The polar and tropical worlds : a description of man and nature in the polar and equatorial regions of the globe . omed tobear Avithout injury the rigors of an Arctic winter. The mysterious compensations, says Kane, by whicli we adapt our-selves to climate are more striking here than in the tropics. In the Polar zonethe assault is immediate and sudden, and, unlike the insidious fatality of hotcountries, produces its results rapidly. It requires hardly a single winter totell who are to be the heat-making and acclimatized men, Petersen, for in-stance, who has resided for two years at Upernavik,
The polar and tropical worlds : a description of man and nature in the polar and equatorial regions of the globe . omed tobear Avithout injury the rigors of an Arctic winter. The mysterious compensations, says Kane, by whicli we adapt our-selves to climate are more striking here than in the tropics. In the Polar zonethe assault is immediate and sudden, and, unlike the insidious fatality of hotcountries, produces its results rapidly. It requires hardly a single winter totell who are to be the heat-making and acclimatized men, Petersen, for in-stance, who has resided for two years at Upernavik, seldom enters a room witha fire. Another of our party, George Riley, with a vigorous constitution, es-tablished habits of free exposure, and active cheerful temperament, has soinured himself to the cold, that he sleeps on our sledge journeys without ablanket or any other covering than his walking suit, while the outside tem-perature is —30°. THE ARCTIC LANDS. 29 There are many proofs that a milder chmate once reigned in the northernregions of the globe. Fossil pieces of wood, petrified acorns and fir-coues. ARCTIC CLOTHING. have been found in the interior of Bankss Land by MClures Anakerdluk, in North Greenland (70° N.), a large forest lies buried on amountain surrounded by glaciers, 1080 feet above the level of the sea. Notonly the trunks and branches, but even the leaves, fruit-cones, and seeds havebeen preserved in the soil, and enable -the botanist to determine the species ofthe plants to wiiich they belong. They show that, besides firs and sequoias,oaks, plantains, elms, magnolias, and even laurels, indicating a climate such asthat of Lausanne or Geneva, flourished during the miocene period in a coun-try where now even the willow is compelled to creep along the ground. Dur-ing the same epoch of the earths history Spitzbergen Avas likewise coveredwith stately forests. The same poplars and the same s\vamp-cypress {Taxo-dium dubium) which then flourish
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