During nearly two-thirds of the year the arctic regions are under the absolute dominion of winter; and for many weeks of that bitter season they are shrouded with the mantle of a dark, sunless night. The entire ocean is locked in the embrace of a covering of ice many feet thick, so that its liquid aspect is thoroughly removed; and, owing to ice-masses scattered over its surface, together with mounds of drifted snow, it bears a much stronger resemblance to the land than to the sea. Gales of wind sometimes sweep over those frozen plains in bitter fury, hurling the snow into the air in vast eddying masses, and threatening destruction to any living creature that may chance to be exposed to them--not so much from their violence, however, as from the intense cold of the atmosphere which is put in motion. But in regard to gales, although there are no lack of them, they are neither so fierce nor so frequent as are those of the torrid zone. It might be supposed that in such a climate animal life could scarcely exist; but such is not the case. The inhabitants of part of the arctic regions, named Esquimaux (more correctly Eskimos, with the accent on the last syllable), are a stout, hardy, healthy race and the polar bears, foxes, wolves, seals, musk-oxen, walruses, etcetera, that dwell there, seem to enjoy their existence just as much as do the animals of more favoured and warmer climes. During the short but hot summer of the arctic regions, the immense masses of ice formed in winter are by no means cleared away. A great part of the heat of early summer (there is no season there that merits the name of spring) is spent in breaking up the solid crust of ice on the sea, a large proportion of which is carried south by the currents that flow to the equator, and melted long before they reach the temperate zones. But a considerable quantity of broken ice-masses get locked in narrow places or stranded on shallows; and although they undergo the process of melting the whole summer, they are not much diminished ere the returning frost stops the process and locks them in the new ice of a succeeding winter. Thus there is no period of the year in which large quantities of ice may not be seen floating about in the arctic seas. This fact it is that enables us to speak appropriately of the _scenery_ of the Arctic Ocean. And assuredly this scenery of the ice is exceedingly and strikingly beautiful. The imagination cannot conceive the dazzling effect of a bright summer day in those regions, when the ocean is clear as glass, and ice-humps and ice-mountains of every shape and size are glittering in the sun's rays with intense brilliancy, while the delicate whiteness of these floating islands, and the magical atmospheric illusions by which they are frequently surrounded, render the scene pre-eminently fairy-like.