Page 260 - Lokmanya Tilak Samagra (khand 2)

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THE ARCTIC REGIONS
We have seen that a long dawn of two months is a special
and important characteristic of the North Pole. As we descend
southward, the splendour and the duration of the dawn will be
witnessed on a less and less magnificent scale. But the dawn,
occurring at the end of the long night of two, three or more
months, will still be unusually long, often of several days duration~
As stated above, at first, only a pale flush of light will appear and
it will continue visible on the horizon, revolving round and
round, if the observer is sufficiently near the Pole, for some
days, when at last the orb of the sun will emerge, and start the
alternation of day and night described above, to be eventually
terminated into a long day. The splendours of the Aurora Borealis
would also be less marked and conspicuous in the southern
latitudes than at the North Pole.
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 rhe 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
~lmes, and we· cannot, therefore, include climate amongst the
points of contrast under consideration.
It will 'be seen from the foregoing discussion that we have