173 STUDIES OF NATURE. 



return to it, by the adion of the Sun, which partly 

 melts them once every year j and a great diminu- 

 tion, on being withdrawn, by the efFedt of the 

 evaporations, which reduce them to ice at the 

 Poles, when the Sun retires. 



I proceed to lay before the Reader, fome ob- 

 fervations and refleflions on this fubjedl, which I 

 have the confidence to call highly interefting ; and 

 Ihall fubmit the decifion to thofe who have not 

 got into the trammels of fyftem and party. I fhall 

 endeavour to abridge them to the utmoft of my 

 power, and flatter myfelf with the hope of forgive- 

 nefs, at leaft, in confideration of their novelty. I 

 am going to deduce, merely from the alternate dif- 

 folution of the polar ices, the general movements 

 of the Seas, which have hitherto been afcribed to 

 gravitation, or to the attradion of the Sun, and of 

 the Moon, on the Equator. 



It is impoffible to deny, in the firft place, that 

 the Currents and the Tides do not come from the 

 Pole, in the vicinity of the polar Circle. 



Frederic Martens, who, in his voyage to Spitz- 

 bergen, in 1671, advanced as far as to the eighty- 

 flrfl degree of northern Latitude, pofitively aflerts, 

 that the Currents, amid ft the ices, fet in toward 

 the South. He adds, farther, that he can affirm 



nothing 



