236 APPENDIX TO CASE OF GREAT BRITAIN. 



cascade from a precipitous height, is converted into a sheet of ice in 

 the course of some severe winter; if such a sheet be not entirely melted 

 in the short summer which follows, its volume will necessarily be 

 increased in the ensuing winter, and thus the projection of the prom- 

 ontory, from year to year, will swell till the immense mass, by its own 

 weight, and probably undermined by the constant dashing of the waves, 

 breaks oft, and is tioated into the ocean. The thin stratum of soil 

 which, in the present instance, covered the upper surface of the iceberg- 

 might have been carried upon it by the spreading of the original rill, 

 which, if there be any truth in the miserable print annexed, is seen to 

 trickle down the face of the ice in numerous little streamlets, proceed- 

 ing from under the soil on the top, and which, when united at the base, 

 form a very pretty river, with trees on its banks. 



All our northern navigators affirm that stones, moss, and earth have 

 been observed on the tloating icebergs of Davis' Strait and Baffin's 

 Bay. In like manner may the mammoth's teeth have been carried down 

 by the ui:>per stream and inclosed within the ice. Chandsso, however, 

 does not say that these grinders and tusk (which more resemble those 

 of the present race of elephants than such as are usually supposed to 

 belong to the mammoth) were found within the ice, but near the ground 

 ice on the point of land where they had bivouacked, adding that "fossil 

 ivory is found here as in JS'orthern Asia." How the remains of these 

 huge animals came into these high latitudes we leave the geologists to 

 settle. 



On quitting this inlet, to which was properly given the name of 

 Kotezbue's Sound (which they did on the loth August), we naturally 

 expected that, with a fine open sea, without the least appearance of ice 

 on the water or snow on the land, and with the thermometer from 8 to 

 12 degrees of Eeaumur (50 to 59 degrees of Fahrenheit), the "Eurick" 

 would have directed her course to the northward, as far at least as Icy 

 Cape, to which a couple of days would have carried her, instead of 

 which she stood directly across for the Asiatic coast, "because," says 

 Kotzebue, "I wished to become acquainted with its inhabitants, and to 

 compare them with the Americans." This comparison had long before 

 been nuxde, and was certainly no object of the present voyage. Here 

 were no discoveries to be made. He stood, however, over to East Cape, 

 and having passed the remainder of the month of August among the 

 Tchukutskoi, made the best of his way to Ounalaska. 



We cannot lielp thinking that the Lieutenant committed a great error 

 in judgment by spending a fortnight of the most favourable part of 

 the season for making discoveries in these latitudes in Kotzebue's 

 Sound. Had appearances been even more favoural)le than they were 

 for a communication between this inlet and the Polar Sea, an enterpris- 

 ing navigator would have pushed forward, without a moment's loss 

 of time, along the shore to the extreme north, as the ascertaining of this 

 point, and the trending of the coast to the eastward, were the grand 

 objects of the expedition, the postponing of which to another year, 

 for the i)rosecution of one of minor importance (which might still have 

 been examined before the winter set in), was, to say the least of 

 20 it, imprudent. Besides, why did he not winter in Kotzebne's 

 Sound, since it was found to be so perfectly safe, and so much 

 superior to Norton Sound, from which he was instructed to proceed on 

 his discovery the following year? And how are the instructions for 

 wintering in Norton Sound consistent with those which, he afterwards 

 tells us, directed him "to pass the winter months in the neighbour- 

 hood of the imperfectly known Coral Islands, to make discoveries 



