Page:The Life of Lokamanya Tilak.djvu/411

Rh whole surface of the globe. A luxuriant forest vegetation, which can only grow and exist at present in the tropical or temperate clirpate, flourished in the high altitude of Spitzbergen, where the sun goes below the horizon from November till March, thus showing that a warm climate prevailed in the Arctic regions in those days. If, therefore, the Vedic evidence points to an Arctic Home where the ancestors of the Vedic Rishis lived in ancient times, there is nothing in the latest scientific discoveries which would warrant us in considering this result as a priori improbable.

It has been a fashion to speak of the Polar regions as characterised by light and darkness of six months each; but this statement is only roughly true. The Pole is merely a point and all the inhabitants of the original ancient Home, if there was one near the North Pole, could not have lived precisely at this single point. We must, therefore, distinguish between the characterestics of the Polar region and those of the circum-polar region.


 * (1) The Sun rises in the South.
 * (2) The stars do not rise and set; but revolve or spin round and round, in horizontal planes, completing one round in 24 hours.
 * (3) The year consists only of one long day and one long night of six months each.
 * (4) There is only one morning and one evening. But the twilight, whether of the morning or of the evening, lasts continuously for about two months. The ruddy light of the morn or the evening twilight moves round and round along the horizon, like a potter's wheel.