TUE SPECIFIC GRAVITY OF THE SEA, ETC. 2U9 



also brought out that the same kind of whale that is found olT 

 the shores of Greenland, in Baffin's Bay, &c., is found also in the 

 North Pacific, and about Behring's Strait, and that the right 

 whale of the northern hemisphere is a different animal from that 

 of the southern. Thus the fact was established that the harpooned 

 whales did not pass around Cape Horn or the Capo of Good 

 Hope, for they were of the class that could not cross the equator. 

 In this way we were furnished with circumstantial evidence 

 affording the most irrefragable proof that there is, at times at 

 least, open-water communication through the Arctic Sea from one 

 side of the continent to the other, for it is known that the whales 

 cannot travel under the ice for such a great distance as is that 

 f]om one side of this continent to the other. But this did not 

 prove the existence of an open sea there ; it onl}" established the 

 existence — the occasional existence, if you please — of a channel 

 through which whales had passed. Therefore we felt bound to 

 introduce other evidence before we could expect the reader to 

 admit our proof, and to believe with us in the existence of an 

 open sea in the Arctic Ocean. 



424. The under current into the Arctic Ocean — its influences. — 

 There is an under current setting from the Atlantic through Davis' 

 Strait into the Arctic Ocean, and there is a surface current 

 setting out. Observations have pointed out the existence of this 

 under current there, for navigators tell of immense icebergs 

 which the}^ have seen drifting rapidly to the north, and against a 

 strong surface current. These icebergs were high above the 

 water, and their depth below, supposing them to be parallele- 

 pipeds, was at least seven times greater than their height above. 

 Xo doubt they were drifted by a powerful under current. Now 

 this under current comes from the south, where it is warm, and 

 the temperature of its waters is perhaps not below 30° ; at any rate, 

 they are comparatively warm. There must be a place somewhere 

 in the arctic seas where this under current ceases to flow north, 

 and begins to flow south as a surface current ; for the surface 

 current, though its waters are mixed with the fresh waters of the 

 rivers and of precipitation in the polar basin, nevertheless bears 

 out vast quantities of salt, which is furnished neither by the 

 rivers nor the rains. These salts are supjolied by the under 

 current ; for as much salt as one current brings in, othei' currents 

 must take out, else the polar basin would become a basin of 

 salt ; and where the under current transfers its waters to the 



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