ARCTIC REGIONS AERIAL EXPLORATIONS. 183 



the prolonged summer of the northern hemisphere due to 

 the eccentricity of the earth's orbit). 



This continuance of sunshine, in spite 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 surface 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 climate. It is extremely improbable that those 

 conditions are maintained 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 angular ter- 

 minations. The southward configuration and northward 

 outspreading of North America are the same, but we can- 

 not 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 remarkably like Scandinavia; 

 Davis's Strait, Baffin's Bay, and Smith's Sound correspond- 

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

 fjords of Greenland, like those of Scandinavia, are on its 

 western side, and the present condition of Greenland cor- 

 responds 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, 



