Page 249 - Lokmanya Tilak Samagra (khand 2)

36 SAMAGRA TILAK- 2 • THE ARCTIC HOME

traditions, the Polar origin of the latter would be indubitably
established. We have seen that the inclemency of climate which
now characterises the Polar regions, was not a feature of the Polar
climate in early times; and we must, therefore, turn to astronomy
to find out the characteristics required for our purpose.
It has been a fashion to speak of the Polar regions as cha-
racterised by light and darkness of six months each, for it is well-
known that the sun shines at the North Pole continuously for
6 months, and then sinks down below the horizon, producing a
night of 6 months' duration. But a closer examination of the
subject will show that the statement is only roughly true, and
requires to be modified in several particulars before it can be
accepted as scientifically accurate. In the first place we must
distinguish between the Pole and the Polar regions. The Pole is
merely a point and all the inhabitants of the original ancient
home, if there was one near the North Pole, could not have
lived precisely at this single point. The Polar or the Arctic re-
gions, on the other hand, mean the tracts of land included bet-
ween the Nonh Pole and the Arctic circle. But the duration of
day and night, as well as the seasons, at different places within
the Arctic regions cannot be, and are not, the same as at the point
called the North Pole. The characteristics of the Circum-Polar
region may indeed be derived from the strictly Polar characteri-
stics; but still they are so unlike each other that it is absolutely
necessary to bear this distinction in mind in collecting evidence of
a Circum-Polar Aryan home in ancient times. Men living round
about the Pole, or more accurately speaking, in regions between
the North Pole and the Arctic circle when these regions were
habitable were sure to know of a day and night of 6 months, but
living a little southward from the Pole their own calendar must
have been different from the strictly Polar calendar; and it is,
therefore, necessary to examine the Polar and the Circum-Polar
characteristics separately, in order that the distinction may be
clearly understood.

The terrestrial Poles are the termini of the axis of the earth,
and we have seen that there is no evidence to show that this axis
ever changed its position, relatively to the earth, even in the
earliest geological eras. The terrestrial poles and the Circum-
Polar regions were, therefore, the same in early cases as they are