which in the northern hemisphere would include
Spitsbergen, Nova Zembla, Iceland, Greenland,
and Lapland, besides a wide tract in northern
Asia and America, and the whole of the
recently-discovered arctic archipelago between
Davis's and Behring's Straits.

Victoria Land, marked by the presence of
lofty volcanic mountains, one of which, Mount
Erebus, upwards of twelve thousand feet high,
was in an active state at the time of the visit
of Captain Ross, is entirely enclosed in thick
ice so as to be almost unapproachable. All the
land is thus covered except where the volcanic
flames and lava have slightly melted the snow,
which commences a few hundred feet below
the crater and is then continued far out to sea.
No other animals than birds, and no vegetation,
seems to exist in these inhospitable regions. A
similar condition has been recorded of other
smaller islands in much warmer latitudes and
where elevation above the sea is inconsiderable,
so that practically it would be useless to visit
these islands for any purpose connected with
human interests, unless, indeed, they may yield
guano; having long been in the undisturbed
possession of hosts of marine birds. The seas
around them, however, yield large stores of
whales and other valuable marine animals.

Whatever may be hereafter made out with
regard to antarctic land, which we may state is
very probably of wide extent, and certainly
lofty, it is certain that so long as the climate
and circumstances remain as they are now in
the southern hemisphere, this land must be
unapproachable, and totally barren and desolate.

No doubt the strange and gloomy contest
between Neptune in his sternest mood and
Pluto that always rages there, the eruptions of
Mounts Erebus and Terror, as well as the lava
floods from lower volcanoes which are quenched
in the eternal snows, and cannot be even appreciably
affected by floods of molten rock poured
forth under ice instead of water: no doubt all
this must totally unfit such a part of the earth
for the larger animals. Accordingly, it happens
that no quadrupeds at all, and none but aquatic
and aerial animals, exist in the southern hemisphere,
in latitudes far nearer the equator than
those in which the highest development of the
human race, accompanied by abundant and varied
animal and vegetable life, occurs in Europe and
its adjacent islands.

It is curious and very interesting to contrast
the conditions of the earth near its two polar
extremities, and to notice how totally and entirely
they differ in many important respects,
while, on the other hand, they nre bound together
by some common, links even where one
would least expect to find them. Within a circle
whose radius is about five hundred miles at
the north, and eight hundred miles at the south,
and where centre in each case is the ideal pole
of the earth, there is a tract of land or water
that no human eye has seen, and which perhaps
no mortal foot will ever touch. Whether the
icy barrier is such as to ensure this permanently,
or whether there be, as has been suggested, a
space of open and comparatively warm water
immediately round the north pole, the extreme
difficulty of passing the icy barrier must tend
to prevent future explorers from endeavouring
to penetrate much further than they have
done already. Practically, therefore, there is no
probability of important advance within this
charmed circle in the north, and much less chance
of any considerably nearer approach towards the
south pole than has yet been attained.

But we have already a large accumulation of
facts ascertained with regard to both regions, by
men who seem to have pushed human endurance
and hardihood to their utmost limit, and fortunately
in each case the facts are not only in
themselves valuable, because positive, but many
of them are almost as valuable for the inferences
deduced from them as for themselves. A few
illustrations on each department will show how
completely this is the case, and how little really
remains to be made out even in these blank areas
covered with eternal snow and ice.

The two poles of the earth at the present time
well exemplify the conditions of certain large
districts of our globe, at distinct geological
epochs, between which epochs the distribution
of land and water in the vicinity had completely
changed in important respects. The reason of
this will be easily seen if we compare the actual
quantity of land in the northern and southern
hemispheres generally, the relative proportion of
land in the north and south temperate zones,
the different elevation of the land in each case,
whether of the whole mass or the chief mountain
chains, and the marine currents that carry water
from the equator northwards or southwards.

In the northern hemisphere, as the reader will
easily see by consulting a globe, almost all the
principal land of the earth, except South America,
Africa, and Australia, is not only north of
the equator, but actually within the north
temperate zone. So little either of Asia or America
is indeed excluded, while the whole of Europe,
without exception, is included within this area,
that the north temperate zone is essentially, and
of all others, the terrestrial portion of our globe.
Almost all the land, however, terminates at or
near the seventieth parallel, and the chief land
within the arctic circle (except Greenland, which
is doubtful), consists of detached islands
unconnected with Europe, Asia, or America.

On the other hand, in the southern hemisphere,
there is almost no land in the temperate
zone, what there is hardly reaching the latitude
of England, while the antarctic circle, which is
almost unapproachable, appears to be so owing
to the presence of a vast tract of continuous
land, which attains, near the pole, an elevation
amounting to between ten to fifteen thousand
feet above the sea level.

In the northern waters again are currents
conveying a very high temperature along the
surface of the ocean, quite as far as the arctic
circle, and even beyond it. In the south, the
oceanic surface currents are chiefly cold, and
proceed from the polar seas, any return current
being out of sight and hardly influential.