242 UNDER THE OPEN SKY 



come again in good time. Meanwhile our 

 part of the world will have to prepare to be 

 content with but little of the sun's society 

 for a time. We can console ourselves with 

 the thought that we are better off than the 

 poor creatures that live far north. Here 

 again we sometimes have a curious notion. 

 We often talk as if they had six months of 

 continuous day and six months of night. 

 The explorer who reaches the pole and stays 

 there for a year will perhaps be the first 

 man who ever experienced that state of 

 affairs. At the Arctic Circle there is one 

 night only when for twenty-four hours the 

 sun is gone, and the next night is a few 

 minutes shorter. The nearer the pole the 

 longer the nights, but it is only at the very 

 pole that the night is six months long, and 

 this we know only because "it must be so," 

 and not because any one has ever experi- 

 enced it. 



