arctic (arktik)

[Early mod. E. also artic, artick, etc., I warn the traveller who goes to see the lovely Madonnas of Bellini to beware how he trusts himself in winter to the gusty, arctic magnificence of the Church of the Redentore. Howells, Venetian Life, iii. Arctic circle, a small circle, parallel to the equator, distant from the north pole by an angular quantity equal to the obliquity of the ecliptic, or 23° 28'4. This and the ant arctic circle are called the polar circles, and within these lie the frigid zones, at every point within which the sun, theoretically, on at least one day in summer, pa es through the north point without setting, and on at least one day in winter does not rise; practically, allowance must be made for the semidiameter and horizontal refraction of the sun. - Arctic fox, a small species of fox, Vulpes lagopus, of the family Canidæ, celebrated for the IMG:content-1087.png:[graphic][ocr errors][subsumed] beauty and finene of its fur, which is a valuable article of commerce. It is 2 feet in length, and its tail is 1 foot long. It is bluish or brownish-gray in summer and white in winter. Syn. See polar.