Captain Parry's intended Expedition to the North Pole. 89 . 



thern branch of the Gulph Stream, which passes towards Green- 

 land, along the coast of Norway, together with the produce of 

 rivers, and melting ice and snow, replaces what is carried off by 

 the broad stream which flows westward through the Siberian 

 Sea, by the coast of Old Greenland, into the Atlantic, and, by 

 the current which runs southward, through Davis' Straits. 

 Now, if we find that the surface of the sea, in the course of these 

 outflowings, is annually frozen over, surely in circumpolar lati- 

 tude it must be more completely so ; for, in the former, the 

 temperature must be influenced by the water which comes from 

 warmer seas ; whereas the latter is far beyond its reach. Then, 

 if it is the case that there are no currents of importance, either 

 coming from the Pole, or flowing towards it, the whole of this 

 currentless sea, if sea it is, must be covered with immoveable 

 ice. 



The influence of the various agents which every season de- 

 stroy the ice in the accessible regions of the Greenland Seas, is 

 very widely extended ; but far towards the north, it may be so 

 inconsiderable, that the ice may remain solid, thus precluding 

 the possibility of reaching the Pole through a navigable sea. > 



Summer and winter are the only seasons that occur in Green- 

 land. The former possesses none of those charms so congenial 

 to sense in happier climes ; and the latter is clad in tenfold 

 terrors. At the close of the year the frost, which a summer sol- . 

 stice scarce can soften, sets in with terrible violence, and scatters 

 thick the icy particles on the face of the deep, which counteract 

 the efforts of the rudest tempest, smooth down the billows, and 

 prepare a quiet surface for their coalescence. A continued aug- 

 mentation takes place, scale with scale coheres ; mass becomes 

 glued to mass ; and field to field ; till the dark waters of the 

 ocean are buried under an interminable wilderness, stretching 

 from the dark regions of the north far to the south, till arrested 

 by a latitude which, though almost too cold for the habitation of 

 man, is too mild for the formation of these gelid productions. 



The line of arrestment extends from the coast of Labrador, . 

 by Cape Farewell and Iceland, and after retiring to form a deep 

 bay, about the 7° or 8° of eastern longitude, it stretches across 

 to NovaZembla, and is much modified by temperature and pre- 

 vailing winds. 



