102 The Northwest Passage, §c. 
the polar star, could he see it, would appear in the zenith. 
Such are some of the most obvious results of a position on the 
pole. The man who first establishes himself on this sublime 
point, will have more reason for self-congratulation than he 
who led the Persian myriads into Greece, or he who pushed 
the Macedonians to the Tidus. 
On these interesting subjects, we beg leave to refer out 
readers to a. very able treatise in the Quarterly Review for 
February, 1818, where all the topics at the head of this article 
are discussed with much learning and ability —We extract the 
following passage : 
“If an open navigation should be discovered across the 
polar basin, the passage over the pole or close to it, will be 
one of the most interesting events to science, that has ever 
occurred. It will be the first time that the problem was prat- 
tically solved with which the learners of geography are some- 
times puzzled—that of going the shortest way between two 
places lying east and west, by taking a direction of north and 
south. The passage of the pole will require the undivided 
attention of the navigator. On approaching this point, from 
which the northern coasts of Europe, Asia, and America, 
every part of them, will bear south of him, nothing can possibly 
assist him in determining his course, and keeping on the right 
meridian of his destined place, but a correct knowledge of the 
time; and yet no means of ascertaining that time will be 
afforded him. The only time he can have, with any degre 
of certainty, as long as he remains on or near the pole, must 
be that of Greenwich, and this he can know only from 
chronometers ; for, from the general hazy state of the atmos 
phere, and particularly about the horizon, and the sameness 
in the altitude of the sun at every hour in the four-and-twent): 
he must not expect to obtain an approximation even of the 
apparent time, by observation, and he will have no stars to & 
sist him. All his ideas respecting the heavens and the reckon: 
ings of his time will be reversed, and the change not gradual, 
as in proceeding from the east to the west, or the contrary: 
but instantaneous. The magnetic needle will point t its 
—— 
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