GEOLOGICAL CLIMATE. 285 



Sea, to find how far west and north Kellet's Land 

 extends, and to discover all that can be discovered 

 of the Austrian Islands north east of Spitzbergen. 

 Now look once more at the arctic chart, and 

 imagine the circumpolar land to be one or two 

 thousand feet lower relatively to the sea level than 

 at present. Such an effort of imagination does 

 not take away your breath. You are well trained 

 for it by the succession of elevations and sub- 

 sidences which you have been called on to admit 

 for explanation of the familiar features of our 

 Scottish hills and glens. A thousand feet of 

 depression would submerge the continents of 

 Europe, Asia, and America, for thousands of miles 

 from their present northern coast lines ; and would 

 give instead of the present land-locked and there- 

 fore ice-bound Arctic sea, an open iceless ocean, 

 with only a number of small steep islands to 

 obstruct the free interchange of water between the 

 North Pole and temperate or tropical regions. 

 That the arctic sea would, in such circumstances, 

 be free from ice quite up to the north pole may be 

 I think securely inferred from what in the present 



