94 REPORT — 1853. 



openings, by reason of the compacting of the innumerable pieces, and the squeezing 

 up of the smaller masses upon the larger, or upon each other. 



4. As to the rise of temperature in northerly gales, in winter, observed by several of 

 our arctic navigators in regions westward of Baffin's Bay. — This very partial fact (par- 

 tial as to the region where it has been experienced) has been applied as an argument 

 in favour of the theory of an open Polar Sea, — as if indicating a sea to the north- 

 ward of far greater warmth in winter than that of Regent's Inlet or Barrow's Strait. 

 But, it will be obvious, on the principle of the rotatory character of storms — a fact 

 now generally admitted — that the rise of temperature when the gale was from the 

 north would prove nothing in favour of the theory of a mild climate about the Pole ; 

 for the rise of temperature would be explained on the obvious principle that that 

 portion of the air had recently blown from the reverse direction, and probably had 

 gained its warmth from the open ocean. 



But a rise of temperature might perhaps be urged as a fact belonging to northerly 

 winds generallj', and not limited to the case of storms. If so, the argument, to be 

 worth anything, in favour of a mild climate near the Pole, would require that the 

 fact should be the same in all other meridians of similar latitudes. But the fact is 

 not so. In the meridians of, and proximate to, Spitzbergen, where the sea is 

 navigable farther north than elsewhere, the northerly winds are prevalently colder 

 than the southerly. This fact, as to the months of April, May, and June, his (Dr. 

 Scoresby's) published records of temperature, extending to some seventeen years, 

 decidedly proved. The spring temperature, in the 80th and 81st parallels, he had 

 invariably found was the lowest in northerly gales. Thus, in an extreme case, which 

 is noted in his published journal of 1822, the temperature, April 29th, latitude 

 80° 30', which, with a southerly gale, was at 32°, fell, on the gale shifting to the 

 north, to —2°, a change of 34° in 16 hours! The foundation of the argument, 

 therefore, for a mild climate near the Pole, is here completely removed. A rise of 

 the winter and spring temperature, with north winds, at Melville Island, latitude 

 74°, cannot prove a mild climate near the Pole, when a. fall of temperature in spring 

 (the winter not being observed) near Spitzbergen, latitude 80° to 80^°, occurs with 

 the winds from the north * ! 



5. As to the discovery of open and apparently interminable sea in Queen's Channel 

 and Smith's Sound, which have been assumed to be respectively entrances to an open 

 Polar ocean. — This assumption, Dr. Scoresby was prepared to show, was altogether 

 gratuitous. Capt. Penny, in the summer of 1851, sawopen water to the extent of vision 

 northward, from Baillie Hamilton Island. But such an opening-out of waters within 

 straits, or channels, or sounds, was, in the arctic regions, the common result of sum- 

 mer warmth, under corresponding hydrographical and ' cographical configurations 

 and conditions, and therefore proved nothing in respect to an open Polar ocean. He 

 (Dr. Scoresby) could point to the opening-out in summer of the bays, sounds, and 

 channels of Spitzbergen, Greenland, and the regions further west, as a very general 

 fact, and the exhibition of what deceptively appeared to be immense seas of open 

 water, as an usual occurrence, in certain positions of the Greenland Sea, much 

 further north than the sea seen by Capt. Penny. 



Nor does the open water seen by Capt. Inglefield northward of Smith's Sound 

 afford any real ground for the asserted conclusion, that it was the entrance or com- 

 mencement of an open Polar sea. The latitude here reached was 78° 28', being 

 but 45 to 50 miles further north than the marvellous attainment of Baffin in I6l6. 

 Beyond this, from N.E. to N.W., Captain Inglefield contemplated only an unen- 

 cumbered sea. But what did the observed facts prove? From the mast-head of 

 the Isabella, which could only command a view of the horizon of about 9 miles, or 

 of ordinary floating ice, perhaps 10 or 11 miles, no ice was to be seen northward. 

 Up to latitude 78° 38' thtre was, therefore, a clear sea; but in 79° there might have 

 been impenetrable ices. And this, it is almost certain, was the fact ; for some of the 

 men, as Capt. Inglefield tells us, saw an ice-blink to the northward, a sure indica- 

 tion of compact ice witliin 20 or 30 miles. No rational argument can be grounded 

 on such a fact as this. An apparently open sea, with not a sign of ice northward, 



* The obser\'ations of Capt. Maclure of the winter temperature at Banks' Land, in relation 

 to the direction of the wind, have yielded a completely neutralizing result of the argument 

 here discussed, — the greatest rise of temperature being found to be with east winds, not with 

 north. 



