वेदों की प्राचीनता एवं काल-निर्णय / ओरायन (लोकमान्य बाल गंगाधर तिलक - खगोलीय वैदिक शोध)

THE ARCTIC REGIONS. · 49 deduct these days from the duration of the night, the period of darkness is reduced from six to two, or at the most, to two-and- half-months. It is, therefore, erroneous to suppose that the half yearly Polar night is such a continuous period of darkness as will make the Polar regions uncomfortable. On the contrary, it will be the peculiar privilege of the Polar man to witness the splendid spectacle of a long continuous dawn with its charming lights, revolving, like the stars at the place, every day in hori- zontal planes, round and round him, as long as the dawn may last. The dawn in the the tropical or the temperate zone is but brief and evanescent, and it recurs after every 24 hours. But still it has formed the subject of poetical descriptions in different countries. If so, how much more the spectacle of a splendid long dawn, after a darkness of two months, would delight the heart of a Polar observer, and how he will yearn for the first appearance of the light on the horizon, can be better imagined than described. I quote the following description of this long Polar dawn from Dr. Warren's Paradise Found, and invite special attention to it, inasmuch as it forms one of the princi- pal characteristics of the North Pole. Premising that the splen- dours of the Polar dawn are indescribable, Dr. Warren pro- ceeds :— “First of all appears low in the horizon of the night-sky a scarcely visible-flush of light. At first it only makes a few stars' light seem a trifle fainter, but after a little it is seen to be increasing, and to be moving laterally along the yet dark hori- zon. Twenty-four hours later it has made a complete circuit around the observer, and is causing a larger number of stars to pale. Soon the widening light glows with the lustre of 'Orient pearl.' Onward it moves in its stately rounds, until the pearly 7