196 STUDIES OF NATURE. 



produce Tides; and to the revolutions which 

 Winter and Summer effect on thcfe two move- 

 ments. 



It has been luppofed, indeed, in modern times, 

 that the Sea mud be clear of ice under the Poles, 

 and this is founded on the groundlefs affertion, 

 that the Sea freezes onlv along; the fhore ; but this 

 fuppofition is the creature of men in their clofets, 

 in c on trad i (51 ion to the experience of the mod ce- 

 lebrated Navigators. The efforts of Captain Cooky 

 toward the South Pole, demonftrate it's erroneouf- 

 nefs. That intrepid mariner, in the month of Fe- 

 bruary, the Dog- Days of the Southern Hemifphere, 

 never could approach nearer to that Pole, where 

 there is no land, than the 70th degree of Latitude, 

 that iS', no nearer than five hundred leagues, though 

 he had coafted round it's cupola of ice for a whole 

 Summer -y befides this diftance did not compofe half 

 the magnitude of the cupola, for he was permitted 

 to advance fo far only under favour of a bay, 

 opened in a part of it's circumference, which 

 every where elfe was of much greater extent. 



Thefe bays, or openings, are formed in the ice, 

 merely by the influence of the neareft adjacent 

 lands, where Nature has diftributed fandy zones, 

 to affifi: in accelerating the fufion of the polar ices, 

 at the proper fcaion. Such are, to throw it out 



only 



