PROGRESS OF THE MIDNIGHT SUN. 



271 



The reader will thus see the gradual and clock-like 

 motion of the solar orb, in its progress to and from 

 its highest northern declination, and we need hardly 

 say that for considerable periods before and after the 

 appearance of the midnight sun, the days gradually 

 lengthen and shorten, according to the latitude, as they 

 do elsewhere. While it remains visible above the horizon, 

 we may add, the midnight sun is always to the north of 

 the observer, and appears to travel in a circle round the 

 heavens, requiring 24 hours for its completion. Of course 

 at noon it reaches its maximum elevation in the meridian, 

 and at midnight passes within a few degrees of altitude 

 above the northern horizon. This considerable period 

 of constant sunshine in the frigid zone is a beautiful 

 and beneficent provision of Nature, whereby vast areas 

 of fertile land near, and even within the arctic circle, 



* From M. Paul Du Chaillu's Land of the Midnight Sun, 1 88 1, 

 Vol. i., p. 117. (A similar table, somewhat -differently arranged, will 

 be found in Murray's Handbook for Norway, 1892, p. 181). 



