THE ARCTIC LANDS. 31 



elled by our earth before. We come from the unknown, and plunge into the 

 unknown ; but so much is certain, that our solar system rolls at present through 

 a space but thinly peopled with stars, and there is no reason to doubt that it 

 may once have wandered through one of those celestial provinces where, as 

 the telescope shows us, constellations are far more densely clustered. But, 

 as every star is a blazing sun, the greater or lesser number of these heavenly 

 bodies must evidently have a proportionate influence upon the temperature of 

 space; and thus we may suppose that during the miocene period our earth, 

 being at that time in a populous sidereal region, enjoyed the benefit of a 

 higher temperature, which clothed even its poles with verdure. In the course 

 of ages the sun conducted his herd of planets into more solitary and colder 

 regions, which caused the warm miocene times to be followed by the glacial 

 period, during which the Swiss flat lands bore an Arctic character, and finally 



AURORA SEEN IN NORWAY. 



the sun emerged into a space of an intermediate character, which determines 

 the present condition of the climates of our globe. 



Though Nature generally wears a more stern and forbidding aspect on ad- 

 vancing toward the pole, yet the high latitudes have many beauties of their 



