522 ON GREAT CHANGES OF TEMPERATURE 
In “ The Search for Sir John Franklin,” published in No: 1 of the 
Cornhill Magazine, occurs the following notice of the same phe- 
nomenon. The Fox was beset by vast fields of ice somewhere in 
Baffin’s Bay :— 
‘December 28. During Divine Service yesterday the wind increased, 
and towards the afternoon we had a gale from the north-westward; 
attended with an unusual rise of temperature; to-day the gale con- 
tinues, with a warm wind from the N.N.W. 
“The Danish settlers at Upernavik, in North Greenland, are at 
times startled by a similar sudden rise of temperature. During the 
depth of winter, when all nature has long been frozen, and the sound 
of falling water Las long been forgotten, rain will fall in torrents; 
and as rain in such a climate is attended with every discomfort, this 
is looked upon as a most unwelcome phenomenon. It is called the 
warm south-east wind. Now, if the Greenlanders at Upernavik are 
astonished at a warm south-east wind, how much rather must the 
seamen, frozen up in the pack, be astonished at a warm north-west 
wind! Various theories have been started to account for this phe- 
nomenon ; but it appears most probable that a rotary gale passes over 
the place, and that the rise of temperature is due to the direction from 
which the whole mass of air may come, viz., from the southward, and 
not to the direction of the wind at the time.” 
The cause here assigned appears to me quite insufficient : the rise 
of the thermometer that we have to account for sometimes amounts 
to 70° or 80°, which is equal to the difference between very warm 
summer weather and very hard frost in our climate; and it is unex- 
ampled, and I think inconceivable, that any motion of a mass of air 
from warmer latitudes should produce so great an effect on the tem- 
perature; certainly the cyclones that come from the West Indian 
Seas and pass over our islands have no effect in the slightest degree 
approaching to it. 
What I regard as the true cause of the phenomenon is suggested, 
thongh not distinctly pointed out, in Dr. Kane’s Narrative, from 
which I will make a few extracts :— 
“January 29. A dark water sky extended in a wedge from Littleton 
to a point north of the Cape. Everywhere else the firmament was ob- 
scured by mist. The height of the barometer continued as we left it at 
the brig, and our own sensations of warmth convinced us that we were 
about to have a snow-storm. * * * We were barely housed before 
