near the antarctic circle the snow-line descends to the water's edge.
The highest latitude ever reached at the south is 78 degrees 10 minutes,
while in the north navigators have penetrated to 84 degrees. The reason
for this remarkable difference is the predominance of large tracts of
land in the northern regions, while in the south is a vast expanse of
ocean. In the north continental masses form an almost continuous belt
around the icy sea, while in the southern hemisphere the continents
taper down into a broad extent of frigid waters. In the north the plains
of Siberia and of the Hudson's Bay territories, warmed by the sunbeams
of summer, become at that season centers of radiating heat, while the
antarctic lands, of small extent, isolated in the midst of a polar ocean
and chilled by cold sea winds, act at every season as refrigerators of
the atmosphere. Further in the north the cold currents of the polar sea,
having but two openings of any estent through which they can convey
drift ice, have their chilly influence confined to comparatively narrow
limits, but the cold currents of the antarctic seas have scope to branch
out freely on all sides and carry their ice even into temperate waters.
Finally, at the northern hemisphere, the Gulf Stream conveys warmth even
to the shores of Spitzbergen and Nova Zembla, while on the opposite
regions of the globe no traces of warm currents have been observed
beyond 55 degrees of south latitude.


THE LANGUAGE USED BY CHRIST.--The language used by Christ was the
Aramaic, the dialect of Northern Syria. The Israelites were much in
contact with Aramæan populations, and some words from that tongue
became incorporated into the Hebrew at a very early date. At the time
of Hezekiah, Aramaic had become the official language of both Judea
and Assyria: that is, the language spoken at the courts. After the
fall of Samaria the Hebrew inhabitants of Northern Israel were largely