After the foregoing condensed résumé of Arctic and Antarctic
exploration and discovery, I feel sure the reader will be interested in
noting some of the striking contrasts between the two Poles and their
surroundings. These contrasts are as great as the Poles are far apart.
The North Pole is situated in an ocean of some fifteen hundred miles’
diameter, surrounded by land. The South Pole is situated in a continent
of some twenty-five hundred miles’ diameter, surrounded by water. At
the North Pole, Peary stood upon the frozen surface of an ocean _more
than two miles in depth_. At the South Pole, Amundsen and Scott stood
upon the surface of a great elevated snow plateau _more than two miles
above sea level_. The lands that surround the North Polar Ocean have
comparatively abundant life, musk oxen, reindeer, polar bears, wolves,
foxes, arctic hares, ermines, and lemmings, together with insects and
flowers, being found less than five hundred miles from the Pole. On the
great South Polar continent no form of animal life is found.
[Illustration: From “On the Polar Star,” by the Duke of the Abruzzi.
Copyright, Dodd, Mead & Co.