Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 25, 1914.djvu/49

 Rh within the Arctic circle, and with the northernmost point of the continent at Cape Severe, close to Cape Chelyuskin, in 78° 20' N. lat. and 104° E. long. Its low level and exposed northern aspect, combined with its high latitude and enormous extension southwards, are the chief reasons which cause the climate of this region to be the most "continental," as it is technically termed, that is, subject to the greatest extremes of cold and heat, of any on the globe "Siberian" winters have become proverbial, but the summers are almost equally intense; and, while the mercury becomes frozen to a hard malleable mass during the clear Arctic nights in midwinter, it will occasionally rise to above 100° F. at midday in June.

"Temperature and Illumination constitute the chief characteristics of the polar climate, the former in the long cold winter and the short cool summer, the latter in the long winter night and the long summer day."

"During the greater part of the three summer months (June, July, August), the sun is above the horizon continuously for 65 days in latitude 70°, and for 134 days in latitude 80°. The summer temperatures are very unequal in the different parts of the polar district, but are dependent, not so much on the latitude, as on the distribution of land and water, and on the presence or absence of warm currents."

In no other place except Labrador is the temperature so low. Gishigisk Station in 1901 shows maximum summer temp. 25.1° C; minimum winter temp.-42.0° C. Yakutsk Station in 1901 shows maximum summer temp. 33.6°; minimum winter temp.-58.7°. Verkhoyansk Station in 1899 shows maximum summer temp. 33.70°; minimum