Page:McClure's Magazine volume 10.djvu/118

RUSSIAN TYPE—NORTHEASTERN SIBERIA.

A SAMOYED—INHABITANT OF NORTHERN RUSSIA AND EASTERN SIBERIA.

These two portraits and the one on the opposite page are from photographs taken by the Tegetthoff (Austrian) Expedition of 1872.

result would be that the Polar basin would not be covered with such a layer of cold, light, and comparatively fresh water as it is at present, and the warm salt water carried into it from the south would be allowed to approach the surface. The result would necessarily be that the formation of ice would be very much reduced. During the greater part of the year we would probably find much open water in the North, and this would make the climate of the Polar region milder. But at the same time the climate in the lower latitudes would become colder, as the Southern seas would have to give off more of their heat in the shape of warm water to the Polar sea, and would in exchange receive more cold water from the North. The result would be less difference between the climates in the lower latitudes and the high northern latitudes than is the case to-day.

Whether these changes of climate caused by changes in the distribution of land and water as here described are sufficient to explain the cold climate which must have been prevailing in the Northern regions (Europe and North America) of the Northern Hemisphere during the ice age, and to explain the hot or almost subtropical climates which during other periods have been prevailing in some parts of the Polar regions, is a more complicated question. In my opinion, they will not be sufficient to account for these strange changes which we know have taken place. But at any rate I hope that what I have here mentioned is sufficient to show how Polar exploration is able to open for us glimpses into those mists which cover the previous history of this globe; glimpses into ages long before man existed. But we need to know more in order to solve these many difficult problems. Let us get full information about the Polar sea in its full extent and from the surface to the bottom; let us learn to know everything about the physical conditions in those regions, and we shall certainly advance a good step towards that goal.

There are also a good many other scientific researches which are much needed in the Polar regions. I may mention here magnetic and meteorological observations. The magnetism of the earth and its strange changes has been and is a riddle, and we do not yet know much about this mysterious force. The greatest lack in our knowledge