104 LIGHT SCIENCE FOR LEISURE HOURS. 



characteristics of the 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 I am so careful to exhibit the limited 

 extent of the unexplored arctic regions in this direction. 

 The guess we shall form as to the true nature of the 

 north-polar secret will depend almost entirely on this 

 consideration. 



I turn now to those two paths along which arctic 

 exploration, properly so termed, has been most success- 

 fully 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 explorers 

 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 expeditions 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 

 tolling,' says Captain Maury, 'with the swell of a 

 boundless ocean.' 



But a circumstance was noticed respecting this sea 



