240 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE SEA, AND ITS METEOROLOGY. 



whicli drifted out ? By the hypothesis there is no open water in 

 all the circumference of this sea into which the ice might drift. 

 We therefore may well ask the anti-polynians agaia, How did this 

 drift commence ? for commence it did ; its movement was out of 

 that sea, and from the pole towards the equator, and so it continued 

 to move for six months at the average rate of 5^ miles a day. But 

 whence — on what parallel — did it commence ? Was the whole disc 

 in motion from the shores of Siberia over across by way of the north 

 pole towards Wellington Channel ? If one part of this disc be put 

 in motion, either the whole must be, or there must be somewhere, a 

 split or a rent in it, with open water between. If, dming the winter 

 and spring — the coldest period — the edge of this ice-disc nearest Wel- 

 lington Channel be carried by the currents a thousand miles towards 

 the south, the edge along the Eussian shores on the opposite side 

 must have been drifted towards the north a thousand miles also, and 

 so leave an open water behind. Now we simply know there was no 

 such drifting up from the Siberian shores, and the case is put 

 simply to show that in any case the northerly edge of the driftiug 

 ice must have come from open water ; for if we deny the existence 

 of an open water in that direction, then we must go back and admit 

 that at the beginning of the drift there was ice all the way from 

 Wellington Channel to the North Pole, and thence all the way from 

 the North Pole to the nearest land beyond, which is supposed to be 

 the Siberian shores of the Old World. But, on the other hand, we 

 must also admit the fact — for the Advance, the Eescue, the Fox, 

 and the Eesolute are witnesses of it — that a tongue of this ice 1000 

 miles long was in each of these mnters thrust out of the polar basin 

 do^Ti through Baffin's Bay into Da\ds' Straits. These ships came 

 do^vn upon it. It would be difficult for those who oppose the exist- 

 ence of an open water here in the Arctic Ocean to discover a force 

 there which, dming the extreme cold months of the northern night, 

 when the ice is making all the time, could tear from its fastenings 

 and move 5|- miles a day all through the mnter and spring a disc 

 of ice seven feet thick* and 1800 geographical miles in diameter. 

 Yet such seem to be the conditions which the absence of open water 

 would require ; for, when the Advance was thawed out, there was a 

 thousand miles of ice to the northward of her, and between her and 

 Wellington Channel. This 1000 miles of ice had drifted out of 

 the polar basin during her journey to the south ; for when she was 



* De Haven fouml the ice upon which his vessel was brought out 7 feet 2 inches 

 thick. 



