176 THE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE SEA. 



of the surface current, for obviously the under current could not 

 bring more water into the frozen ocean than the surface current 

 would carry out again, either as ice or water. 



Every winter, an example of how very close warm water in the 

 sea and a very severe climate on the land or the ice may be to 

 each other, is afforded to us in the case of the Gulf Stream and 

 the Labrador-like climate of New England, ISTova Scotia, and New- 

 foundland. In these countries, in winter, the thermometer fre- 

 quently sinks far below zero, notwithstanding that the tepid wa- 

 ters of the Gulf Stream may be found with their summer temper- 

 ature within one good day's sail of these very, very cold places. 



484. Dr. Kane reports an open sea north of the parallel of 82°. 

 To reach it, his party crossed a barrier of ice 80 or 100 miles broad. 

 Before gaining this open water, he found the thermometer to show 

 the extreme temperature of — 60°. Passing this ice-bound region 

 by traveling north, he stood on the shores of an iceless sea, ex- 

 tending in an unbroken sheet of water as far as the eye could reach 

 toward the pole. Its waves were dashing on the beach with the 

 swell of a boundless ocean. The tides ebbed and flowed in it, 

 and I apprehend that the tidal wave from the Atlantic can no more 

 pass under this icy barrier to be propagated in seas beyond, than 

 the vibrations of a musical string can pass with its notes a fret upon 

 which the musician has placed his finger. The swell of the sea can 

 not pass wide fields or extensive barriers of ice, for De Haven, dur- 

 ing his long imprisonment and drift (§ 530), found the ice so firm 

 that he observed regularly from an artificial horizon placed upon it, 

 and found the mercury always "perfectly steady." These tides, 

 therefore, must have been born in that cold sea, having their cra- 

 dle about the North Pole. If these statements and deductions be 

 correct, then we infer that most, if not all the unexplored regions 

 about the pole are covered with deep water ; for, were this unex- 

 pected area mostly land or shallow water, it could not give birth 

 to regular tides. Indeed, the existence of these tides, with the im- 

 mense flow and drift which annually take place from the Polar 

 seas into the Atlantic, suggests many conjectures concerning the 

 condition of these unexplored regions. Whalemen have always 

 been puzzled as to the place of breeding for the right whale. It 



