of a direct Passage over the Pole. 333 



and by the salt water freezing upon it, into immense mountains 

 and fields. 



In the part of the Polar basin further to the southward, where 

 it is bounded by the land, it is to be presumed the general pre- 

 vailing winds are from S.W. to N.W. particularly the former, in 

 bad weather : Northerly and easterly when most settled and fine. 

 And if so, it is equally to be supposed there will be a generally 

 prevailing current from the westward to the eastward, partaking 

 at the same time of that general tendency of the fluid to move 

 soutliward from the Pole, which I imagine it will be found to 

 have, from the coldness of its temperature. These two general 

 combined impulses operating upon moveable bodies floating on 

 the surface of the Arctic seas, must impel them in an east- 

 soulkerly direction all round the globe ; being, in fact, that " cir- 

 cumvolviiig current" which the writer in the Review mentions 

 as carrying " fir, larch, aspen, and other trees," the produce of 

 " both Asia and America, from the polar basin through the out- 

 let into the Northern Ocean." But a page or two further on, he 

 has " annexed a diagram, constructed on the plam of the Pole, 

 to assist the reader in the explanation of the notions he enter- 

 tains on this interesting subject," but which is rather puzzling: 

 for whoever turns Over the leaf with an idea of his own, or adopt- 

 ing that of the writer, that there really is a " circumvolving cur- 

 rent " from west to east in the Arctic regions, will be surprised, 

 when .\e castfl his eyes on the diagram, to observe two different 

 «ourse8 denoted by arrows. 



The first shows" the probable direction of the ice bergs, from 

 New Siberia, and is nearly as follows : — N.E. by N. to the lati- 

 tude of 80° from thence about E.; then S.E. S.E. by E. and 

 a"-ain S.E. into Davis's Strait. This first route, if it were not 

 for the north-easterly direction of the first arrow, accords pretty- 

 well with the notion we had formed of a " circumvolving cur- 

 rent." But the second, which the ice fields are conjectured 

 probablv to take from the western part of New Siberia, viz. about 

 N.W.W. then about S.W. to the N.E. part of Greenland, is so 

 contrary to the former, and so completely opposed to the direc- 

 tion of the circumvolving " current which carried the trees of 

 both Asia and America into Davis's Strait," that it is difficult to 

 account for so very obvious a discordance, except by supposing 

 him to have considered the diagram he looked on, to represent 

 indeed a plane surface, instead of a globular one, as it is. The 

 case then stands thus — If there is a current such as the second 

 for the ice fields, a circumvolving current cannot exist; and if 

 there is a circumvolving current, it is (juite impossible that the 

 ice fields can tako the " probable direction " assigned them in 

 the diagram. Having 



