100 Facts from the Arcana of Nature. 



north Atlantic, — so cooled as to unfit them for continuing 

 to be the resort of herrings and other marine productions 

 formerly more abundant,) the climate of the higher latitudes 

 in America is increasing in severity ; and that of Yakutsk, 

 in north-eastern Asia > within the temperate zone, is thus 

 described by Erman : " Yakutsk lies about two degrees 

 farther south than Drontheim, in Norway, and about the 

 same distance more south than Beresov, on the Obi. 

 Those places are, therefore, much more sparingly irradiated 

 with the sun's beams than the country here, and yet they 

 enjoy an incomparably milder climate than that of Yakutsk." 

 At Yakutsk, Erman "could not expect to find water in a 

 fluid state, till we arrive at the depth of 630 feet, fcr to that 

 depth the ground is frozen." {Travels in Siberia, p. 366-7.) 

 Again, navigation is found, according to Maskelyne, to be 

 free from proximity of ice barriers, to latitude 84 J°, north 

 of Spitsbergen, with a northerly prospect of clear sea ; while 

 in Behring's Straits, the ice barrier reaches southerly, so as 

 to approach the limits of the Arctic circle ; and no instances 

 are recorded, of ice-bergs drifting therefrom into the north 

 Pacific. Similarly progressive alterations of climate are 

 exhibited in regard to the mainland of Cape Horn, in 53J° 

 south latitude, enjoying so mild a temperature, that hum- 

 ming birds are its summer visitants,* contrasting with areas 

 approximating to Australia, which continent appears, as well 

 superficially, as by result of geological observations, to be 

 deteriorating from a tropical to a coolly temperate climate. 



Upon these grounds, and regarding astronomical evidences 

 as confirmatory thereto, we submit that the north frigid zone, 

 the portion of the hemisphere receiving, from position, the 

 least solar heat, and of which the pole must be the true cen- 

 tre, is verging south-westward so as to approach the north 

 temperate region ; with presumptive evidence in support of 

 similar progressive changes in the southern hemisphere. We 

 thus submit evidence of an apparent deviation of the Earth's 

 polar axis, marked by aberration of the poles from the 

 position on its surface, assigned permanently to them by 



* " Parrots and humming birds are numerous in the southern and western 

 part of the Straits, the latter sucking the fuschia and other flowers ; in the 

 winter month of May — range to Valparaiso. No such bird inhabits to 53£° 

 north." " Hills of Cape Horn are not covered with snow, even in winter." 

 " The natives of Terra del Fuego are perfectly nude ; vegetation also pro- 

 claims the winters to be mild." — See " Voyage of Chanticleer to Southern 

 Atlantic Ocean: By W. H. Webster. London: 1834. 



