AN ARCTIC OASIS In a little arctic oasis lives the meager and scattered handful of the Eskimo population--a little oasis along the frowning western coast of Northern Greenland between Melville Bay and Kane Basin.

This region is three thousand miles north of New York City, as a steamer goes; it lies about half way between the Arctic Circle and the Pole, within the confines of the great night.

Here, taking the mean latitude, for one hundred and ten days in summer the sun never sets; for one hundred and ten days in winter the sun never rises, and no ray of light save from the icy stars and the dead moon falls on the frozen landscape.
[Illustration: THE ICE CLIFFS OF HUBBARD GLACIER] There is a savage grandeur in this coast, carved by eternal conflict with storms and glaciers, bergs and grinding ice-fields; but behind the frowning outer mask nestle in summer many grass-carpeted, flower-sprinkled, sun-kissed nooks.

Millions of little auks breed along this shore.

Between the towering cliffs are glaciers which launch at intervals their fleets of bergs upon the sea; before these cliffs lies the blue water dotted with masses of glistening ice of all shapes and sizes; behind the cliffs is the great Greenland ice cap, silent, eternal, immeasurable--the abode, say the Eskimos, of evil spirits and the souls of the unhappy dead.
In some places on this coast in summer, the grass is as thick and long as on a New England farm.