348 METEOROLOGY. 



at some of the evidences on both sides, without discussing further a 

 subject from which the veil of uncertainty is not yet entirely removed. 



" Uf this I conceive we may be assured," i-ays Scoresby, Vol. I, p. 

 46, "that the opinion of an ojien sea around the Pole is altogether 

 chimerical. We must allow, indeed, that when the atmosphere is 

 free from clouds, tbe influence of the eun, notwithstanding its 

 obliquity, is, on the surface of the earth or sea, about the time of 

 the summer solstice, greater at tlje Pole, by nearly one-fourth part, 

 than at the equator. (See Section IV. The value was first de- 

 termined by Halley, Phil. Trans , 1693.) Hence it is urged that thig 

 extraordinary power of the sun destroys all the ice generated in the 

 winter season, and renders the temperature of the Pole warmer and 

 more congenial to the feelings than it is in some places lying near the 

 equator. Now, it must be allowed, from the same principle, that the 

 influence in the parallel of 78°, where it is computed in the same way 

 to be only about one forty-fifth part less than what it is at the Pole, 

 must also be considerably greater than at the equator. But, from 

 twelve years' observations on the temperature of the icy regions, I 

 have determined the mean annual temperature in latitude 78° to be 

 16° or 17° P., [that is about fifteen degrees below freezing point] ; 

 how, then, can the temperature of the Pole be expected to be so very 

 difi'crent?" 



After some further argument, the author remarks in a note : ' ' Should 

 there be, land near the pole, portions of open water, or perhaps even 

 considerable seas might be produced by the action of the current 

 sweeping away the ice from one side almost as fast as it could be formed. 

 But the existence of land only, I imagine, can encourage an expecta- 

 tion of any of the sea northward of Spitzbergen being annually free 

 from ice." 



On the other hand, the following indications in favor of an open sea, 

 are derived from a recent article upon Arctic Researches, announcing 

 that " the existence of the long suspected unfrozen Polar Sea has been 

 ail-but proved." 



First, it was found that the average annual temperature about the 

 80th parallel, was higher by several degrees, than that recorded far- 

 ther south. At the island of Spitzbergen, for example, under the 

 80th parallel, the deer propagate, and on the northern coast the sea is 

 quite open for a considerable time every year. But at Nova Zembla, five 

 degrees further south, the sea is locked in perpetual ice, and the deer 

 are rarely, if ever seen on its coast. This has led physical geographers 

 to suppose that the milder temperature of Spitzbergen must be attrib- 

 utable to the well known influence of proximity to a large body of 

 water ; while the contiguity of Nova Zembla to the continent was 

 thought to account for the severity of its climate. 



Secondly, Captain Parry reached Spitzbergen in May, 1827; from 

 thence he went northward two hundred and ninety-two miles in thirty- 

 five days, during which it rained almost all the time. The ice being 

 much broken, and the current setting toward the south, he could not 

 make way against it, and was comj)elled to return, which the current 

 greatly lacilitated. Besides the current here noticed by Parry, others 

 had been determined before, and more have been ascertained since ; 



