



THE SALTS OF THE SEA. 239 



Haven, after having been carried as far as 75° 25', and M'Clintock 

 as fer as 75° 30', say witliin nine hundred miles of the pole, found 

 their northerly course ^Yas arrested; then commenced with, each 

 that celebrated drift of a thousand miles to the south, and which 

 from December lasted, the one till June, the other till April 

 25th. These vessels were not drifted through the ice, but tvith 

 the ice ; for in lat, 65° 30', when De Haven was hberated on 

 the 9th of June, he had the same "hummocks," the same snow- 

 drifts, and the same icy landscape mth set out with him on 

 December 2nd, vdien he commenced his drift from the parallel of 

 75° 25'.* 



477. Now, upon the theory of no open water, and upon the 

 An anti-poiynian supposition of an ice-covcred sea that seals up in 

 '''^^^- winter all the unexplored regions of the north, let us, 



in imagination, take a survey of that sea just as the anti-polynians, 

 according to their theory, would have it. Let the time of the 

 survey be at the beginning of winter, when De Haven commenced 

 his southwardly drift. From the Advance to the pole — a distance 

 of 900 miles — no water is to be seen : the frost has bridged it all 

 over. From the pole to the distance of 900 miles beyond, and all 

 around, it is one field of thick-ribbed ice. The flat, and tame, and 

 dreary landscape may be reheved here and there, perhaps, by is- 

 lands, capes, and promontories dotting the surface, but neverthe- 

 less it is now at least as cold — being winter — ^from the pole all 

 around to the parallel of 75°, as it was in early fall when De Haven 

 being near that parallel in Wellington Channel, found his vessel fast 

 bound with the fetters of the frost-king. Wherefore we may 

 suppose that these theorists would admit the whole to be frozen by 

 December. So that, according to the anti-polynian view, we have, 

 measuring from the pole as a centre, a disc of ice more than five 

 thousand miles in circumference, and extending quite down to the 

 shores of arctic America and Asia. Such is the aspect presented 

 by the polar sea without an open water in winter ; now, on the 2nd of 

 .December — the moment before this remarkable drift commenced — 

 was the entfre sheet of ice mth which we have supposed the Arctic 

 Ocean to be covered, put in motion, or was that ordy put in motion 



* De Haven was frozen in lat. 74^ 40', Ions;. 92° 55' ; was carried up to 75° 25' 

 N., and thence down to 66° 15' N., 58^ 35' W., when he was liberated. The Fox 

 was frozen in 75° 30' N., 64° W. ; was carried west to 69° in the same latitude 

 and thence down to 63° 50' N., and 57° W., when she was liberated. The Keso- 

 lute was abandoned in lat 74° 40', long. 101° 20', and was picked up afloat off 

 Cape Mercy in 65° N. 



