F. GEOGRAPHY. 125 



wanting in the northeastern part of Greenland. 3 (7,1870, 

 1245. 



SCIENTIFIC NOTES FROM CAPTAIN HALL'S EXPEDITION. 



Dr. Bessels, the director of the scientific corps of Captain 

 Hall's steamer Polaris, in a letter addressed to the president 

 of the National Academy of Sciences, dated Godhaven, Au- 

 gust 16, states that he had already made some important ob- 

 servations in regard to the physics of the northern seas, such 

 as a peculiar coloration of the water and an unexpectedly 

 high specific gravity, the maximum of density noticed being 

 1.028. His experiences with his colleagues, Mr. Bryan, the 

 astronomer, and Mr. Meyer, the meteorologist, have been very 

 satisfactory ; the former gentleman having made a number 

 of successful azimuth observations, and the latter approving 

 himself an excellent mathematician and an accomplished ob- 

 server, and an honor to the Signal Service, from which he 

 was detailed for duty with Captain Hall. This information 

 may perhaps serve in some measure to relieve the apprehen- 

 sions expressed by Dr. David Walker, in his Overland Month- 

 ly article on Captain Hall's expedition, in regard to the sci- 

 entific' results of the voyage. Letter from Dr. Hessels, Au- 

 gust 16,1871. 



NORTHWEST PASSAGE MADE BY A WHALE. 



The daily papers have lately referred in brief terms to the 

 recent capture of a whale in the Arctic Ocean with a har- 

 poon imbedded in its flesh that must have been implanted in 

 Davis's Straits. From a Honolulu paper we learn that the 

 whale in question was taken by the ship Cornelius Howland, 

 off Point Barrow, the northernmost cape of Alaska and of 

 the main land of North America. The harpoon was marked 

 " A. G.," referring, as was supposed, to the ship Ansel Gibbs, 

 of New Bedford, which has been engaged for ten or twelve 

 years in the whale fishery at Cumberland Inlet, in Davis's 

 Straits. Cases have before occurred of whales being captured 

 at Cumberland Inlet with harpoons in them that must have 

 been inserted in the Arctic Ocean, but this is said to be the 

 first instance authenticated in which the movement of the 

 whale was in the opposite direction. Although geographical 

 exploration has already proved the existence of a connection 



