248 PHYSICAL GEOGKAl'HY OF THE SEA, A^•D ITS METEOROLOGY. 



475. Drift of the Besolute. — Tho drift of these vessels is suf- 

 ficient, were there no other evidence, to establish the existence 

 of an open sea in the Arctic Ocean ; for this drift cannot be ac- 

 counted for upon any other hypothesis, as a slight examination 

 of the arctic regions on a terrestrial globe, and a careful study of 

 the facts (§ 459), and other phenomena will show. 



476. De Haven's drift. — About the middle of September, 1850, 

 being in latitude 74° 40', and in the fair way of Wellington 

 Channel, De Haven found himself, with the Advance, frozen in 

 her tracks, as M'Clintock did the Fox,* in August, 1857, who 

 tried to reach the shore, but he was fast bound, and drifting to 

 the west. De Haven, after having been carried as far as 75° 25', 

 and M'Clintock as far as 75° 30', say within nine hundred miles 

 of the pole, found their northerly course was arrested ; then com- 

 menced 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 with the ice ; for in lat. 65° 30', when De Haven was 

 liberated on the 9th of June, he had the same "hummocks," the 

 same snowdrifts, and the same icy landscape which set out with 

 him on December 2nd, when he commenced his drift from the 

 parallel of 75° 25'.t 



477. An anti-polynian view. — Now, upon the theory of no open 

 water, and upon the supposition of an ice-covered 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 dis- 

 tance 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 relieved here and there, 

 perhaps, by islands, capes, and 2:)romontories dotting the surface, 

 but nevertheless it is now at least as cold — being winter — from 



* A screw yacht of 177 tons. 



t De Haven was frozen in lat. 74^ 40', long. 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^ .SO' N., 04'^ W. ; was carried west to 69^ in the same 

 latitude, and thence down to G3^ 50' N., and 57° W., when she was Uberated. 

 The Kesolute was abandoned in lat. 74° 40', long. 101° 20', and was picked up 

 afloat oir Cape Mercy in 65° N. 



