ACCLIMATIZATION. 
245 
tains of water and pastures and date-trees in a south¬ 
ern desert. 
“ I have undergone one change in opinion. It is of 
the ability of Europeans or Americans to inure them¬ 
selves to an ultra-Arctic climate. God forbid, indeed, 
that civilized man should be exposed for successive 
years to this blighting darkness! But around the 
Arctic circle, even as high as 72°, where c61d and 
cold only is to be encountered, men may be acclima¬ 
tized, for there is light enough for out-door labor. 
“Of the one hundred and thirty-six picked men of 
Sir John Franklin in 1846, Northern Orkney men, 
Greenland whalers, so many young and hardy constitu¬ 
tions, with so much intelligent experience to guide 
them, I cannot realize that some may not yet be alive; 
that some small squad or squads, aided or not aided by 
the Esquimaux of the expedition, may not have found 
a hunting-ground, and laid up from summer to summer 
enough of fuel and food and seal-skins to brave three 
or even four more winters in succession. 
“I speak of the miracle of this bountiful fair season. 
I could hardly have been much more surprised if these 
black rocks, instead of sending out upon our solitude 
the late inroad of yelling Esquimaux, had sent us na¬ 
turalized Saxons. Two of our party at first fancied 
they were such. 
“ The mysterious compensations by which we adapt 
ourselves to climate are more striking here than in the 
tropics. In the Polar zone the assault is immediate 
and sudden, and, unlike the insidious fatality of hot 
