METEOROLOGY. 349 



80 that powerful currents of the Arctic Ocean southward, may he con- 

 giderecl as estahlished. 



Thirdly, in 1852, Captain Englefield, while making his summer 

 jearch for Sir John Franklin, in the northeast of Baffin's Bay, beheld 

 with surprise " two wide openings to the eastward into a clear and 

 unincumbered sea ^ with a distinct and unbroken horizon, which, beau- 

 tifully defined by the rays of the sun, showed no signs of land, save 

 one island." Further on he remarks, " the changed appearance of 

 the land to the northward of Cape Alexander was very remarkable. 

 South of this cape, nothing but snow-capped hills and cliffs met the 

 eye ; but to the northward an agreeable change seemed to have been 

 worked by an invisible agency — here the rocks were of their natural 

 black or reddish-brown color ; and the enow which had clad with 

 heavy flakes the more southern shore had only partially dappled them 

 in this higher region, while t\\e western shore was gilt with a belt of 

 ice twelve miles broad, and clad with perpetual snows." 



To these may be added the discovery of the southern boundary of 

 an open polar sea, in the expedition from which Dr. Kane has just 

 returned, October, 1855. "There are facts," observes this distinguished 

 explorer, " to show the necessity and certainty of a vast inland sea at 

 the North. There must be some vast receptacle for the drainage of 

 the polar regions and the great Siberian rivers. To prove that water 

 must actually exist, we have only to observe the icebergs. These float- 

 ing masses cannot be formed without terra firma, and it is a remark- 

 able fact that, out of 860°, in only 30° are icebergs to be found, show- 

 ing that land cannot exist in a considerable portion of the country. 

 Again, Baffin's Bay was long thought to be a close bay, but it is now 

 known to be connected with the Artie sea. Within the bay, and cov- 

 ering an area of ninety-thousand square miles, there is an open sea 

 from June to October. We find here a vacant space with water at 40° 

 temperature — eight degrees higher than freezing point." 



The last narrative of Dr. Kane has since been published, in which 

 the view is described of the open Polar sea in the month of June, and 

 the opinion is advanced that its higher temperature arises from a con- 

 tinuation of the Gulf stream to that most remote locality. More 

 recently, the observations of Commodore Rogers, in the United States 

 ahip Vincennes, who passed through Behring's Straits in the summer 

 of 1855 ; " and his observations show uniformly this arrangement or 

 stratification in the fluid mass of the Arctic ocean — warm and light 

 water on top, cold water in the middle, and warm and heavy water at 

 the bottom. This substratum of heavy water was probably within the 

 tropics, and at the surface when it received its warmth. Water, we 

 know, is transported to great distances by the under currents of the 

 sea without changing its temperature but a few degrees on the way. 

 Beneath the Gulf stream, near the Tro})ic of Cancer, with the surface 

 of the ocean above 80°, the deep-sea thermometer of the Coast Survey 

 reports a current of cold water only 3° above the freezing point. We 

 know of numenms currents flowing out of the Polar basin and dis- 

 charging immense volumes of water into the Atlantic; we know of 

 but one surface current, and tliat a feeble one, around the North Cape, 

 that goes into this basin. Hence, we should conclude that there must 



