The Polar Regions 
TINT RAETR REEATHION TO 
Human Affairs 
EMBERS AND GUESTS of the American Geographical 
Society, Iam honored by and grateful for the invita- 
tion to give the Isaiah Bowman Lecture on a subject which 
I am sure would have pleased Dr. Bowman. I am honored 
because of my admiration for the American Geographical 
Society and its achievements and grateful because of the 
debt I owe to Isaiah Bowman for the unending stimulation 
of a long and faithful friendship. 
The north and south polar regions are distinguished by 
their dissimilarities rather than by any common character- 
istics; therefore they are best understood in terms of their 
contrasts. Indeed, I can think of but one worthwhile gen- 
eralization that applies to both, namely, that both will play 
more and more important roles in human affairs as the 
world becomes more crowded and man’s mobility increases. 
Isaiah Bowman once said that the Arctic is a hollow and 
the Antarctic a hump, referring to the oceanic character of 
the Arctic and the continental character of the Antarctic. 
Antarctica, the highest and coldest of all the continents, is 
the world’s greatest desert and the only continent which 
has never been the home of man, whereas the lands that 
fringe the Arctic exhibit more than four hundred species 
of flowering plants and a fauna which with the life of the 
sea supports a sturdy native population. 
] 
