THE PROBLEM OF PERMANENT 

 ARCTIC LIFE 



Mr SEEBOHM'S discovery of the unlimited l iced ' food 

 supply waiting ripe and ready for the melting of 

 the snow, explains the attraction of the North Polar 

 region to migrant birds. But it does not explain 

 why other creatures ever consent to stop there through 

 the Polar winter. The persistence of animal life in 

 the region of Arctic cold appears only less unaccount- 

 able than its presence in the ocean abyss. The 

 existence of deep-sea creatures in perpetual darkness, 

 and under a weight of waters four miles deep, was 

 incredible, because inconceivable. The existence of 

 life in Arctic darkness and Arctic cold is unaccountable, 

 because it seems to be of necessity intolerable. Grant- 

 ing that highly-organised creatures can exist there, 

 it is passing strange that they should consent to do 

 so, or make a voluntary habitation in that hell of 

 cold and darkness which Norse fancy imagined as 

 a place of torment more appalling than the lake 



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