THE SPECIFIC GRAVITY OF THE SEA, ETC. 207 



the records of all that he may ever know concerning this his 

 cosmical hearthstone. 



421. Voyages of discovery to the North Pole. — Eesearches have 

 been carried on from the bottom of the deepest pit to the top of 

 the highest mountain, but these have not satisfied. Voj-ages of 

 discovery, with their fascinations and their charms, have led 

 many a noble champion of human progress both into the torrid 

 and frigid zones ; and notwithstanding the hardships, sufferings, 

 and disasters to which many northern parties have found them- 

 selves exposed, seafaring men, as science has advanced, have 

 looked with deeper and deeper longings towards the mystic 

 circles of the j)olar regions : there icebergs are framed and 

 glaciers launched : there the tides have their cradle, the whales 

 their nurseiy : there the winds complete their circuits, and the 

 currents of the sea their round in the wonderful system of oceanic 

 circulation: there the Aurora Borealis is lighted up and the 

 trembling needle brought to rest ; and there too, in the mazes of 

 that mystic circle, terrestrial forces of occult power and of vast 

 influence upon the well-being of man are continually at play. 

 Within the arctic circle is the pole of the winds and the poles of 

 the cold; the pole of the earth and of the magnet. It is a circle of 

 mysteries; and the desire to enter it, to explore its untrodden 

 wastes and secret chambers, and to study its physical aspects, has 

 grown into a longing. Noble daring has made arctic ice and 

 snow-clad seas classic ground. It is no feverish 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 gi'ow wiser and 

 better by the knowledge. Soon after the discovery 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 contribu- 

 tions to science, ihej have never lost sight of the promise made 

 by Columbus of a western route to India. 



422. Tlie first suggestions of an open sea in the Arctic Ocean. — Like 

 the air, like the body, the ocean must have a system of circulation 



