But, after all, the special distinction between the Arctic lands and the other regions of the globe is their long day and longer night. Describing an immense spiral curve upon the horizon, the sun gradually mounts to 30°, the highest point of its course; then, in the same manner, it returns towards the horizon, and bids farewell to the wildernesses of the North, slowly passing away behind the veil of a gloomy and ghastly twilight.
When the navigator, says Captain Parry, finds himself for the first time buried in the silent shadows of the Arctic night, he cannot conquer an involuntary emotion of dread; he feels transported out of the sphere of ordinary, commonplace existence. The deadly and sombre deserts of the Pole seem like those uncreated voids which Milton has placed between the realms of life and death. The very animals are affected by the profound melancholy which saddens the face of Nature.
ATMOSPHERIC PHENOMENON IN THE ARCTIC REGIONS:—REFLECTION OF ICEBERGS.
Who can read without emotion the following passages from Dr. Kane’s Journal?—
“October 28, Friday.—The moon has reached her greatest northern declination of about 25° 35’. She is a glorious object; sweeping around the heavens, at the lowest part of her curve she is still 14° above the horizon. For eight days she has been making her circuit with nearly unvarying brightness. It is one of those sparkling nights that bring back the memory of sleigh-bells and songs and glad communings of hearts in lands that are far away.
“The weather outside is at 25° below zero.”
A few days later, and the heroic explorer writes:—
“November 7, Monday.—The darkness is coming on with insidious steadiness, and its advances can be perceived only by comparing one day with its fellow of some time back. We still read the thermometer at noonday without a light, and the black masses of the hills are plain for about five hours with their glaring patches of snow; but all the rest is darkness. Lanterns are always on the spar-deck, and the lard-lamps never extinguished below. The stars of the sixth magnitude shine out at noonday.
“Our darkness has ninety days to run before we shall get back again even to the contested twilight of to-day. Altogether, our winter will have been sunless for one hundred and forty days.”