THE WORLD'S REFRIGERATORS. 



165 



numbers. Scoresby mentions one occasion on 

 which he was surrounded by bergs to the number 

 of several hundreds. 



Now, all this ice that we have been speaking of, 

 besides being, in a secondary way, a passive agent 

 in the affairs of man (chiefly in barring his progress 

 northward), is one of the most potent agents in the 

 economy of nature. It is the means by which the 

 world is kept cool enough for man and beast to 

 dwell in. The polar regions north and south 

 are, as it were, the world's refrigerators; temper- 

 ing the heated air of the south, and, in connection 

 with the torrid zone, spreading throughout the 

 Earth those beneficial influences which gladden the 

 sphere of man's temporal existence. 



