PUESIDENTS ADDRESS. 
157 
from 11 a.m. to 1 p.in. At noon, just topping the southern hills, 
was a faintly tinted pearly green sky, through which stars of the 
firat magnitude had a difliculty in shining. On the 12th of 
January, at noon the sky close to the horizon displayed a decided 
tint of green, the first we experienced from the returning sun. 
On the 24th of January, the twilight at noon had increased 
sufHciently to enable us to distinguish a comrade at a distance 
of one hundred and twenty-five yards. By the beginning of 
February, a month before the re appearance of the sun, we were 
able to take walk.s of considerable extent ; and by the middle of 
that month wo wore carrying our guns in pursuit of game. Wo 
must also remember that, during the periods the moon is above the 
horizon, owing to the extreme dryness of the atmosphere, she 
shines with greater brilliancy, than ordinarily, in our humid 
climate. This, with the starlight, enabled us to continue our walks 
through the greater part of the winter, and to see for miles around 
ns. Still more suggestive is tlio fact, that Major Greely discovered 
the remains of Eskimo settlements in the interior of Grinnell 
T.and, around the shoras of Lake llazcn. 
During my winter’s residence in Grinnell Land, I obtained ample 
proof that animals wore on the move the whole time. In the 
beginning of February, with the temperature eighty to ninety 
degrees below the freezing-point of Fahrenheit, the Lemmings 
were peering forth from the snow, and the contents of their 
stomachs showed they had been feeding on Saxi/raga oppositifolia. 
This interesting, and in Grinnell Land, abundant plant, on spaces 
bared by the wind, and consequently exposed to a temperature as 
low as seventy degrees below zero, showed throughout the winter a 
small green bud at the extremity of each stalk, inside of the 
russet-brown, hair-fringed leaves. With such facts as these, we 
may safely assume that the paucity of Polar life at the present day 
is entirely due to temperature. 
If I have succeeded in proving that the existing conditions of 
light and darkness in the highest latitudes are no bar to the 
existence of animal and vegetable life, I ask permission to present 
a more hypothetical train of argument, namely, whether we may 
