GEOLOGY. 645 



traveller an impenetrable barrier twenty-five leagues in 

 length ? 



In one or two days' travel we cross the most redoubtable 

 glaciers of the Alps ; we pass the Col du Geant, or we climb 

 Mont Blanc. But in fact, despite the majestic splendor of 

 their cold realms and charming passes, the picture of their 

 perils and their extent is diminished in effect when they are 

 contrasted with the horrible solitudes of the boreal regions, 

 where navigators have wintered several seasons inclosed by 

 bergs or mountains of ice, arid where they have sometimes 

 traversed three or four hundred leagues of frozen sea. 



For long a sombre and seemingly impenetrable mystery 

 veiled from us everything that happened in these latitudes, 

 and all that men knew of them was derived from the 

 mournful and obscure legends of superstitious whalers, 

 until a painful accident directed to these regions the atten- 

 tion of the civilized world. 



Towards the commencement of this century it was sup- 

 posed that the north of America, long considered as a land 

 that prolonged itself over the pole, was perhaps occupied 

 by a sea which might permit a passage from Europe to Asia 

 by a shorter route. 



Two intrepid navigators, Parry and Ross, had, in the 

 course of their celebrated voyages, in vain braved tem- 

 pests and wintered in the midst of ices in order to seek out 

 this passage. 



But, after their attempts, a final expedition, commanded 

 by Sir John Franklin, already known for his Arctic explora- 

 tions, not having returned, all the European nations were 

 seized with a strong desire to find some traces of the noble- 



