1818. BUCHAN, PARJIY, AND FRANKLIN. 377 



that presents itself is, whether an uninterrupted 

 communication exists between the Pacific and the 

 Atlantic. The simple fact of a perpetual current 

 setting from the Pacific into Behring's Strait, and 

 a perpetual current down the coasts of Greenland 

 and Labrador into the Atlantic, renders such a 

 communication extremely probable; and it becomes 

 almost certain, Avhen we find the productions 

 of the shores of the Pacific carried to the north- 

 Avard by the first current, and brought down into 

 the Atlantic by the second. The journals of 

 Cook, Gierke, Glottof, and Kotzebue establish 

 this fact. And as we know, from the Russian, 

 the English and the Dutch navigators, that a 

 westerly current sets along the coast of Siberia 

 and Europe, from the Kovyma to the White Sea, 

 it is probable that the water, in passing through 

 Behring's Strait into the Polar Sea, diverges 

 on each side, and that the other part of it, follow- 

 ing the trending of the American coast, gives rise 

 to the current down the Welcome, as observed by 

 Button, Fox, Middleton and others. 



It must be admitted, at the same time, that 

 although a communication may, and in all proba- 

 bility does, exist between the two oceans, it by 

 no means follows that there niust also be found a 

 navigable passage for large vessels; though it is not 

 unfair to infer that, where large mountains of ice 

 pan float and find their way, a ship may do the 



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