422 PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY 



dwell upon the vast importance of the observations which may there 

 be collected, upon the magnetism, meteorology, natural history, and 

 general physics of the globe. 



The ditficulties which will be encountered are far less than those 

 which have attended Arctic exploration in former years. The expe- 

 rience of the English and American explorers during the last twelve 

 years, while prosecuting the search for Sir John Franklin, has reduced 

 Arctic travel almost to a science. The dogs are a powerful auxiliary, 

 and, by using them almost wholly for draught, I shall be obliged to 

 take only a small number of men. The ice which embarrassed Dr. 

 Kane is readily avoided by avoiding the crossing of Smith Strait. 

 The cold is no longer an obstacle to successful travel. The scurvy, 

 hitherto a great scourge to crews of vessels wintering in the Arctic 

 Seas, is now readily resisted, by the abundant use of such food as can 

 now be readily obtained and preserved quite fresh. From this disease 

 and from all other causes combined, the mortality on board of the ves- 

 sels which have gone in search of Franklin, during the past twelve 

 years, has been less than three per cent of the whole number of per- 

 sons engaged. 



In concluding, Dr. Hayes thanked the Academy for the 

 courteous hearing which they had given him. 



Professor Agassiz expressed himself warmly in favor of the 

 enterprise. It would, if successful, bring to us data which 

 were much needed in almost every department of science. 

 Everything seemed to indicate the existence of an open Polar 

 Sea. The Gulf Stream flowing northward beyond Spitz- 

 bergen would carry warm water into the Arctic Basin, and 

 there was every reason to suppose that the bed of the ocean 

 was much depressed in the region of the Pole, and that the 

 existence of land in that quarter was counter-indicated. If 

 there is no land there, it is not probable that there is much 

 ice. In support of his view, that at the centre of the Arctic 

 Ocean the water is very deep. Professor Agassiz called the 

 attention of the Academy to the fact, that the lands invest- 

 ing it are found to descend rapidly from the crests of the 

 great mountain ridges of the northern hemisphere, in both its 

 eastern and western divisions. 



