341 



III. 



CURRENTS OF THE OCEAN. 



Upon a review of many observations on cur- 

 rents in the higher latitudes, which have been 

 publicly recorded, it is quite evident that there 

 prevails, throughout the summer at least, a flow 

 of the waters to the south-westward. We have, 

 in the first place, presumptive evidence of this 

 from the western coasts of all the lands within 

 the Arctic Circle being navigable to their north- 

 ern limits ; whilst the eastern coasts are so 

 encumbered with ice drifted upon them, that 

 they are almost unapproachable. Whether we 

 turn our attention to Nova Zembla, Spitzbergen, 

 Greenland, or Behring's Strait, the same result 

 is obtained. But we have other proof of this 

 still more conclusive : ships, which have been 

 beset in the ice between Spitzbergen and Green- 

 land, have been found to drift in a S.W. and 

 S.W. by S. directions, at the rates of one hun- 

 dred and eighty-two miles in thirteen days ; one 

 hundred and twenty miles in nine days ; four 

 hundred and twenty miles in fifty days; and 

 one thousand three hundred miles in one hun- 

 dred and eight clays ; or, at an average rate of 



