252 ANNUAL RECORD OF SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY. 



we shall find that the error of a line of levels running from 

 St. Louis to Denver, or New York to Cheyenne, amounts to 

 many feet. Astron. Nach,,i,xxxiv.,l. 



THE ARCTIC CONTINENT AND POLAR SEA. 



Nature gives the following summary of a paper by Dr. 

 Joseph Chavanne, of Vienna, on "The Arctic Continent and 

 Polar Sea," as published in Petermann's Mittheilungen for 

 July 7 : 1. The long axis of the arctic land-mass (which prob- 

 ably consists of an island archipelago separated by narrow 

 arms of the sea, perhaps only fiords) crosses the mathemat- 

 ical pole; it thus bends round Greenland, north of Shannon 

 Island, not toward the northwest, but runs across to 82 or 

 83 N. lat. in a northerly direction, proceeding thence toward 

 N.N.E. or N.E. 2. The coast of this arctic continent is 

 consequently to be found between 25 and 170 E. long, in 

 a mean N. lat. of 84 and 85, the west coast between 90 

 and 170 W. long, in a latitude from 86 to 80. 3. Robeson 

 Channel, which widens suddenly north of 82 16' N. lat., still 

 widening, bends sharply in 84 N". lat. to the west; Smith 

 Sound, therefore, is freely and continuously connected with 

 Behring Strait. Griunell Land is an island which probably 

 extends to 95 W. long., south of which the Parry Islands fill 

 up the sea west of Jones's Sound. 4. The sea between the 

 coast of the arctic polar land and the north coast of America 

 is traversed by an arm of the warm drift current of the Kuro 

 Si wo, which pierces Behring Strait, and thus at certain times 

 and in certain places is free of ice, allowing the warm cur- 

 rent to reach Smith Sound. 5. The Gulf Stream, gliding be- 

 tween Bear Island and Novaya Zemlya to the northeast, 

 washes the north coast of the Asiatic continent, and is united 

 east of the New Siberia Islands with the west arm of the 

 drift current of the Kuro Siwo. On the other hand, the arm 

 of the Gulf Stream which proceeds from the west coast of 

 Spitzbergen to the north, dips, north of the Seven Islands, 

 under the polar current, comes again to the surface in a 

 higher latitude, and washes the coast of the arctic polar land, 

 the climate of which, therefore, is under the influence of a 

 temporarily open polar sea; hence both the formation of 

 perpetual ice, as well as excessive extreme of cold, is mani- 

 festly impossible. 6. The mean elevation of the polar land 



