6 ACCOUNT OF THE ARCTIC REGIONS. 



thus found to follow the same line of direction, in- 

 dicates a communication hctween the two, across the 

 Poles ; and the inexhaujstible supply of ice, affording 

 about 15,000 square leagues to be annually dissolv- 

 ed, above the quantity generated in the known parts 

 of the Spitzbergen seas, supports the same conclu- 

 sion. 



3. The origin of the considerable quantity of 

 drift wood, found in almost every part of the Green- 

 land sea, is traced to some country beyond the Pole, 

 and may be brought forward in aid of the opinion of 

 the existence of a sea communication between the 

 Atlantic and Pacific ; which argument receives ad- 

 ditional strength from the circumstance of some of 

 the drift-wood being worm-eaten. Thislast fact, I first 

 observed on the shores of the Island of Jan May en, 

 where I landed in August 1817, and confirmed it 

 by more particular observation, when at Spitzbergen 

 the year following. Having no axe with me when 

 I observed the worm-eaten wood, and having no 

 means of bringing it away, I could not ascertain 

 whether the holes observed in the timber, were the 

 work of a Ptinus or a Pholas. In either case, how- 

 ever, as it is not known that these animals ever 

 pierce wood in the arctic countries, it is presumed 

 that the worm-eaten drift-wood is derived from a 

 trans-polar region. 



Numerous facts of this nature might be adduced, 

 .all of which support the same conclusion. In the 



