A FROZEN SUMMER. 373 



enough to permit navigation. Hence it must go either 

 east or west. To go east is in accordance with the earth's 

 rotation and comphes with theory, while in fact the Res- 

 olute drifted east through Barrow Strait out into Davis 

 Strait. To go west is contrary to hypotheses based on 

 the rotation of the earth and the supposed direction of 

 equatorial currents ; but we have gone N. W. by the 

 prolonged action and force of S. E. winds. Therefore 

 the wind may overpower the attraction of rotation, and 

 set the ice in this ocean so far to the westward as to 

 bring it within the influence of the Polar current about 

 Spitzbergen, and discharge it thus into the Atlantic. 

 Or we may in time, in accordance with my theory, 

 pass from the region of S. E. winds to a region of 

 N. W. winds, when, from their prevalence, they have 

 generated an easterly set, which, encouraged as it were 

 and accelerated by the motion of rotation above re- 

 ferred to, may carry the ice to the eastward through 

 the Archipelago, and cause it to mingle with the Polar 

 current known to be setting south through Smith 

 Soun<l and Davis Strait, and so on to the Atlantic. As 

 to there being any warm current reaching to a high 

 latitude, I very much doubt. We have found none ; 

 and I am inclined to agree with Lieutenant Weyprecht 

 when he says, " The Gulf Stream does not regulate the 

 limits of the ice, but the ice, set in motion by winds, 

 regulates the limits of the warmer Gulf Stream water, 

 depriving the same of the last degrees of heat which it 

 contains ; " and I pronounce a thermometric gate-way 

 to the Pole a delusion and a snare. Of course if any 

 warm current came through Behring Strait it would be 

 the Kuro Siwo, and our sea temperatures indicated no 

 such fact. 



June Uh, Friday. — A very unpleasant report was 



