142 On the North-west Passage. 
northward before, and crawled up to the maintopmast head, 
accompanied by the chief mate, while the second mate to- 
gether with Mr. Adams, went to the foretopmast head, from 
whence they saw a sea as free from ice as any part of the 
Atlantic ocean, and it was the joint opinion of them all, that 
they might reach the north pole. 
The ship then stood to the southward, and 12 hours after- 
wards Mr. Adams had a second good observation (the sun 
beneath the Pole) when their latitude was 82° 3’. In both 
these observations, Mr. Adams made an allowamce of 5! for 
the refraction, which he says was his captain’s rule, who was 
now on his fifty-ninth, or sixtieth voyage to the Greenland 
seas. 
Daines Barrington made a numerous and respectable col- 
Jection of facts, but he was an enthusiast, and we must re- 
ceive his opinions with great caution: he did not hesitate to 
believe that many of the whalers who reported themselves to 
have been in 80° or 84° with a clear sea could have sailed to 
the Pole withont difficulty. The approach to these high lati- 
tudes, it will be observed, was always made to the north of 
Spitzbergen, in the longitude of which the sea appears to be 
more free from ice than any other place of the same latitude. 
But may we not conclude by analogy, if we have a ‘‘clear 
sea” in this longitude from 80° to 85° N. latitude, that a pas- 
sage might be made from Baffin’s bay to Behring’s straits be- 
tween 70° and 85°? J should presume that a barrier of land 
was as much to be feared as a barrier of ice, and this | hope 
to show is not likely to be insurmountable. The interesting 
points of Icy Cape, Mackenzie’s river, Copper-Mine river, 
Cape Turn-again (discovered by Capt. Franklin) and Re- 
pulse bay along the parallel of 70°, are beacons that declare 
the continuity of an ocean which washes their shores. In 
corroboration of this idea it may be mentioned that whales 
inhabit the waters along the coast at the mouth of Macken- 
zie’s and Copper-Mine rivers and that harpoons made of 
fish bones and of stone have been taken out of them killed 
in the Greenland seas. These could have received their 
wounds only in the Polar Ocean along the northern part of 
America. 
Mackenzie’s and Copper-Mine rivers are important aux - 
iliaries to the evidence in favour of the existence of this 
ocean. If we cast our eyes over the map of N. and 8. 
America we shall find that allj the great rivers disembogue 
