96 REPORT— 1853. 



around the Pole which otherwise might be thrust southward, in process of time, so 

 as to render some of the loveliest regions of the earth uninhabitable, or unfit for the 

 production of those vegetable fruits, or for yielding those admirable conditions of 

 temperate climates, on which so much of human well-being and happiness depend. 



The arguments for an open Polar sea thus far met, include. Dr. Scoresby believed, 

 the chief of those popularly relied on, and it would be tedious to add more. But 

 the positive reasons for a contrary conclusion might require, on such an occasion, 

 some little consideration. 



And first, he might notice the grand and unquestionable fact of the extremely low 

 average temperature of the Polar regions as a powerful reason for assuming the 

 existence of perpetual ices in the far north. The mean annual temperature of 

 latitude 78°, near the western coast of Spitzbergen, has been shown, by personal 

 researches, published in 1820 in the 'Account of the Arctic Regions,' to be as low 

 as about 17°, or 1 1° below the freezing temperature of sea- water; whilst in the more 

 enclosed regions westward, such as those of Melville Island, Regent's Inlet, &c., the 

 existence of a mean annual temperature of about 30° below the freezing of sea-water 

 has been determined. The normal temperature of the North Pole, too, estimated in 

 the 'Account of the Arctic Regions' at 10°, and reduced still further by M. Dove 

 to 2°"3, must naturally lead to the inference of an accumulation of ice, rather than a 

 lacking of ice, in regions immediately surrounding the Pole. 



But the theory, after all, of the non-existence of an open Polar sea, has the most 

 decided confirmation in these unquestionable facts : — 1st. That of the many expedi- 

 tions expressly sent out with the view of reaching the Pole, or passing beyond it, 

 not one of them ever attained by sailing as high a latitude as 81° N. 2nd. That 

 all the experience of the Hull whalers, comprising within the last 80 years, as 

 Mr. Munro has shown, 1949 ships (including repeated voyages), has yielded no 

 fact to prove an advance within the 82nd parallel ; and 3rd, that in a personal 

 experience of 21 years, wherein the highest attainable latitude was proceeded to 

 in seven to nine different voyages, no advance beyond the 8lst parallel was ever 

 made but once, when the extraordinary position of 81° 30' was reached. And when 

 Captain Parry reached some 70 to 80 miles beyond this, it will be remembered that 

 from 81° 6, on his advance, the further distance was effected by ice-travelling. On 

 the return of the party, indeed, they were able to take the water with their boats far 

 northward of where they had left it, and gained open water in 81° 34'; but the fact 

 could not fairly tell against the foregoing views, as no doubt this special penetrability 

 of the ice was due to the proximity of islands on the north-east of Spitzbergen, 

 whose apparent termination in the high latitude (80° 40') to which they have been 

 traced is by no means their certain limit. 



Everywhere else, as already shown, an impenetrable barrier of ice has always op- 

 posed the advance of the navigator in the latitude of 80° to 81° — a barrier, as it 

 appears in the early spring, so compact and continuous as to have led him, the 

 author of this paper, to suggest, so long ago as the year 1815, the probabihty of 

 access to the very Pole itself being had, by a transglacial journey. On the original 

 suggestion of the scheme, favourably as it was received by scientific men in Scot- 

 land, it met with discouragement, and even contempt, from others in England. The 

 attempt of Capt. Parry, however, in 1826, though necessarily failing because of the 

 season of the year in which it was undertaken (the height of summer), proved how 

 much the public opinion had changed on this subject ; whilst a letter, long after- 

 wards published by Sir John Barrow, went completely to show that the opinion was 

 now held by the gallant officer himself, that a continuity of ice exists from the 81st 

 parallel northward, and that the reaching of the Pole by ice-travelling, if commenced 

 at the favourable season, was by no means an improbable nor very difficult under- 

 taking. Such a project, indeed, it was evident, might be defeated, if the course were 

 interrupted by mountainous land ; but lofty ices, the accumulation of ages, might 

 not improbably occur, — an idea which on the first suggestion of the scheme he had 

 mentioned, which since then has had such singular support in the discovery of the 

 vast cliffs of seaborne ices by Sir James Ross, in the antarctic regions of the globe*. 



* Since the readinj; of this paper a letter has been publislieil in the ' Athenaeum ' by a 

 gentleman wlio had been surgeon in a Hull whaler in 1837, stating that the ' Truelove ' had 

 gone to about 82° 30' North ; but on inquiry being made at Hull of the owners of the ship and 

 others, the statement was found )!of to be verified ; the mate of the ship, the chief surviving 

 officer, affirming that their highest latitude was below 8 )°. — W. S. 



