188 ACCOUNT OF THE ARCTIC HEGIONS. 



After these experiments were made, I applied 

 a wire-gauze across the upper valve of the marine- 

 diver, and thus converted it into a trap for insects 

 and small fishes ; so that, whatever animals might 

 enter by the lower valve, in its descent, were ex- 

 pected to be brought up along with the water in 

 the instrument. In an experiment, however, on 

 the specific gravity, temperature, and effects of 

 pressure of the sea, at the depth of 7200 feet, the 

 greatest depth, I believe, ever sounded, which I at- 

 tempted to make on the 28th June 1817, one of* 

 the lines broke, and the whole apparatus was lost. 

 This unlucky accident was occasioned by the thick- 

 est, and apparently the strongest, line of the whole 

 series in use, having been rotted by receiving acci- 

 dental moisture. 



The depth of the Greenland Sea corresponds, in 

 a considerable degree, both in irregularity and quan- 

 tity, with the height of the Arctic lands. But the 

 generally received opinion, that where a coast is 

 mountainous or precipitous, the sea which washes 

 it is deep ; and where the land is low, the sea is 

 shallow, does not hold in every place about Spitz- 

 bergen. Near all the headlands, stretching to- 

 wards the south, inoe -d, where the land is usually 

 terminated by a flat strand, the sea is shallow to a 

 considerable distance, agreeably to the general prin- 

 ciple ; and a few miles off shore, in the neighbour- 

 hood of the mountainous parts of the coast, the sea 



