The polar and tropical worlds : a description of man and nature in the polar and equatorial regions of the globe . nd of a greater thickness, this increase is due to the snow thatfalls upon their surface, or to the accumulation of hummocks caused by theircollision. Thus, by the combined influence of these various physical agencies, boundshave been set to the congelation of the Polar waters. Were it otherwise, theArctic lands would have been mere uninhabitable wastes; for the existence ofthe seals, the walrus, and the whale depends upon their finding some open wa-ter at every season of the year
The polar and tropical worlds : a description of man and nature in the polar and equatorial regions of the globe . nd of a greater thickness, this increase is due to the snow thatfalls upon their surface, or to the accumulation of hummocks caused by theircollision. Thus, by the combined influence of these various physical agencies, boundshave been set to the congelation of the Polar waters. Were it otherwise, theArctic lands would have been mere uninhabitable wastes; for the existence ofthe seals, the walrus, and the whale depends upon their finding some open wa-ter at every season of the year; and deprived of this resource, all the Esqui-maux, whose various tribes frino;e the coasts in the hicrhest latitudes hithertodiscovered, would perish in a single winter. If the Arctic glaciers did not discharge their bergs into the sea, or if nocurrents conveyed the ice-floes of the north into lower latitudes, ice would be 58 THE POLAR WORLD. constantly accumulating in the Polar world, and, destroying the balance of na-ture, would ultimately endanger the existence of man over the whole surface of the ARCTIC MARINE ANDIALS. 59 CHAPTER IV. ARCTIC MARINE ANIMALS. Populousness of the Arctic Seas.—The Greenland Whale.—The Fin SVhales. — The Nar«hal.—The Beluga, or White Dolphin.—The Black Dolphin.—His wholesale ]\Iassacre on the Faeroe Isl-ands.—The Ore, or Seals.—The Walrus.—Its acute Smell.—History of a youngWalrus.—Parental Affection.—The Polar Bear.—His Sagacity.—Hibernation of the She-bear.—Sea-birds. THE vast multitudes of animated beings which people the Polar Seas forma remarkable contrast to the nakedness of their bleak and desolate colder surface-waters almost perpetually exposed to a chilly air, and fre-quently covered, even in summer, with floating ice, are indeed unfavorable tothe development of organic life; but this adverse influence is modified by thehigher temperature which constantly prevails at a gre
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