Feb. 11, 1856.] PQLAR BASIN. 29 



to be of the same character as that at the margin, that is to say, of a cha- 

 racter which had resisted every efi'ort to penetrate it. There was no sign 

 whatever of its terminating : it seemed immeasurably spread, and might have 

 extended to the Pole. 



Mr. White admits that there is a barrier of ice to the N.W. of Spitzbergen, 

 but, he says, no such barrier exists on the Nova Zembla side of that island. 



A similar assertion to this has been made more than once in the rooms of 

 this Society, but I am sure it has been done without consideration of what has 

 been recordetl by various navigators who have attempted to penetrate the sea 

 in that direction. 



Extracts were then read by the President from Barentz's Journal, by which 

 it was clear that the ice was traced all the way from Cherry Island to Nova 

 Zembla. Hulson, he remarked, was also foiled in this same direction, sO 

 were Wood and Flawes, Bafhii and Fotherley. Lastly, in 1819 and in 1824, 

 Liitke, a distinguished Russian ofiicer, made two successive attempts to 

 proceed in a northern direction, and to get round the north end of Nova 

 Zembla : in both of these he failed, after tracing the ice nearly all the way 

 from Spitzbergen to that island. 



As to Barentz's voyage authorising a belief that there is no ice about Nov«, 

 Zembla, the President read further extracts from the above-mentioned voyage 

 to precisely an opposite effect, and went on to state that between Nova Zembla 

 auvd Cape Taimena lies the sea of Kara, which no person has been able to 

 navigate excejit towards the Waigatz, where the strong tides break up the ice. 

 The difficulty of passing Cape Taimena is given by Baron Wrangell. To the 

 eastward of Cape Taimena we have numerous attempts to navigate both east 

 and west from the Lena and Kolyma, in Miiller, every one of which failed by 

 reason of insurmountable impediments from ice. 



Since these voyages were attempted. Baron Wrangell and Lieutenant Anjou 

 have visited the coast about Siberia, and the Baron has successfully accom- 

 plished a journey from the Lena to Kamschatka. 



Li these voyages the sea is stated to have been free from ice to the north^ 

 but it is to be observed that the shore from which these reiparks were made 

 was scarcely above the water. The utmost extent of the horizon of the 

 observer could not have been more than ten miles ; so that we are not surprised 

 to liear that a few miles beyond Wrangell's sphere of vision the ' Vincennes,' 

 only last year, found a wall of impenetrable ioe. Such statements are but 

 proof of the imprudence of drawing such wide conclusions from so narrow a 

 field of observation. It may be that the great, rivers near this part of the coast 

 kept the ice off the shore ; but that it was not far off the shore may be inferred 

 from the very thin ice which fringed the north shore of Siberia. Had there 

 been any considerable space of clear water, the sea that would have arisen 

 would have annihilated such ice. It appears that when the wind blew from 

 the west, the Polar ice set down upon these islands, visited by Lieutenant 

 Anjou, and that the officer assisting him could not get round the land in that 

 direction. These occasional openings only show that the ice, yielding to an 

 enormous pressure of gales at sea, ocxjasionally moves off to a short distance 

 from the shore ; whilst the return of the ice to the shore, on the cessation of 

 the wind, effectually proves that the sea is covered with a mass, which yields 

 to the prevailing pressure of. the elements. From these remarkable facts, and 

 indeed from all the Polar voyages, the only rational conclusion is, that near the 

 land there are occasionally large sjjaces of open water, which, whenever they 

 may be followed up, will be fomid to terminate in ice, and to arrest the progress 

 of a vessel. 



How dangerous it is to found an argument from appearances limited to the 

 narrow sphere commanded even by a mast-head view, may be gathered from the 

 many contradictions which have of late been given to the most promising appear- 



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