ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 227 



to the north, and a clean passage through the ice-belt to the open 

 polar sea. M. Pavy brought forward numerous illustrations and 

 reports of previous navigators to prove the existence of this open 

 polar sea beyond the belt of ice surrounding it, and maintained 

 that the Gulf stream sank, at a certain latitude, where it met the 

 ice-bearing current from the north, and reappeared on reaching the 

 polar basin ; having retained its heat and become of less specific 

 gravity than the water around the basin. M. Pavy then traced 

 on the chart the course he intended to pursue. After passing 

 Behring. strait, he would take a direction northwest, reaching 

 Wrangell land, north of the coast of Siberia. This land he be- 

 lieved to be a continent, stretching toward the pole as high as lati- 

 tude 80 deg. or 81 deg., and thence far to the eastward ; on the 

 northern shores of this land he expected to find a much milder 

 climate. The branch of the great Japan warm stream that flows 

 through Behring strait, and thence changed its course to the north- 

 westward and swept around the Wrangell continent, whirling east- 

 ward into the polar basin, where it met the waters of the Gulf 

 stream, and overcoming them, swept through the channels into 

 Baffin's Bay, and through the channels east and west of Spitzber- 

 sren, and along the shores of Nova Zembla. 



Qe claimed that the woods of Siberia were carried by this 

 stream to the northern shores of the above islands ; and that 

 woods of Kamschatka, and even from Japan, had been borne by it 

 and discovered on Spitzbergen and the western shore of Green- 

 land. He claimed that the Bowhead whale sought the open polar 

 sea for its warmer waters and breeding grounds. In his under- 

 taking he proposed to reach Wrangell land by the first of Septem- 

 ber ; from that time until May, 1873, he would cross Wrangell 

 land, northward, by dogs and sledges, to about latitude 80 deg. or 

 81 deg. ; thence to the edge of the ice-belt, and there leaving his 

 dosrs and sled;i;es. launch his india-rubber raft and steer for the 

 pole : that reached, he would return south by way of Smith's 

 sound. 



Prof. Davidson combatted his views of an open polar sea and a 

 polar continent ; contended that the current of Behring strait was 

 not deflected to the westward, as was claimed by M. Pavy, and 

 that from its small volume, as measured by its velocity and cross- 



