The Arctic Home in the Vedas c6.30

c6.30

But if the characteristics of the Arctic regions are different from those of the North Pole, they are no less different from the features of the year with which we are familiar in the temperate or the tropical zone. With us the sun is above the horizon, at least for some time every day, during all the twelve months of the year; but to persons within the Arctic circle, he is below the horizon, and, therefore, continuously invisible for a number of days. If this period of continuous night be excluded from our reckoning, we might say that within the Arctic regions the year, or the period marked by sunshine, only lasts from six to eleven months. Again the dawn in the temperate and the tropical zone is necessarily short-lived, for a day and a night together do not exceed twenty-four hours, and the dawn which comes between them can last only for a few hours; but the annual dawn at the Pole, and the dawn at the end of the long night in the Arctic regions will each be a dawn of several days' duration. As for the seasons, we have our winters and summers; but the winter in the Arctic regions will be marked by the long continuous night, while the summer will make the night longer than the day, but within the limit of twenty-four hours, until the day is developed into a long continuous sunshine of several days. The climate of the Polar regions is now extremely cold and severe, but, as previously stated, different climatic conditions prevailed in early times, and we cannot, therefore, include climate amongst the points of contrast under consideration.