154 ON THE EFFECTING OF 



the Atlantic may suit the usual opening of the ice ; whereas 

 those " expedited " for the Spitzbergen sea are detained 

 nearly a month later. Besides, those who would be 

 directed by such an advice ought to be aware that no such 

 thing as a temporary fresh exists in the northern seas. 

 The current is. steadily and uniformly southward ; and the 

 great expanse of those waters gives such room for the diffusion 

 of ice reduced to its liquid origin, and the accession of the 

 streams issuing from the numerous fiords and rivers, that 

 such a fresh is never experienced. The sage solution of 

 St. Pierre, with regard to the supply of material for the 

 daily rise of the tide, is less reprehensible, but equally spe- 

 culative. The delightful novelist just mentioned, sitting 

 in his closet, remarked the influence of the sun as differing 

 very materially during the day and night. The force of 

 imagination made him conclude that from the unknown 

 seas around the north pole, a diurnal supply could be 

 derived from the action of the sun upon the ice. In con- 

 vincing himself that the sun's rays actually dissolve ice, and 

 that the light and influence of that globe is communicated 

 to our earth once every twenty-four hours, the succession 

 of the ebb and flow twice in that period became evident. 

 The tides as experienced, hoAvever, in more southern lati- 

 tudes should be, from such cause, only two every year, or, 

 at least, there should be a very remarkable increase only 

 when the solution of polar ice is complete, which should be 



