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 138 THE ISLANDS OF ZENO far-fetched in view of the wide interval between Italy and Scandinavia; but intercourse was regular in 1558, and Zeno was a man of ample information and intelligence, using material from many sources and having his attention especially directed to the north. A MONASTERY IN THE ARCTIC The Zeno account of the monastery of St. Thomas is very extended and particular, going into details of daily life, artificial agriculture, and traffic. It is the sublimation of cultivation in hothouse conditions (of volcanic origin), located far up within the Arctic Circle at a particularly repellent point, where no man has ever lived or perhaps will live hereafter. Lucas tries to explain the account which is interesting in its own way with a certain wild and preposterous plausibility by reminiscences of a favored Scandinavian fortress, the gardens of which were hardly ever frozen, enjoying "all the advantages which any fortunate abode of mortals could demand and obtain from the powers above." 13 But this is manifestly vague, a general picture of balminess and delightfulness, far removed from a specific account of roasting food by subterranean heat, warming garden beds to the forcing point by pipes naturally supplied, and carrying on an extensive commerce from the polar regions by the aid of a tame volcano. Certainly the warm spring of southwestern Greenland is not much more to the point; but neither fortress gardens nor flowing water should be needed to stimulate a lively fancy in creating rather obvious marvels. Nicol6 knew of vol- canoes in Iceland (as well as Italy), may well have surmised their activity in Greenland, and would be only one of many who have amused themselves with speculations as to what might be accomplished by tapping the great reservoir of heat and energy below us. It is not necessary to find a precise earlier parallel, to be sure that there is no corroboration for his tale of ancestral voyages in such fancies. 11 Lucas, p. 74- i