90 ADDRESS. 



between Spitzbergen and Greenland. In that passage it collects 

 in accumulated masses, and is forced by the increasing pressure 

 into the bays and among the islands through which the British 

 expedition weie bound, as we have before said, to seek a north- 

 west passage. The cause of their slow progress must be apparent 

 to all 



The southern hemisphere presents oy far the more interesting 

 field for discovery, containing as it does, more than one million 

 and a half of square miles, which have never been trodden by the 

 footsteps of man, nor its waters divided by the keel of the adven- 

 turous navigator ; regions of which, we know little more than we 

 do of the planet Georgium Sidus, or an orb revolving round one of 

 the most distant of the twinkling stars. 



Is it not remarkable, that while the most learned and profound 

 of all ages, have been munificently encouraged to ascertain the 

 nature, and the courses, and the times of the planets, that belong 

 to our system, and revolve round a common centre of light and 

 heat, so large a part of our own earth should remain almost as 

 little known to us, as those planets are, though separated from us 

 by distances conceivable only by the mighty mind which ordained 

 them ! Man, indeed, in his proud walks, appears anxious to tread 

 the milky way ; to extend his researches to the utmost bounds of 

 creation ; to mark the bold planet in his career, and unfold the laws 

 that govern him ; while he remains, perhaps, culpably negligent 

 of the undiscovered parts of his own little globe, that are still 

 within the bounds of practical experiment. 



Few, feeble, and far between, have been the efforts to explore 

 the higher latitudes south. Let us briefly examine them. 



In the year 1772, Captain Cook, in the Resolution, accompa- 

 nied by Lieutenant Freneau, in the Adventure, embarked on his 

 first voyage in search of a southern continent. Having, in De- 

 cember, attained the fifty-eighth degree of south latitude, in longi- 

 tude 26 57' east, he fell in with narrow fields of ice, running 



