"Silence reigned for a few moments, when the deeply interested Boston man, in the most inquisitive and earnest tones said, 'But, my dear Sir, as we are evidently of about the same class of goods, and were probably turned out of the same mill, how the de'il did you fellows get down there? and how the de'il did you get out?' "This discussion, so learned, so full, so logical, so eloquent, and so earnest, should be preserved, even to the tones and expression, but I am weary, and it is late, and if--there is that 'if' again--if I live, nothing of that scene shall perish; and if I don't--and, I won't--I will have spent time enough on it, for all will probably be lost, so I will 'boil it down.' "Well, in answer, Amoora Oseba said that it was now a well-settled theory that, probably owing to periodic oscillations of the earth, the course and character of which were not yet understood, there had been great changes in the temperature of the polar regions. The moving down and the receding of the polar ice limits, in no distant geological times in the past are abundantly evident. The temperature at the so-called Poles had materially varied, the ice-belt so oscillating that at times animal and higher vegetable life flourished at high latitudes, as is known by the abundant remains of undecayed animals still found in the ice fields. A PRETTY TALE. "Then he related a tradition among his people, reciting that in the far distant past--at a time probably when the polar regions were rather temperate, and most of the human race were yet in barbarism--a small tribe of peacefully disposed people inhabited a fertile region in an open world, where the horizon stretched away alike in all directions. [Illustration: _Mr. T. E. Donne, Superintendent of Tourist and Health Resorts; Secretary of Department of Industry and Commerce; Secretary for New Zealand Commercial Intelligence Department of the British Board of Trade; Representative St. Louis Exposition. By his industry, ability and modest candour, and the merits of his "enterprise," Mr. Donne is becoming one of the best known Tourist Agents on the globe, and he is one of the most competent and trusted of Sir Joseph Ward's carefully selected staff._] "The chief of these amiable people was an attractive and commanding personality named Olif. This Olif had a most beautiful daughter, whose mother, while gathering flowers for her child, had been strangled by the orders of an envious and childless queen. The name of the daughter was Eurania, which means "Sunbeam." But as she grew to womanhood she so strongly resembled her father, and was so constantly at his side, that the two beings seemed a double--but a single soul--and soon the people idolised the damsel under the name of Oliffa. Olif and Oliffa, the chief and his daughter, as guardian spirits, held supreme authority.