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Arctic Explorations, 217 



In this connection we may add farther, that were the globe 

 ■without land, a universal ocean, it would probably be without 

 ice even in its Arctic and Antarctic seas. Its mean temperature 

 might be little different from the present, or near 58° F., but its 

 range would be small compared to what it is under existing cir- 

 cumstances. 



But have we any good grounds for supposing that the polar 

 sea is unencumbered by land? ^Here is the embarrassing point 

 in the hypothesis. We have seen that the narrative of Dr. Kane, 

 allowing the facts stated all the weight they can demand, only 

 suggest that the part of the polar circle between the pole and 

 the coasts of Greenland and Nova Zembla may be open or un- 

 frozen; and this is the part in which the sources of heat men- 

 tioned would act most decisively^ being that into which the 

 Gulf Stream flows. Greenland may stretch eastward towards a 

 point north of Spitzbergen and so be the occasion of ice where 

 Parry made his sledge excursion ; while a little more to the east 

 beyond this the ocean may have its free play northward. The 

 oceanic isothermal lines laid down by Dove on his charts corres- 

 pond with this idea, for the warmest part of the arctic circle is 

 the half w^hich is north of Spitzbergen; moreover, the long 

 loops or flexures in the isothermals stretch up in winter north- 

 east between Nova Zembla and Spitzbergen, with no bend up 

 between Spitzbergen and Greenland ; as if the former were the 

 free direction for the waters. This course along the north 

 Asiatic coast is mainly due, beyond doubt, to the eastern ten- 

 dency in the waters ; but yet we might expect an expansion to 

 the northward by Spitzbergen if, there, Lay the open channel 

 pole-ward. Again the degree of cold for any place in America 

 depends mostly upon the amount of land to the northwest of 

 it Now we find that in the coldest months, February and 

 March, taking as data the deductions made by Mr, C. A. Schott 

 from Dr. Kane's and other Arctic obstTvatioas, the meridian of 

 greatest cold is near the meridian 85'' or just west of the head 

 of Baffin's Bay, where Mr. Schott's chart gives -41 as the mean 

 temperature for March. Now were the region that lies to the 

 ^oJth and northwest of this, an open sea, it would be incredible 

 that so low a temperature should exist along this meridian ; but 

 if an archipelago, or if there is at least a moderate proportion of 

 land towards the poles, it then would be just that vast ice-house 

 that in connection with the great continent of Greenland would 

 fid in locatino- the point or meridian of extreme cold fur Amer- 

 ica where it is actually found. Mr. Schott remarks on this point, 

 that the extreme cold of Kensselaer Bay and Wostenholm, 

 *' point most conclusively to either a considerable northern ex- 



ashi 



eastern 

 the other, or to a 



