SUCCESS MAY BE ATTAINED. 259 



seen by navigators going out. and in latter years seldom 

 b}^ those returning homewards. 



The opportunities, then, which I have had of observing 

 the actual state of the Arctic seas, have produced on my 

 mind a conviction that it is practicable for ships to find a 

 passage from the Atlantic into the Pacific Ocean, by the 

 shores of North America, and that that passage is to be 

 effected above the seventy-fourth degree of north latitude. 

 The various appearances of the ice found in those seas, and 

 the effects produced from congelation, are of eminent im- 

 portance in the consideration of the present subject, as all 

 the discoveries hitherto made in the frozen regions have 

 terminated with the ice. 



In Cooke's voyages it appears, that the state of the ice 

 forbade an approach to the North Pole much above 

 Behring's Strait. To this point, I wish to apply a few 

 observations. Open sea is always favourable to the solution 

 of ice, from the great agitation of the surface, ice being 

 invariably formed in a state of rest. In support of this the 

 reader is requested to refer to a fact stated in that part of 

 the observations which regarded ice formation : — whenever 

 the ship came within an extent of recent congelation a 

 calm ensued. That such could not be accidental, was 

 evident from its invariable recurrence in similar circum- 

 stances, and that too when the presence of land was so 

 remote as not to aid in producing any change of wind. It 



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