e lies to
the north of the latitude which in this country is considered the
limit of habitation, says Prof. Ralph S. Tarr, in The Independent.
London is situated in the same latitude as southern Labrador, where
the inhabitants are scattered in small villages and are mainly summer
residents who come there from the more southern lands to engage in
fishing. During the winter their ports are closed by ice and
navigation is stopped, while toward the British Isles steamers are
constantly plying from all directions. The great city of St.
Petersburg, which in winter is inaccessible to ships, but in summer
enjoys a moderate climate, lies in the same latitude as the northern
part of Labrador, where snow falls in every month of the year and
where floating ice frequently retards navigation even in midsummer. As
a result of the severity of climate the only people who find northern
Labrador a place fit for existence are the Eskimo tribes, who win
their living under great difficulties almost entirely from the sea. No
white men live there, with the exception of some missionaries and the
occasional traders.

Everyone knows full well the reason for this difference in the
climates of the two lands; the European coasts receive constant
supplies of water that has been warmed in southern latitudes and
carried northward in the great oceanic circulation and particularly in
the Gulf Stream. The west winds, blowing toward the European coast,
carry from this warm ocean belt air with higher temperature than that
which exists over the land. On the eastern side of the Atlantic in
place of a warm ocean current there is the cold Labrador current,
which blows from the north and chills the water of the northwestern
Atlantic. Therefore, the winds that come from the ocean blow over
water that has been cooled, and the prevailing winds, which are from
the west, come over the land, which is cool in winter and warm in
summer.

One may see these differences in climate and the causes for them even
more strikingly exhibited within the Arctic belt than in this case
which has been mentioned. The great land area of Greenland, with an
area of six or seven hundred thousand square miles, is a highland
capped over the greater part of its area with a snow field which
completely buries all the land excepting that near the margins. The
tongues from this ice field, whose area is some 500,000 square miles,
reach into the sea and furnish innumerable icebergs that float aw