42 THE OCEAN. 



of Franklin, and which the crew, having ventured into the ice- 

 pack, had abandoned to continue their way in sledges. \Yhen the 

 vessel was found again, it had been already detained in its floating 

 prison for sixteen months, and during that space of time had only been 

 carried about 870 miles, counting the necessary turnings through 

 Barrow's Strait and Lancaster Sound. Thus the ship, abandoned 

 in the Polar sea, had not exceeded the speed of 130 yards per hour 

 in its progress towards the Atlantic, which is a hardly perceptible 

 advance. In the history of the great Arctic expeditions three other 

 vessels are mentioned, which were carried in the same manner to- 

 wards the ocean, but without having been abandoned by their crews ; 

 these were the ships of Sir John Ross, of Lieutenant de Haven, and 

 of McClintock. The last-named navigator was a prisoner for 242 

 days, and advanced about 1120 miles towards the south, that is to 

 say, about 346 yards per hour. 



The enormous masses of icebergs like gigantic ships are often 

 stranded on shoals, even where the depth of the sea exceeds a hun- 

 dred fathoms. Arrested in its southward drifting the immense 

 block gradually dissolves or divides into fragments, which in their 

 turn are stranded on some other bank, at a less depth. Day by 

 day the waves melt and destroy great quantities of ice, which then 

 let fall the gravel and stones with which it was charged, and in this 

 manner continually raises the sea-bottom. Every year new beds of 

 rock, pebbles, and earth from the mountains of Greenland and the 

 archipelago of North America are thus deposited on the bank of 

 Newfoundland, and in the neighbouring seas, laying the foundations 

 of a new continent. Doubtless the Great Bank, which extends over 

 a tract of above 55,000 square miles, and which has its found- 

 ation in a sea of about four to six miles deep, is composed entirely 

 of this moraine-matter of glacial origin. Thus during a long series 

 of ages the ice-floes have been labouring without relaxation to de- 

 molish the Arctic lands, and to construct new continents in the seas 

 of the temperate zone. 



From the time of the breaking up of the northern ice, that is to say, 

 from the beginning of March to the month of July and even to the 

 month of August, that part of the Atlantic to the east of the bank 

 of Newfoundland assumes the appearance of the Arctic sea. The 

 Polar current, descending from Baflin's Bay parallel to the coasts of 

 Labrador, brings with it in long procession the fragments of the 

 ice-fields and glaciers of Greenland. After having rounded the 

 bank of Newfoundland, the current bends towards the southwest with 



