 400 and 500 miles due north from the head of the frozen Gulf of 

 Bothnia. 



Such a sea, if unencumbered with land ice, will supply the most 

 favorable conditions for a genial Arctic summer, especially if it be 

 dotted with islands of moderate elevation, which the analogies of 

 the known surroundings render so very probable. Such islands may 

 be inhabited by people who cannot reach us on account of the barrier 

 wall that has hitherto prevented us from discovering them. Some 

 have even supposed that a Norwegian colony is there imprisoned. 

 Certainly the early colonists of Greenland have disappeared, and 

 their disappearance remains unexplained. They may have wandered 

 northward, mingled with the Esquimaux, and have left descendants 

 in this unknown world. If any of Franklin's crew crawled far 

 enough they may still be with them, unable to return. 



In reference to these possibilities it should be noted that a barrier 

 fringe of mountainous land like that of Greenland and Arctic 

 America would act as a condensing ground upon the warm air flowing 

 from the soutk, and would there accumulate the heavy snows and 

 consequent glaciers, just as our western hiUs take so much of the rain 



