CHAPTER I 
THE ARCTIC REGIONS 
The history of the Polar Regions, of those vast 
areas, difficult of access, which include millions of square 
miles of land and ocean at either extreme of our planet, 
is of surpassing interest and importance. It is not only 
that we here meet with examples of heroism and devotion 
which must entrance mankind for all time. It is not 
only that there are dangers to be encountered and 
difficulties to be overcome which call forth the best 
qualities of our race. These, no doubt, are the main 
reasons for the deep interest which polar exploration has 
always excited. But there are others of almost equal 
importance. These regions offer great scientific problems. 
They present wide fields of research in almost all depart- 
ments of knowledge. They have in the past yielded vast 
wealth, and have been the sources of commercial prosperity 
to many communities, and they may be so again. Their 
history is a history of noble and persevering effort ; ex- 
tending over a thousand years in the Arctic where the 
work is well-nigh finished, but only just beginning in the 
Antarctic regions, where it will have to be completed by 
our descendants. 
In approaching the subject it is well to have before 
our minds the extent of these great areas, the history of 
which we would grasp and understand. At the polar 
circle, which is 1410 geographical miles from the centre, 
they have a periphery of 8460 miles, and each includes 
6,000,000 square miles. The Arctic and Antarctic circles 
are in 66° 32' North and South, but these parallels are 
merely conventional. It is more convenient, as will be 
seen hereafter, to take the Polar regions as beginning 
at about the 70th parallel, the Sub-arctic and Sub- 
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