260 THE GULF STREAM IN THE ICY SEAS. 



nant Hobson in a cairn, certifying to the above facts 

 and stating that Franklin, their gallant leader, had 

 succumbed on April 22, 1848. Captain Sir F. L. 

 M'Clintock, R.N., returning in the Fox from the 

 search, during the autumn of 1859, was thus at last 

 enabled to bring home certain information of the 

 disaster, in the shape of relics belonging to Franklin 

 and other members of this company, some of whose 

 bleaching skeletons they had discovered and buried. 



Yet at Hammerfest, in nearly the same latitude as 

 where these losses occurred, we find that the ocean 

 very rarely freezes at all and then only for short 

 periods with thin ice; so that Hammerfest, though so 

 far within the arctic circle, may be considered a port 

 that is open throughout the year, while far to the 

 south of it, in the Baltic, the iron grip of winter closes 

 every harbour : frost seals up the seas there every winter, 

 and transforms them into solid fields of heavy ice, over 

 which armies can march, and traffic can be carried 

 on as upon a public road. Now why should these 

 things be or how shall we account for them? In 

 this case we are able at once to assign two reasons 

 which furnish a complete explanation of this apparent 

 anomaly. 



In the first place, the set of that marvellous regula- 

 tor of climates, the Gulf Stream, impinges strongly 

 upon the North Western extremity of Europe at the 

 point where Hammerfest is located, so that we are 

 here met with the remarkable fact of an ocean current 

 governing the actions of men upon the dry land; and 

 actually choosing the site of a -town for them. It is 

 the warm water, brought up from tropical latitudes 



