382 
LAST VOYAG6 OF CAPT ROSS 
the domestication and culture of which, the most widely spread 
and essential advantage was capable of resulting to the human 
race, have been created, and retained the natural inmates of 
the temperate regions o! our globe ; whiie those again, the 
general distribution of which, would have been regarded rather 
as a curse than a blessing, have been, with a few exceptions, 
rendered the invariable inmates, either of tne hottest or the 
coldest climes. Were a tiger conveyed from the jungles of 
topical Asia, to the shores Boothia or the steppes of Siberia, 
h6w soon would he lose his gigantic strength and ferocious 
vigor; or were a polar bear transferred from his bleak eiernity 
of floating icebergs, to a sultry island of the Indian Archipe¬ 
lago, how speedily would the surly savage cease to create any 
alarm. The spirit of the same observation might be applied 
to much more serviceable animals, which, however, not being 
natives of temperate countries, are, for that very reason, in¬ 
capable of being rendered useful in the most extensive and 
therefore hightest degree. We may adduce as examples, the 
rein-deer and dromedary; the former of which the wander¬ 
ing Bedouin of the desert, would as soon attempt to rear amid 
the shifting sands of Arabia, as the Nomadian of the north, 
would the latter, in the cold and lofty plains of Finmark or 
Norway. 
The month of March closed auspiciously, as regards the 
weather, but not the slightest alteration had taken place in the 
position of the ice. 
