TRANS-POLAR PASSAGE. 49 



of land, is essential for its formation. Can it then 

 be supposed, that at the Pole, where the mean an- 

 nual temperature is probably as low as 10"*, that 

 the sea is not full of ice ? And as the quantity of 

 ice dissolved every summer near Spitzbergen, by 

 the action of the sun only, is very small when com- 

 pared with the quantity that is there generated, — 

 can it be imagined, that the whole quantity gene- 

 rated at the Pole during the year should be dis- 

 solved by the power of the sun in the course of 

 two or three summer months ? Were the mean 

 temperature of the Pole, indeed, above the freezing 

 point of sea-water, that is, as high as 31° or 32°, as it 

 is usually estimated, and the mean heat of latitude 

 78° as high as 33° or 34°, then the circumpolar seas 

 would have a chance of being free from ice ; but 

 while the temperature of the former can be shown 

 to be about 18°, and the latter 11° below the free- 

 zing temperature of the sea, we can have no rea- 

 sonable ground, I conceive, for doubting the con- 

 tinual presence of ice in all the regions immediate- 

 ly surrounding the Pole f . 



VOL. I. D 



* See Appendix, No. II. 



+ Should there be land near the Pole, portions of open 

 water, or perhaps even considerable seas, might be produ- 

 ced by the action of the current sweeping away the ice from 

 one side of it almost as fast as it could be formed j and vacan* 



