§ 429. THE SPECIFIC GEAVITY OF THE SEA, ETC. 209 



429. Dr. Kane reports an open sea north of the parallel of 82°. 

 Dr. Kane. To reach it, bis party crossed a barrier of ice 80 or 

 100 miles broad. Before gaining this open water, he found the 

 thermometer to show the extreme temperature of — 60°. Passing 

 this ice-bound region by traveling north, he stood on the shores of 

 an iceless sea, extending in an unbroken sheet of water as far as 

 the eye could reach toward the pole. Its waves were dashing on 

 the beach with the swell of a boundless ocean. The tides ebbed 

 and flowed in it, and I apprehend that the tidal wave from the 

 Atlantic can no more pass under this icy barrier to be propagated 

 in seas beyond, than the vibrations of a musical string can pass 

 with its notes a fret upon which the musician has placed his finger. 

 The swell of the sea can not pass wide fields or extensive barriers 

 of ice; for De Haven, during his long imprisonment and drift 

 (§ 474), found the ice so firm that he observed regularly from an 

 artificial horizon placed upon it, and found the mercury always 

 " perfectly steady." These tides, therefore, must have been born 

 in that cold sea, having their cradle about the North Pole. If 

 these statements and deductions be correct, then we infer that most, 

 if not all the unexplored regions about the pole are covered with 

 deep water ; for, were this unexplored area mostly land or shal- 

 low water, it could not give birth to regular tides. Indeed, the 

 existence of these tides, with the immense flow and drift which an- 

 nually take place from the polar seas into the Atlantic, suggests 

 many conjectures concerning the condition of these unexplored 

 regions. Whalemen have always been puzzled as to the place of 

 breeding for the right whale. It is a cold-water animal, and, fol- 

 lowing up this train of thought, the question is prompted, Is not 

 the nursery for the great whale in this polar sea, which has been 

 so set about and hemmed in with a hedge of ice that man ma}^ 

 not trespass there ? This providential economy is still farther 

 suggestive, prompting us to ask. Whence comes the food for the 

 young whales there ? Do the teeming waters of the Gulf Stream 

 (§ 160) convey it there also, and in channels so far down in the 

 depths of the sea that no enemy may waylay and spoil it on the 

 long journey ? Seals were sporting and water-fowl feeding in this 

 open sea of Dr. Kane's. Its waves came rolling in at his feet, and 

 dashing with measured tread, like the majestic billows of old ocean, 

 against the shore. Solitude, the cold and boundless expanse, and 



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