208 rnYsicAL geography of the sea, and its meteorology. 



for its waters. No other liypothesis will explain the fact which 

 observations reveal concerning the saltness of the sea, tlie con- 

 stituents 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 always, 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 Behring's Strait side with harpoons in them 

 bearing the stamp of ships that were known to cruise on the 

 Baffin's Ba}^ side of the American 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 north-west passage by which the whales passed from one 

 side to the other, since the stricken animal could not have had 

 the harpoon in him long enoiigh to admit of a passage — even if 

 that were possible — around either Cape Horn or the Cape of Good 

 Hope. 



423. Harpoons — liahits of the ivliales. — The whale-fishing is, 

 among the industrial pursuits of the sea, one of no little import- 

 ance ; and when the system of investigation out of which the 

 " AVind and Current Charts " have grown was commenced, the 

 haunts of this animal did not escape attentive examination. The 

 log-books of whalers were collected in great numbers, and 

 patiently examined, co-ordinated, and discussed, in order to find 

 out wliat parts of the ocean are frequented by this kind of whale, 

 what parts by that, and what parts by neither. (See Plate IX.) 

 Log-books containing the records by different ships for hundreds 

 of thousands of days were examined, and the observations in 

 them co-ordinated for this chart. And this investigation, as 

 Plate IX. shows, led to the discovery that the tropical regions of 

 the ocean arc to the right whale as a sea of fire, through which 

 he cannot pass, and into which he never enters. The fact was 



