POLAR REGIONS designation for those parts of the globe, within the arctic and antarctic circles, and consequently occupying a space, circumscribed by a circleof 23-1• degrees of latitude around each pole.
The general want of inhabitants, and the deficiency of those products suited for the necessities of human beings, intimate that the polar regions were not de signed for the permanent residence of man. In a few instances, indeed, the flexibility and hardihood of con stitution which enable our species to endure the ex tremes of heat and cold that occur in the torrid and frigid zones, have also been the means of peopling, to a small extent, some of the sterile tracts of the arctic lands. Thus we find those hardy people the Esqui maux, Samoides, Laplanders, Tchutkchi, and a few northern Indians occupying in scattered hordes, the otherwise desolate and Arctic portions of America, Eu rope, and Asia. Many of these people are so far dis tinct in their habits from the rest of the human race, that they live almost entirely upon animal food, and in their subsistence differ only from carnivorous animals in the cooking, or partial cooking, to which their provi sion is subjected before it is made use of. These scat tered tribes, which appear to belong to some branch of the ancient Tartar stock, are confined to the Arctic re gions, or the immediate neighbourhood.
The Antarctic regions, as far as we yet know, and have reason to believe, are entirely destitute of human inhabitants. None of the southern lands, indeed, with in ten degrees of the Antarctic circle, yet discovered, have been found to be peopled. Those extensive tracts the Sandwich Land, and its probable confirmation, South Shetland, do not appear to afford a residence to a single human being ; nor have the whole of the regions within the Antarctic circle, and for the next ten degrees of la titude nearer to the equator, as far as can be ascertained, ever afforded, excepting to a few adventurous fisher men, any produce, wealth, or subsistence to mankind.
With regard to the southern polar regions little how ever is yet known ; the tracks of few navigators have extended to the Antarctic circle, and no land, except two desolate islands, has yet been discovered within it. The Terra Australis of early geographers is either wholly a place of imagination, or securely enveloped, probably beyond the reach of mortals, within the vast and impermeable expanse of the Antarctic ices. Cap tain Cook (until a recent expedition by the Russians, noticed in the appendix) was the only voyager who made any considerable advance within the southern frigid zone ; thrice he penetrated its limit, but observed no object of any interest, excepting the prodigious fields and islands of ice by which his further progress was prevented. He first crossed the Antarctic circle on the 17th of Jan. 1773, on the meridian of about 40° east, and advanced into the southern frigid zone, which had hitherto remained impenetrable to all navigators. He again accomplished a similar advance towards the pole on the 20th of Dec. following, in longitude 147° 30' west, when the sun at midnight was for the first time exhibited to human observation within the southern Hemisphere. And on the 30th of January, 1774, he at tained the latitude of 71° 10' 30" south, being the near est approach to the southern pole ever effected.
Our information respecting the Antarctic regions is so entirely destitute of interest, and is at the same time so extremely limited, that we shall take a hasty leave of them, and confine ourselves chiefly to a view of the North Polar regions, respecting which we have much more ample information. Curiosity and self•interest, the two fruitful stimuli to investigation and research, have, we believe, been the occasion of almost all those great geographical discoveries which have not been merely accidental. To the influence of one or both of these motives, the whole of the discoveries made within the Arctic circle may be safely attributed.