162 KANSAS CITY REVIEW OF SCIENCE. 



and, if they are parallelopipeds, their depth below the surface would be seven 

 times greater than their height above it. 



Whales have been harpooned on the eastern side of the American Conti- 

 nent, in high latitudes, and have been captured, in some instances after a very 

 short time had elapsed, on the western side, with the harpoons still in them, 

 bearing the stamp of the ship, which is an indication of a northwest passage. 

 The right whale is never found in tropical waters, and these harpooned whales 

 could not, therefore, have passed around Cape Horn, or the Cape of Good Hope. 

 Lieutenant DeHaven, who commanded the American expedition, in search of 

 Sir John Franklin, when he arrived in high northern latitudes, saw far to the 

 north a "water sky," which always indicates an open sea. Agassiz and other 

 naturalists have noted the fact of the disappearance of immense numbers of 

 whales into waters of very high latitudes just before the ocean was frozen over. 

 As the whale is an air-breathing animal, and cannot live under the ice, its immi- 

 gration northward must indicate an open polar sea. Water fowl have also been 

 seen flying far to the north, as if they were seeking an open polar sea. 



All of these indications prepared the world for the report which Dr. Kane 

 brought back of an open polar sea north of the eighty-second parallel of latitude. 

 After passing an ice barrier nearly one hundred miles wide where the spirit ther- 

 mometer indicated a temperature of sixty degrees below zero, he came to the 

 shores of an iceless sea, which extended toward the pole, in an unbroken sheet 

 of water, as far as the eye could reach. As Dr. Kane approached the open 

 water, he wrote : " We see its deep indigo horizon, and hear its roar against the 

 icy beach. Its scent is in our nostrils and our hearts." Here the tides ebbed and 

 flowed, and the waves dashed on the shore with the swell of a boundless sea. 

 Probably the area of this polar sea may be shifted more or less by varying sea- 

 sons, but it doubtless always remains open with a mildness of climate that would 

 allow of human habitation, 



Arctic discovery has been fruitful in various directions. It has enlarged our 

 knowledge of the geography of the globe, and enabled us to construct our maps 

 with much greater accuracy. Something has been gained in regard to the fauna 

 and flora of the north polar region. We have been able to locate with some pre- 

 cision the magnetic pole, which is not without its value to navigation. Meteorol- 

 ogy has received some contributions, and the aurora borealis has been studied in 

 its native home. Some light has been thrown upon arctic geological formations, 

 and our knowledge of the sea and its inhabitants has been enlarged. Ethnology 

 has received valuable contributions by a comparative study of the various tribes 

 of the Innuits, the raw fish-eaters, who are scattered over Greenland, Labrador, 

 and the shores of the Arctic Ocean, and extend down the Pacific Coast as far 

 as the Peninsula of Alaska, and also a portion of the adjacent Asiatic Coast, 

 The missions established by the Moravians among the Innuits, about the middle 

 of the last century, have been fruitful in important results to that superstitious 

 people. 



We should i.ot be in;e isible to the benefits derived from arctic discoveries 



