Dec. 28, 1871] 



NATURE 



165 



eluding, F. A high power should be used, and the prism 

 should be adjusted for the minimum deviation of the 

 central ray of this portion. 



The tulje spectroscope should be used in a similar 

 manner for the other part, including F. Intensities referred 

 to F to be most carefully noted. 



Care to be taken that observers are not interrupted for 

 two hours after totality. 



Instruments to be returned to Galle, and shipped in 

 P. and O. steamer, consigned to J. Browning, in, Mino- 

 ries, London, E.C. All observations, photographic plates, 

 drawings, &c., to be sent to Air. Lockyer within a week 

 of the eclipse. Observers to keep exact duplicates in 

 case of loss. 



The following resolutionswere passed by the Government 

 of India in the Home Department^under date 27th July 

 and 2 1st October : — 



" Colonel Tennant has already been authorised dcmi- 

 oflicially to provide the astronomical instruments and 

 photographic apparatus that he will require for his obser- 

 vations, and the Governor-General in Council understands 

 that he is now in communication with Prof. Airy and Mr. 

 Huggins on the subject. The cost of these appliances 

 has been included in the estimate appended to Colonel 

 Tennant's memorandum. 



" In addition to these instruments, Colonel Tennant will 

 recjuire the aid of qualified observers, and it has been 

 ascertained that the Superintendent of the Great Trigono- 

 metrical Survey is prepared to place the services of Mr. 

 Hennessey and Captain Herschel, belonging to his depart- 

 ment, temporarily at the disposal of Colonel Tennant for 

 this purpose without prejudice to their proper duties. The 

 Governor-General in Council approves of this arrange- 

 ment, and is pleased to direct that the Survey officers 

 above-named shall suffer no loss of their allowances while 

 so employed, and that they shall have their travelling ex- 

 penses paid out of the allotment of Rs. 15,000 sanctioned 

 on account of the Eclipse observations. Colonel Tennant 

 will arrange with Major Montgomerie beforehand when 

 the officers in question should join them. 



" The Governor-General in Council is further pleased 

 to direct that Colonel Tennant shall receive from the 

 Surveyor General's Department all the aid that he may 

 require as regards photographic assistants, chemicals, &c. 



" Lastly, the Governor General in Council is pleased to 

 direct that the report of the result of Colonel Tennant's 

 observations, and his accounts, shall be submitted by him 

 to this department." 



" From the correspondence received with the above 

 despatch, the Governor General in Council has learnt 

 that an expedition is being sent out from England under 

 instructions from the Eclipse Committee of the British 

 Association, and he is desirous that the Government of 

 Madras will»afford the expedition such assistance as it 

 may require in the furtherance of its operations. Such 

 assistance will probably consist in the provision, on a 

 moderate scale, for three or four persons, at each place 

 selected, of tents, means of subsistence, and locomotion, 

 and in the erection of temporary observatories of a simple 

 form. It may also be desirable to depute one or two 

 persons to each party from the Public Works Department 

 to assist the observers. 



" Information has also been received that the French 

 Government has deputed M. Janssen to visit India with 

 the same object, and the Governor General in Council 

 desires that the Government of Madras will afford every 

 facility and assistance to that gentleman also. 



" The Financial Department will be moved to sanction 

 any reasonable expenditure that may be necessary to en- 

 able the Government of Madras to give effect to these 

 instructions." 



ARCTIC EXPLORATIONS 



A SHORT paper of mine on the above subject ap- 

 -^^ peared in Nature of the 7th December, in which 

 I stated some reasons for my belief that Smith Sound 

 possesses no apparent ad\'antagcs over Spitzbergen as a 

 route by which to reach a very high northern latitude or 

 the Pole itself. In fact I think the advantages are all the 

 other way ; and I shall endeavour to show one or two more 

 reasons than I have already given for this belief. 



Kane's and Hayes' ships were stopped by ice in Smith 

 Sound before they reached lat. 79°, and this, I think, can 

 readily be accounted for by the peculiar contour of the 

 coast-line, as may be seen by the accompanying rough out- 

 line, taken from a copy of Dr. Hayes' chart in the Royal 

 Geographical Society's Map-room. 



The width of Kennedy Channel (a continuation of 

 Smith Sound) is at 80° north lat. about 40 miles, but be- 

 tween latitudes 79° and So°, Smith Sound expands to a 

 width of something hke 100 miles, this expansion being 

 chiefly formed by a large bay on the east side. The south 

 point of this bay, which I have marked A in the accom- 

 panying chart, runs far to the west in lat. 78' 30' (thus 

 changing the direction of the Sound from nearly true 

 north and south to N.E. and S.W.), and approaching 

 within 30 miles of the west shore at the point B. 



If there is, as I believe, a set or drift of current south- 

 ward, the ice will first be pressed with great force — as 

 Kane found to his cost — against that side of the bay of 

 which A is the south point, and then it \'n\\ be driven 

 across to the west shore somewhere near B at the 

 narrowest part of the Sound in a closely-packed and 

 continuous stream of heavy floes hitherto found impene- 

 trable. 



Should this idea be correct, and there is something 

 more than theory to support it, this obstruction will be a 

 constant and not an occasional one as long as there is a 

 supply of ice to the north. 



If there is a large opening extending far to the west at 

 the place marked C, we have another probable opposing 

 element ; for if the set of current runs eastward through 

 it, we shall have an important addition to the Smith Sound 

 supply of ice, in making the barrier of the " ■pack''' more 

 formidable. The opinion I express as to the direction of the 

 currents is not wholly hypothetical, for we have proofs of 

 an almost constant current (it is sometimes reversed by 

 strong winds) setting southward down Baffin's Bay and 

 Davis Strait ; and this current can only be fed by Lan- 

 caster and Smith Sounds and other openings to the west 

 and north. 



The only hope of an " easy " passage up Smith Sound 

 to a higher latitude than 78° 40' is the existence cf Kane's 

 " great open Polar Sea," for if such sea does exist, there 

 would be no ice to the northward to keep up the supply of 

 this commodity in Smith Sound, which would in the 

 summer months be cleared of its winter covering by the 

 southerly drift I have already mentioned, and the Sound 

 would, and probably will be, consequently free from ice in 

 August. But this is opposed to both Kane's and Hayes' 

 experience, whatever their expressed opinions about the 

 large open sea may have been. 



That Kane's man Morton saw a very considerable 

 extent of open water is not to be doubted, also that it 

 may be quite true that he saw no ice to the northward, 

 although he put down a point of land (whether correctly 

 or not it is difficult to say) seventy miles distant in that 

 direction. Every one, however, must be aware — for it is 

 not necessary to have been in the Arctic seas to acquire such 

 knowledge — that when the temperature of the air is lower 

 than that of the water, a vapour or haze is formed by con- 

 densation, which, although by no means dense when look- 

 ing through a small e.xtent of it, becomes so much so when 

 the observer has to look through eight or ten miles of it, 

 that any low object, such as floe ice, would be quite in- 



