108 SHAFFNER ON COMMUNICATION WITH AMERICA. [May 14, 1860. 



rely solely on experiment. For instance, it had been asserted by the most emi- 

 nent navigators that at Point Venus, Tahiti, it was invariably high water at 

 noon. Close observations for six weeks proved this to be utterly untrue, for 

 the tide ranged from 9*30 a.m. to 2*30 p.m. ; and in the present case he entirely 

 disagreed with the impression that ice was so prevalent on the eastern coast of 

 Greenland. The Arctic expedition, which left the Orkneys in the month of 

 May, 1852, never met with an iceberg until it nearly sighted Cape Farewell ; 

 and Captain Allen Young, when in a Greenland port, seeing the ice moving at 

 what was considered to be a rapid rate, measured the rate of progression with a 

 theodolite, and found it was about one mile in twenty-four hours. Another 

 traveller (Scoresby, I think), who went all along that coast, stated in conversa- 

 tion at the meeting of the British Association at Swansea that, " when one of 

 these bergs calved or split off from the land, it went down absolutely under 

 water, then rose and floated off :" consequently there was good reason to calcu- 

 late on deep water there, and a cable could be run up to the side of a precipice 

 at a depth where it would be safe from icebergs, and then carried over or along 

 the base of the precipice. On the banks of Newfoundland he measured a pin- 

 nacle iceberg, and it was found to be 150 feet high ; in a short time it turned 

 over, and was then not more than 80 feet above water. Icebergs were very 

 different from floe ice. Floe ice seldom exceeded three or four feet in thickness 

 in the floes they docked in during their progress in Davis Strait : it was salt- 

 water ice, and was about eleven-twelfths immersed. The iceberg is a fresh- 

 water formation, and derives its formation from the thawing snow trickling over 

 the side of a mountain. This gradually freezes until the accumulated mass 

 becomes too heavy to be retained by cohesion ; it then, as it is termed, " calves " 

 or breaks off and falls into the sea. It was generally supposed to be nine-tenths 

 immersed, by authorities who vary considerably. It has been stated that some- 

 where about the mouth of Davis Strait, on the Labrador shore, a barrier 

 existed, upon which icebergs ground, and thus deflect the drift of the pack off 

 the land of Labrador, and after passing about 200 miles w^esterly of the straits 

 of Belleisle, they again turn in about St. John, Newfoundland, which harbour 

 they frequently blocked. Government, he thought, ought to examine into this 

 question relative to deep sea soundings or banks adapted for fishing, &c. We 

 want the facts as to the true nature of the bottom determined before any attempt 

 was made to lay a cable. 



Colonel Shaffner said he had the evidence of the Government of Iceland 

 that ice did not exist there. The question of terrestrial magnetism was deserving 

 of investigation. With regard to the alleged log which Mr. Stuart Wortley had 

 mentioned, he had in his own possession the entire log made by the first mate, 

 and it certainly contained no information as to the vessel having been beset 

 with ice. 



Mr. Aldermak Hopkins said it seemed to be assumed by one gentleman 

 that he proposed to attempt the passage to the North Pole in the winter. He 

 certainly had no such intention, and he did not think his language bore that 

 construction. He alluded to the state of things in the winter merely to show 

 that there were some extraordinary causes in operation at that season of the 

 year ; but he then went on to show that in the summer circumstances were of 

 such a character as to afford a reasonable expectation that with proper means 

 the attempt to reach the Pole might be made with success. 



The President congratulated the meeting upon the interesting character of 

 the discussion, and expressed a confident hope that much geographical know- 

 ledge and advantage w^orM be derived from a farther investigation of both the 

 questions which had been brought forward. As Mr. AVortley had ventured to 

 touch upon politics, perhaps the meeting would permit him to say that they 

 were very much obliged to the Danish Government for encouraging an enter- 

 prise of this description, and that, if it were carried Out, it would tend to cement 

 the friendly intercourse and union which existed between the two countries. 



