104 LIGHT SCIENCE FOR LEISURE HOURS. 



characteristics of arctic regions, save only as respects 

 those unexplored parts which lie within ten or twelve 

 degrees of the North Pole. The reader will see 

 presently why we are so careful to exhibit the limited 

 extent of the unexplored arctic regions in this direc- 

 tion. The guess we shall form as to the true nature 

 of the north-polar secret will depend almost entirely 

 on this consideration. 



We turn now to those two paths along which arctic 

 exploration, properly so termed, has been most suc- 

 cessfully pursued. 



It is chiefly to the expeditions of Drs. Kane and 

 Hayes that we owe the important knowledge we have 

 respecting the northerly portions of the straits which 

 lie to the west of Greenland. Each of these ex- 

 plorers succeeded in reaching the shores of an open 

 sea lying to the north-east of Kennedy Channel, the 

 extreme northerly limit of those straits. Hayes, who 

 had accompanied Kane in the voyage of 1854-5, 

 succeeded in reaching a somewhat higher latitude in 

 sledges drawn by Esquimaux dogs. But both expe- 

 ditions agree in showing that the shores of Greenland 

 trend off suddenly towards the east at a point within 

 some nine degrees of the North Pole. On the other 

 hand, the prolongation of the opposite shore of 

 Kennedy Channel was found to extend northwards 

 as far as the eye could reach. Within the angle thus 

 formed there was an open sea ' rolling,' says Captain 

 Maury, ' with the swell of a boundless ocean.' 



But a circumstance was noticed respecting this sea 



