CHAPTER VIII. 



THE ARCTIC SEAS THEIR CHARACTER, SCENERY, AND ATMOS- 

 PHERICAL ILLUSIONS. 



[ERE is a tendency on the part of most 

 writers on the subject of Polar Regions 

 especially compilers to dwell dispropor- 

 tionately on the gloomy side of the picture ; inso- 

 much that readers are led, not to over-estimate the 

 grand and the terrible aspects of the polar oceans, 

 but to under-estimate the sweet and the beautiful 

 influences that at certain periods reign there. 



We quarrel not with authors for dwelling on the 

 tremendous and the awful. Too much cannot be 

 said on these points ; but while they do not by any 

 means paint the dark side of their picture too black, 

 they fail to touch in the lights with sufficient 

 brilliancy. We have had some personal experience 

 of the arctic regions, and have found it extremely 

 difficult to get many persons even educated men 

 and women to understand that there is a summer 

 there, though a short one ; that in many places 

 it is an uncommonly hot and excessively brilliant 



