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Random Facts about the South Pole
THE ANTARCTIC POLAR REGIONS
The climate of the southern polar regions is much more
severe than that at the north pole, the icefields extending
in degrees nearer the equator from the south than from the
north. Within the arctic circle there are tribes of men
living on the borders of the icy ocean on both the east and
west hemispheres, but within the antarctic all is one
dreary, uninhabitable waste. In the extreme north the
reindeer and the musk-ox are found in numbers, but not a
single land quadruped exists beyond 50 degrees of southern
latitude. Flowers are seen in summer by the arctic navigator
as far as 78 degrees north, but no plant of any description,
not even a moss or a lichen, has been observed beyond
Cockburn Island, in 64 degrees 12 minutes south latitude. In
Spitzbergen, 79 degrees north, vegetation ascends the
mountain slopes to a height of 3,000 feet, but on every land
within or near the antarctic circle the snow-line descends
to the water's edge. The highest latitude ever reached at
the south is 78 degrees 10 minutes, while in the north
navigators have penetrated to 84 degrees. The reason for
this remarkable difference is the predominance of large
tracts of land in the northern regions, while in the south
is a vast expanse of ocean. In the north continental masses
form an almost continuous belt around the icy sea, while in
the southern hemisphere the continents taper down into a
broad extent of frigid waters. In the north the plains of
Siberia and of the Hudson's Bay territories, warmed by the
sunbeams of summer, become at that season centers of
radiating heat, while the antarctic lands, of small extent,
isolated in the midst of a polar ocean and chilled by cold
sea winds, act at every season as refrigerators of the
atmosphere. Further in the north the cold currents of the
polar sea, having but two openings of any estent through
which they can convey drift ice, have their chilly influence
confined to comparatively narrow limits, but the cold
currents of the antarctic seas have scope to branch out
freely on all sides and carry their ice even into temperate
waters. Finally, at the northern hemisphere, the Gulf Stream
conveys warmth even to the shores of Spitzbergen and Nova
Zembla, while on the opposite regions of the globe no traces
of warm currents have been observed beyond 55 degrees of
south latitude.
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