90 R. W. Haskins on the Open North Polar Sea. 
* within the last forty years have been numerous, have not 
- done so, having invariably been stopped by ice, and usually at 
aiuah lower latitudes than where this open sea has ever been 
known to extend. But, although these modern explorers have 
not reached that sea, and sailed ‘their ships upon it as their pre- 
decessors et still some of them have brought us as demonstra- 
tive proo the existence of that open sea as if they had actu- 
ally floated. thereon. One of these is Capt. Parry, who wintered 
at Melville Island. in latitude 74° 45’ north. He tells us that 
there a north wind, in the long winter of that frozen region, 
modified the cold, and if continued, produced a thaw. Now 
this single fact, if well established—and we take this one to be— 
without one particle more of evidence, would establish beyond 
all doubt or controversy, the existence of an open sea, in the 
direction whence that wind came. Such an effect from a wind 
is wholly incompatible with the assumption that it has passe 
only over a frozen surface. This statement of Capt. Parry 18 
fully confirmed by other proofs—or rather those other proofs, 
ing of prior date, are confirmed by it. Barentz, when his 
ages oh pe we must s suppe from like reasons, thas the sea is 
open, on the north of Nova Zorvtlas all the year. The testi- 
mony of persons who have passed the winter at Kola, in Lap- 
land, coincides —s with this, namely, that, in the most 
severe weather, whenever a nort erly wind blows, the cold 
Brings on diminishes, and that, if the wind continues, it always — 
rings on a thaw, as long as it ‘lasts, 
f we ask why these more recent navigators could not reach 
the high fguundes their predecessors did, the only and the sufii- 
cient answer is, that the icy barriers which always exist on the way 
to this open sea and south of it, vary greatly in once and width : : 
in different years. These barriers have e always been 
through by those who have entered the open polar sea, and ier: | 
a 
have often proved too broad and solid to be Senetrnted at 
The fact of these wide differences in the extent and strength of : 
the ice in the northern seas in different years, is attested by 4 
we know of the regions in question, whether by Jand or sea — 
All the history of Greenland attests it, and the fact is no less 
constantly proved by the experience of northern whalers. +° 
cite a single case in ‘illustration, and that a reeent one, we may 
mention that of Capt. Parry. This navigator, during his third 
voyage in 1824, found the i icy barrier in Baffin’ 3 Bay one hund 
and fifty miles broader than when he passed it in 1819. _ i 
differenees, then, that exist in these Le — in lat = 
south of the open polar ocean, and in t 
