THE POLAR WORLD.* ABOUT no part of the globe are

there popular ideas so vague and superficial as about the Polar regions. For that reason, the very interesting and detailed account presented in this book by Dr. Hartwig of them and of their various forms of animal life, civilized and uncivilized, is the more valuable. Inadequate, indeed, is our appreciation of the immense courage and self-devotion which have been displayed by those, and they are no small number, who have, from the love of science, or discovery, or from adventurous zeal for

tilte interests of commerce, dared to face the terrors of the six months' night, at a temperature never as high as the freezing-point of water.

Dr. Hartwig, however, has collected and produced in excellent order and a most readable manner complete accounts of nearly all the most considerable expeditions in the Arctic and Antarctic regions, and has thoroughly succeeded in carrying out his intention to convey solid instruction in an entertaining form.

The book is plentifully illustrated with woodcuts, among which are some remarkable sketches by Frederick Whymper, a distin guished member of the. Alpine Club. There are also three sufficiently clear maps and several drawings of the most interesting specimens of natural history, with a full index to all subjects mentioned in the book.

Some idea of the immense effect of volcanic agency in Iceland, where the ice and snow, melted by the lava, produce tremendous floods, no less destructive than the lava-stream itself, may be gained by reading the description (chapter vi.) of the eruption in 1783 of Skapta Jokull, part of which it may be well to give here to our readers :—

" The heat raging in the interior of the volcano melted enormous masses of ice and snow, which caused the river Skapta to rise to a prodigious height ; but on the 11th torrents of fire usurped the place of water, for a vast lava-stream breaking forth from the mountain, flowed down in a southerly direction, until reaching the river, a tremendous conflict arose between the two hostile elements. Though the channel was six hundred feet deep and two hundred feet wide, the lava-flood, pouring down one fiery wave after another into the yawning abyss, ultimately gained the victory, and blocking up the stream, overflowed its banks. Crossing the low country of Medalland, it poured into a great lake, which after a few days was likewise completely filled up, and baying divided into two streams, the unexhausted torrent again poured on, overflowing in one direction some ancient lava fields, and in another re-entering the channel of the Skapta and leaping down the lofty cataract of Stapafoss. But this was not all, for while one lava flood had chosen the Skapta for lie bed, another, descending in a different direction, was working similar ruin along the banks of the Hverflsfliot. Whether the same crater gave birth to both it is impossible to say, as even the extent of the lava-flow can only be measured from the spot where it entered the inhabited districts. The stream which followed the direction of the Skapta is calculated to have been about fifty miles in length by twelve or fifteen at its greatest breadth ; that which rolled down the ilverfisfliot at forty miles in length by seven in breadth. . . . So great was the ruin caused by this one eruption, that in the short space of two years no less than 9,336 men, 28,000 horses, 11,461 cattle, and 190,000 sheep—a large proportion of the wealth and population of the island—were swept away."

The following chapters on the subject of the Icelandic civilization are no less interesting. The poet Jon Thorlaksen, who at the age of seventy completed a translation of Paradise Lost, deserves a greater reputation than it can be hoped his works will attain. It is gratifying to read of the love of literature which is shown by their

institutions to exist among a people in whose country travelling is so difficult, and who are so cut off from intercourse with the civilization and education of the European and American continents. The contrast is dismal between them and the superstitious and

filthy Lapps, whom it might have been expected that contact with snore civilized races would more easily have affected. The following description of the Laplander does not give a very pleasant impression of his appearance :—

"The Lapps are a dwarfish race. On an average, the men do not exceed five feet in height, many not even reaching four, and the women are considerably less. Most of them are, however, very robust, the cironmferenoe of their chest nearly equalling their height. Their complexion is more or less tawny and copper-coloured, their hair dark, straight, and lank, its dangling masses adding much to the wildness of their aspect. They have very little beard, and as its want is considered a beauty, the young men carefully eradicate the scanty supply given them by nature. Their dark piercing eyes are generally deep sunk in their heads, widely separated from each other, and, like those of the Tartars or Chinese, obliquely slit towards the temples. The cheek-bones are high, the mouth pinched close, but wide, the nose flat. The eyes are generally sore, either in consequence of the biting smoke of their huts, or of the refraction from the snow, so that a Lapp seldom attains a high age without becoming blind. Their countenances generally present a repulsive combination of stolidity, low cunning, and obstinacy. Hoggner, who dwelt several months among them, and saw during this time at least 800 Lapps, found not twenty who were not decidedly ugly; and Dr. Clarke says that many of them, when more advanced in years, might, if exhibited in a menagerie of wild beasts, be considered as the long-lost link between man and ape."

The journeys of Michael Alexander Castrdn, who died in 1855, form the subject of one chapter, and are of the greatest interest, as showing one instance of the courage required in those who would either collect or impart information in a country in which a winter is considered remarkably mild when no crows are frozen to death.

The description of Siberia, and the history of its conquest, which was indirectly brought about by a merchant of the name of Strogonoff (whose descendants have a European reputation for their wealth), are well worth reading, if only as showing how the acquisition of that immense territory by Russia was achieved mainly through the tact and generalship of Yermak, who at the time he began was a fugitive from the Czar at the head of a horde of Cossacks.

The observations of Middendorf, whose preservation after being fifteen days alone with only a small hand-sledge, and no other shelter than a rock, in 75 N. lat., and so broken down in health that he had been unable to return with his companions, is little short of a miracle, are of great scientific interest. It will hardly be credited that when the thermometer stood at 69 degrees below freezing-point in the shade, the sunny aides of the hills were dripping with wet. It is worth while to give to our readers his account of the manner in which he was saved :—

" Thus I lay three days, thinking of wretches who had been immured alive, and grown mad in their dreadful prison. An overwhelming fear of insanity befell me—it oppressed my heart—it became insupportable. In vain I attempted to cast it off—my weakened brain could grasp no other idea. And now suddenly—like a ray of light from heaven—the saving thought flashed upon me. My last pieces of wood were quickly lighted—some water was thawed and warmed—I poured into it the spirits from a flask containing a specimen of natural history, and drank. A new life seemed to awaken in me; my thoughts returned again to my family, to the happy days I had spent with the friends of my youth. Soon I fell into a profound sleep—how long it lasted I knownot—but on awakening I felt like another man, and my breast was filled with gratitude. Appetite returned with recovery, and I was reduced to eat leather and birch-bark—when a ptarmigan fortunately came within reach of my gun. Having thus obtained some food for the journey, I resolved, although still very feeble, to set out and seek the provisions we had buried. Packing some articles of dress, my gun and ammunition, my journal, dkc., on my small hand-sledge, I proceeded slowly, and frequently resting. At noon I saw, on a well-known declivity of the hills, three black spots which I had not previously noticed, and as they changed their position, I at once altered my route to join them. We approached each other—and, judge of my delight, it was Trischun, the Samojede chieftain, whom I had previously assisted in the prevailing epidemic, and who now, guided by one of my companions, had set out with three sledges to seek me. Eager to serve his benefactor, the grateful savage had made his reindeer wander without food over a space of 150 vents where no moss grow."

It is useless, however, to attempt even to point out all the subjects

of interest in a book of this kind in the space at our disposal. The narratives of the adventurous discoverers, the curious habits of the laces with whom they communicated, the ingenuity of the

contrivances by which in those latitudes man contrives to provide himself with food., warmth, and shelter, afford subjects without end

for the exercise of the power which Dr. Hartwig possesses in an eminent degree of keeping up the interest of his readers, and gratifying a taste for science, natural history, or adventure. Just at this time there may be some who will be glad to read the account of the fur trade of the Hudson's Bay Territory, and their neighbours the Cree and Tinne Indians. It may not be gener ally known that Greenland was colonized in 985, by Scandinavians, five hundred years before the time of Columbus, though their colonies were destroyed before the end of the fourteenth century, leaving the ground for rediscovery in 1497 by John and Sebastian Cabot. A series of expeditions attended with more or less important results were fitted out by England, France, and Holland, of which the principal ones were under the commands of Chancellor (who, after wintering 'in the White Sea, was drowned in sight of his native shore), Frobisher, and Davis, and in 1610 Henry Hudson discovered in his third voyage the bay which bears his name. In another chapter we read the accounts of the expeditions of the present century, which recall the not-yet forgotten names of Franklin, Parry, and Ross. The second part of the book, which describes, as far as they are known, the Antarctic seas, occupies only 80 pages out of 520, and this may ahuost be said to represent the proportion of our knowledge of the two polar regions. The cold of the Antarctic regions is so intense and the extent of its influence so large, as to render

expeditions within the circle much more difficult and perilous, and at the same time less fruitful in results, than those which have been sent to the other end of the world of which we have been speaking. The cause of this is to be found in the absence of any

current like the Gulf Stream in the southern seas, and in the more frequent formation and more easy circulation of icebergs, which is the result of the physical formation of the land and the shape of the coast-line. The effect of this difference is illustrated by the following facts:—

"Thus the influence of the cold Antarctic waters extends far within the temperate zone. We can trace their chilling effects in Kerguelen Land (50 deg. S. lat.), which, when visited by Cook in the height of summer, was found covered with snow, and where only five plants in flower were collected ; in Tierra del Fuego (53 deg. S. lat.), where the mean summer temperature is fully 9i deg. lower than that of Dublin (53 deg. 21 min. N. lat.); in the Falkland Islands (51 deg. 30 min.), which though flat and low and near Patagonia, have, according to Mt. Darwin, a climate similar to that which is experienced at the height of between one and two thousand feet on the mountains of North Wales, with less sunshine and lees frost, but more wind and rain ; and finally along the south-west coast of America, where the Peruvian current and the cold sea-winds so considerably depress the snow-line, that while in Europe, the moat southern glacier which comes down to the sea is met with, according to Von Bach, on the coast of Norway in lat. 67 deg.; the Beagle found a glacier 15 miles long and in one part 7 broad descending to the sea-coast, in the gulf of Penas, in a latitude (46 deg. 50 min.) nearly corresponding with that of the Lake of Geneva."

In 1775, Cook, in his second voyage, found in South Georgia a climate, and consequent vegetation, or rather desolation, similar to that of Novaya Zemlya or Spitzbergen, though South Georgia is situate in 54 and 55 S. lat., a position corresponding to that of Scarborough or Durham.

It is needless to say that the voyages of discovery in those waters, though fewer in number, are no leas interesting and instruc tive in detail than those previously described, though perhaps we should point to the chapters on the Straits of Magellan and Patagonia as the most worth reading, and comparing with accounts given earlier in the books of similar districts in a northern latitude. 1Ve have said enough to convince our readers that the book is a real acquisition, and well suited alike for old and young, and we hope that the thrilling accounts of what has been gone through by the pioneers of science and commerce in the Polar regions may not be without result in increasing the encouragement and support given to them from home, where, indeed, they have a right to look for it.