THE OPEN SEA IN THE ARCTIC OCEAN. 173 



CHAPTER VIII. 



THE OPEN SEA IN THE ARCTIC OCEAN. 



The Habit of Whalemen, ^ 473. — Right Whales can not cross the Equator, 475. — An 

 under Current into the Polar Basin, 478. — Indications of a W^arm Climate, 481. — 

 De Haven's Water Sky, 482.— The open Sea of Dr. Kane, 484.— Drift of an aban- 

 doned Ship, 487. 



473. It is the custom among whalers to have their harpoons 

 marked with date and the name of the ship ; and Dr. Scoresby, in 

 liis 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 shijDS that were known to cruise on 

 the Baffin's Bay 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 northwest 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 enough to admit of a passage around either 

 Cape Horn or the Cape of Good Hope. 



474. The whale-fishing is, among the industrial pursuits of the 

 sea, one of no little importance ; and when the system of investi- 

 gation out of which the "wind and current charts" have grown 

 was commenced, the haunts of this animal did not escape atten- 

 tion or examination. The log-books of whalers were collected in 

 great numbers, and patiently examined, co-ordinated, and discuss- 

 ed, in order to find out what parts of the ocean are frequented by 

 this kind of whale, what parts by that, and what parts by neither. 

 (See Plate IX.) 



475. Log-books containing the records by different ships for 

 hundreds of thousands of days were examined, and the observa- 

 tions 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 are to the right whale as a sea of fire, through which 

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



