40 THE OCEAN WORLD. 
by whirlwinds, which seem capable of blowing the ships out of the 
water, seizing them by the keel, whirling them round on an axis, 
and finally capsizing them. “At the period of the changing mon- 
soon, the winds, breaking loose from their controlling forces, seem to 
rage with a fury capable of breaking up the very foundations of the 
deep.” 
The hurricanes of the Atlantic occur in the months of August aud 
September, while the south-west monsoon of Africa and the south- 
east monsoon of the West Indies are at their height ; the agents of 
the one drawing the north-east trade-winds into the interior of Mexico 
and Texas, the other drawing them into the interior of Africa, greatly 
disturbing the equilibrium of the atmosphere. 
THE Arctic REGIONS. 
The extreme columns of the known world are Mount Parry, 
situated at eight degrees from the North Pole, and Mount Ross, 
twelve degrees from the South Pole. Beyond these limits our maps 
tell us nothing ; a blank space marks each extremity of the terrestrial 
axis. Will man ever succeed in passing these icy barriers? Will he 
ever justify the prediction of the poet Seneca, who tells us that “ the 
time will come in the distant future when Ocean will relax her hold 
on the world, when the immense earth will be open, when Tethys 
will appear amid new orbs, and where Thule (Iceland) shall no 
longer be the extreme limit of the earth ?” 
“«Venient annis 
Seecula seris quibus oceanus 
Vincula rerum Jaxet et ingens 
Pateat tellus, Tethysque novos 
Detegat orbes, nec sit terris 
Ultime Thule.” 
No one can say. Every step we have taken in order to approach 
the North Pole has been dearly purchased; and it is not without 
reason that navigators have named the south point of Greenland 
Cape Farewell. Of the number of expeditions, for the most part 
English, which have been fitted out, at the cost of nearly a million 
sterling, to explore the Frozen Ocean, one-twentieth have had for 
their mission to ascertain the fate of the lamented Sir John Franklin. 
Scandinavian traditions attribute the first attempts to penetrate 
the Arctic circle to the son of the King Rodian, who lived in the 
seventh century; to Osher, the Norwegian, in 873; and to the 
Princes Harold and Magnus, in 1150; but the first navigator in 
