20:1: THE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE SEA. 



study its physical aspects, has grown into a longing. Noble dar- 

 ing has made Arctic ice and waters classic ground. It is no fever- 

 ish excitement nor vain ambition that leads man there. It is a 

 higher feeling, a holier motive — a desire to look into the works 

 of creation, to comprehend the economy of our planet, and to 

 grow wiser and better by the knowledge. Soon after the discov- 

 ery of America, John Cabot and his sons, with five ships, sailed 

 upon the first Arctic expedition. Between that year and the 

 present no less than 155 vessels, besides boat and land parties, 

 have at various periods, and with divers objects in view, been sent 

 from Europe and America up into those inhospitable regions. 

 Whatever may have been the immediate object of these various 

 expeditions, whether to enlarge the fields of commerce, to carry 

 the Bible, to spread civilization, to push conquests, or to bring 

 back contributions to science, it has never lost sight of the prom- 

 ise made by Columbus of a western route to India. 



422. Like the air, like the body, the ocean must have a system 

 The first suggestions of circulatiou for its watcrs. No other hypothesis 



of an open sea in the .^, -y • ,^ n , ^ ' ^ ^ ,• i 



Arctic Ocean. Will cxplam the lact whicii observations reveal con- 

 cerning the saltness of the sea, the constituents of sea water, and' 

 many other phenomena. An attentive study of the currents of 

 the sea, and a close examination of the laws which govern the 

 movements of the waters in their channels of circulation through 

 the ocean, will lead any one irresistibly to the conclusion that al- 

 ways, in summer and winter, there must be, somewhere within 

 the arctic circle, a large body of open water. This open water 

 must impress a curious feature upon the physical aspects of those 

 regions. The whales had taught us to suspect the existence of 

 open water in the arctic basin, and in their mute way told of a 

 passage there, at least sometimes. It is, the custom among whalers 

 to have their harpoons marked with date and the name of the 

 ship ; and Dr. Scoresby, in his work on arctic voyages, mentions 

 several instances of whales that have been taken near the Behr- 

 ing's Strait side with harpoons in them bearing the stamp of ships 

 that were known to cruise on the Baffin's Bay side of the Ameri- 

 can continent ; and as, in one or two instances, a very short time 

 had elapsed between the date of capture in the Pacific and the 

 date when the fish must have been struck on the Atlantic side, it 

 was argued therefore that there was a northwest passage by which 



