4 Arctic and Antarctic Exploration [part i 
antarctic regions extending from 6o° to 70 0 , a zone in which 
the fauna is richer and more varied. 
The' division of these polar regions into quadrants is 
useful because it facilitates geographical description and 
impresses the relative positions of the different parts on 
the mind. In the Arctic regions a line may be drawn 
from the Lofoten Islands to Bering Strait, with another 
crossing it from the head of Hudson's Bay to Cape 
Chelyuskin ; thus forming four quadrants. 
At the present day a fringe of coast lines forming 
the northern shores of the three great continents, with 
a deep interior polar sea, are the main features of the 
Arctic regions, but it was not always so. Looking back 
into remote geological periods, we have evidence of 
marvellous changes in the Arctic regions since the globe 
was a gradually cooling mass of vapour. In this process, 
extending over vast ages, the polar regions must have 
been, as they are now, cooler than the equatorial regions, 
and for the same reason. It was, therefore, in the polar 
regions that life first became possible, and here the life 
of the Silurian age arose. There is evidence of a continent 
in Jurassic and Tertiary (Miocene) times where now there 
is a polar ocean of great depth, save where Spitsbergen 
and Franz Josef Land exist as the sole remaining fragments 
of that continent. There is evidence that forests once 
flourished where now nothing higher than the dwarf 
willow can exist. There is evidence, too, of tremendous 
volcanic eruptions, covering great areas with sheets of 
basalt. In contemplating these mighty revolutions, and 
the gradual changes through long seons of ages, the 
leading fact connected with the polar regions is that 
here life first became possible. Here it was first possible 
that man could exist. The evidence that the arboreal 
vegetation of the miocene period originated round the 
north pole appears to be quite conclusive. The ex- 
ploration of the Arctic area has disclosed proofs of 
wondrous secular changes which no imagination, however 
vivid, could surpass. Alike in the far south, as in the 
far north, there is food for the imagination — lights thrown 
here and there on the history of a marvellous past. Such 
speculations are a fitting introduction to a study of the 
existing state of things, which has lasted through the 
