Signal-Copiahan. (Hazlehurst, Copiah County, Miss.) 1885-1888, 1886-02-25
POLAR CLIMATES.
Only slight Change would Cover Green
land with verdure'


land with verdurs.
The theory has long been advanced
that the poles Of greatest cold are not
coincidcnt with the territorial poles.
and that the lowest mean temperature
Is to be found in the region of the Lena
river in Siberia. This idea was en-.
couraged by the fact. among others,
that the Polaris party reported mild.
or climate at Thank God Harbor than
Kane experienced about two hundred
miles further south. The part Of the
argument, however, which relates to
the Lena river valley isdirectly contra
dictcd by Lieutenant Greely's observa.
tions for two years at Lady Franklin
Bay, where he found the lowest mean
temperature yet observcd,-about four
degrees Fahrenheit. Grinnell Land.
therefore. as far as we yet know. Is
the coolest part Of the Northern hem
isphere.
Danish Greenland. whose mean tenn.
peraturc hovers around the freezing
point, is buried under hundreds OF
feet of Ice simply because about two
inches of ice forms in winter more than
is thawcd out In summer. The author.
tiles in terrestrial physics agree that
1t would require only a slight change
In climate conditions to remove Green.
lands ice blanket and cover the land
with verdure. We're 1t not for the
presence Of these immense ice masses
constantly refrigerating the air. the
summers Of Danish Greenland would
be rs warm as those Of England. Mr..
Wallace is Of the opinion that il the
two Arctic currents that flow south
along both sides Of Greenland were iii.
verted from that country. the great ice
mantle would rapidly disappear. and
the country might even become forest.
clad and habitablc. Mr.. Croll agrees
with him in tins opinion. and both Nr.
Croll and Sir William Thomson believe
that 1t would not take very large in
crease in the temperature and volume
of the Arctic branch of the Gulf stream
to produce the same result.
The powerful modifying influence
that the great ocean currents from the
south exert upon climates is nowhere
so strongly manifested as along the
north coast Of Norway. which has u
mider temperature than any other part
of the world in the same latitude. At
this moment the little town OF BOssc-
kop. lying at the foot of ford which
opens into the icy waters Of the Arctic
Ocean. wrapped in the twilight of its
winter night, is subsisting largely on
the grain that was raised last summer
on the valley farms In u latitude about
six hundred miles north OF the south
end of Greenland. This fertile spot Is
the most northern place in the world
where wheat and rye ripen.
1t is the opinion Of Sir William
Thomson and other physicists that the
prolific animal and vegetable life
which covered Greenland and the
neighboring lands in former geolog-
ical age. whose fossil remains have
been found in abundance. was due to
warm ocean currents flowing north at
time when our continent had not yet
risen above the surface to impede or
divert their course. There seems, after
all, to be no inherent improbability In
the theory, to elucidate which two
books have recently been written. that
human life existed, and perhaps origin.
ated. In these polar lands before the
present populous part of the earth were
habitable.-N y. SMn.