There the aurora borealis is lighted up, and the trembling needle brought to rest, and there, too, in the mazes of that mystic circle, terrestrial forces of occult power, and vast influence upon the well-being of men, are continually at play....

Noble daring has made Arctic ice and waters classic ground.

It is no feverish excitement nor vain ambition that leads man there.

It is a higher feeling, a holier motive, a desire to look into the works of creation, to comprehend the economy of our planet, and to grow wiser and better by the knowledge." Nor can it be said fairly that the polar regions have failed to repay, in actual financial profit, their persistent invasion by man.

It is estimated by competent statisticians, that in the last two centuries no less than two thousand million dollars' worth of furs, fish, whale-oil, whalebone, and minerals, have been taken out of the ice-bound seas.
[Illustration: "THEY FELL DOWN AND DIED AS THEY WALKED"] The full story--at once sorrowful and stimulating--of Arctic exploration, can not be told here.