GEOGRAPHY AND ANTIQUITIES. 393 



save seals, could be procured, whence birds so numerous in summer 

 would migrate during the long season of darkness and cold ; and that 

 under such untoward conditions, their energies possibly paralyzed by 

 disease, we could scarcely suppose that even the most hardy of the 

 brave men could have struggled on for any length of time. 



The Isabel screw steamer, of 140 tons, returned in November from 

 an Arctic voyage of exploration. This vessel was fitted out by Lady 

 Franklin, with some private assistance, and penetrated further north 

 by 100 miles in Baffin's Bay than any one has reached before. By 

 this voyage, Whale Sound was pretty clearly ascertained to be an en- 

 trance into the Polar Sea, and the commander of the Isabel believes 

 he actually entered the great Basin, and was checked in his course 

 towards B'ehring's Straits by continued heavy gales, which drove him 

 back into Whale Sound. This Sound lies in the northeast part of 

 Baffin's Bay. 



In reviewing the late polar researches, remarks Sir. E,. I. Murchi- 

 son, in a late address before the Geographical Society of England, it 

 is singular, that the great sea between Spitzbergen and Nova Zembla, 

 by far the widest, indeed the only oceanic opening towards the 

 North Pole, should in this century have been comparatively so much 

 neglected, and that nearly all recent efforts should have been accumu- 

 lated upon the north shores of America, where every succeeding 

 year has brought with it discoveries, not of open sea, but of numerous 

 masses of land separated from each other by comparatively narrow 

 channels of water. Mr. Peterman, an eminent physical geographer, 

 has shown that, whether we look to the ascertained outlines of the 

 land, the range of the isothermal lines in certain longitudes, the 

 results of the annual summer debacles, issuing from the mouths of the 

 gigantic rivers of Siberia, or to the great predominance of water, and 

 with it a milder climate, it is to be infered that, if a steam vessel were 

 to be steered, during the winter or spring months, directly north-east 

 from the British Isles, she might pass into polar seas in a fortnight, or 

 little more, without encountering any serious obstacle, and thus be 

 soon in a position which other ships have been struggling to reach 

 through -defiles of land-locked water, encumbered with ice. This 

 ingenious hypothesis seems to rest on some good preliminary data ; 

 for at Bear Island, beyond Icy Cape, in the high latitude of 74, 30', 

 great mildness of climate was experienced by some seamen who 

 passed the winter of 1823-4 in this locality; they encountered no 

 severe cold, nor saw either packed or floating ice in the sea. Again, 

 in August, 1827, Capt. Parry proceeded in spite of a powerful 

 counter-current to the most northerly point (N. 82 40') ever reached 

 in our day, and found no bottom to the sea at 500 fathoms depth, no 

 land visible, and little ice with much rain. This modification of cli- 

 mate in so northern a latitude, is doubtless due to the predominance 

 of water over land ; the former tempering cold, the latter, when in 

 great masses, producing it. It is then by the application of this dis- 

 tribution of heat and cold, which resulted in the establishment of the 

 isothermal lines of Humboldt, as well as by attention to the fact of 



