1853] 



THE POLAR REGIONS. 



125 



to vegetation, says : — " I found many of them in old apple trees, toge- 

 ther with their larvae which eat the wood, and from which I subse- 

 quently obtained the insect in the beetle state." 



I found in an oak tree, on December 1st, an Ichneumon-fly, having 

 a red body ; antennas black, with ten of their middle rings white ; legs 

 black, with white bands ; wings bluish. This insect is the third of 

 the genus having red bodies, with part of their antennas white, which 

 I have noticed to hybernate. One species has been found for three 

 successive winters, between the earth and the roots of White Ash in one 

 locality, and what is more astonishing, under the same trees. Trees 

 growing in the clearing are in many instances better protected through- 

 out winter than many of the forest monarchs. If the field has been 

 at any time cultivated, the earth generally becomes couically packed 

 around the lower section of the trunk, which, if not disturbed for a 

 year or two, will give place to a quantity of fibrous roots adhering 

 closely to the bark. Insects has instinct to select this as a place to 

 take their winter's rest. The small steel-blue HaUicadce can be here 

 found in societies of from fifteen to thirty, together with two or three 

 species of CoechullidtB, which also hybernate in society. Countless 

 numbers of Poduros hop about whenever their abode is disturbed. 

 Cold appear to take very little effect on these minute insects — they 

 display the same power of locomotion in the month of December as 

 they would in the warmth of summer. 



December 10th. — In removing the earth from an oak tree at Castle 

 Frank, I discovered a large lepidopterous insect of the genus Bomby. 

 Anterior wings reddish brown, and angulated, having two weaved 

 streaks across each, and in their centre an oblong black dot ; posterior 

 wings of a brown satin colour, with white margin ; antennae filiform ; 

 tongue spiral, but short ; body quite flat, with the tail indented. By 

 these marks the moth can be easily distinguished from others of the 

 same family. Lepidoptera are so rarely found torpid in this 

 country, that I consider this instance well worthy of notice. The same 

 species was taken by me during summer. 



December 12th. — I visited Mr. Baldwin's bush, west of Tonge- 

 street, for the purpose of obtaining Coleoptera. Those taken are prin- 

 cipally bark -miners. Three species of Ciicuji were found un'ier the 

 rind of Oak, Choke Cherry, and Maple, together with three other spe- 

 cies of bark-minevs — all appeared in perfect vigour when removed 

 from the crevices they occupied. During my walk in this locality, I 

 noticed that nearly all the standing timber is more or less at- 

 tacked by beetles — trees in their second growth, even the giants of 

 the forest, are fast decaying away. This cannot be attributed to bark- 

 mining beetles alone, but to the powerful larvae of the extensive family 

 of Cerambycidce and Buprestidce. So long as fallen trees are allowed 

 to remain on the ground, not a healthy piece of timber can come from 

 that locality, for such decayed trees are the resort of the above beetles, 

 and they tend to their increase. 



The Polar Kegions. 



ON THE POPULAE NOTION OF A NAVIGABLE SEA AT, OE PEOXIMATE TO, 



THE NOETH POLE. 



Of the different communications made by me at the late meeting of 

 the British Association, at Hull, that 'On the Popular Notion of an 

 Open Polar Sea' has been most unfortunate in regard to the inaccuracy 

 of the notices of it in the papers of the day. These notices having 

 been subsequently repeated in journals of more permanency, and also 

 referred to as my statements on certain popular and interesting ques- 

 tions concerning Arctic geography — as, for instance, in an article by 

 Mr. Petermaun in the Athcnceum of October 22, — I feel it due to myself 

 and to the public, to seek the opportunity, which I trust you will 

 afford me through the medium or your journal, of correcting the most 

 important of these errors, 



Mr. Petermann says, — "In a paper read by the Rev. Dr. Scoresby 

 before the British Association, at Hull, the learned author states, that 

 by having reached the latitude of 80*2 ° he believed he had penetrated 

 further into the Arctic Regions than any other living man:" — a position 

 which he then proceeds to question, and, according to the authorities 

 adduced, to disprove. In other publications referring to the same 

 communication of mine, a singularly mistaken statement, ascribed to 

 rue, to the following effect, is added: — That, " though his observations 

 bad left no doubt in his own mind that the country about the North 

 Pole was one mass of stupendous blocks of ice, — he firmly believed, 

 however, that the North Pole might be reached by land." 



Now, what I actually stated on the first of these points — that quoted 

 by Mr. Petermann — was to this effect: — that " no instance could, I 

 believe, be produced in which the adventurous navigator had ever 

 been able to push his way northward (except in one case, where I 

 was personally engaged) beyond the eighty-first parallel,— the lati- 



tude, in such adventure, being determined by celestial observation, and 

 the case verified by the production of the ship's journel kept at the 

 time ; but that, in the exceptional and remarkable case referred to, we 

 had advanced to the latitude of 81° 30' north (verified by two obser- 

 vations beyond 81° aud by my personal journal kept at the time),— 

 which, I apprehend, was the furthest point reached by sailing, within 

 the experience of any living person of which we had reliable record." 



And that statement, even if put in more general terms, so as to 

 embrace the enterprises of times past, might, I |believe, be fairly 

 maintained. No doubt numerous cases may be found recorded in the 

 collections of the Hon. Daines Barrington and others, in which far 

 higher latitudes are stated to have been reached. But still, in support 

 of my own statement, at Hull, I may be permitted to say, that little or 

 no value, obviously, can be attached to mere memorial authorities for 

 remarkable attainments of this kind, where so many influences tend to 

 produce exaggeration or delusion of memory. Yet of this memorial 

 class, incapable of decided evidence, are almost all those of Mr. Bar- 

 rington, as well as those of subsequent collectors of similar incidents, 

 as far as I have seen, which have been adduced to show a navigable 

 Polar Sea in the far North: The subject, indeed, was particularly 

 discussed by me in the 'Account of the Arctic Regions,' Vol. I. pp. 

 40 — 49 ; and the conclusions as above have not yet, I believe, been 

 contravened. Of the more recent cases adduced by Mr. Petermann in 

 the AthcncBwn (see ante, p. 1258,) I am not authorised to speak; per- 

 haps, further than to say, that unless the attainment of the high 

 positions specified — latitudes 82 ° and 82° 60' — be grounded on 

 observations of the sun, and taken from journals kept at the time, they 

 cannot be relied on as evidence even of the navigableness of the ice- 

 encumbered seas to these extents — much less for supporting the theory 

 of an open Polar Sea. 



Few of the cases adduced in support of the theory of an open Polar 

 Sea admit of positive verification or disproval ; but it is remarkable 

 that of such cases as admit of being tested, all that I have met with 

 may be refuted, Two of these occur in the instances recorded by Mr. 

 Barrington, which may suffice for illustration, — the cases of Captain 

 Clarke and Capt. Bateson, in 1773, where the former stated his having 

 sailed to the latitude of 8I>£°, and the latter to 82° 15'. Now those 

 cases belong to the year of Capt. Phipp's expedition towards the North 

 Pole — they refer to advances in the same sea and at the same season, 

 and, as will be obvious to the reader of ' Phipps's Journal,' must have 

 been impossible : for that able officer, we find, was unable to advance 

 beyond 80° 48'; where he was not only arrested by impermeable iee, 

 but so dangerously involved therein as to have seriously contemplated 

 the idea of being obliged to abandon his ships. 



All the other cases that I know of, admitting of a satisfactory test- 

 ing, equally fail ; whilst there are the important facts, that of all the 

 public expeditions undertaken by this country with the object of 

 approaching or crossing the Pole, not, one ever reached by sailing the 

 latitude of 81° north, and that a personal experience of twenty-one 

 voyages to the Greenland Sea — in which I was from seven to nine 

 times at the furthest navigable point and nearest the Pole, for the 

 time, of any other adventurers in the world— gave but once an 

 advance beyond 80° 34', when we reached, under my father's unex- 

 ceeded enterprise, the latitude of 81° 30'. In no other regions or 

 meridian, I may add, has anything like such advances been made ; nor 

 can any of the cases of " open sea" quoted from the despatches of Sir 

 E. Belcher and Capt. Inglefield show it to be actually navigable to so 

 great an extent, nor, indeed, within 150 miles of it. 



In my communication to the British Association on the popular no- 

 tion of an open Polar Sea the several arguments usually adduced in fa- 

 vour of the theory were separately examined ; but no reply attempting 

 to c. introvert any of the facts or to shake the conclusions from them 

 was elicited. Nor do the views recently set forth by Mr. Petermann, 

 enlightened and comprehensive as in many respects they are, at all 

 meet the facts and analogies — as far as I am able to judge — which I 

 suggested in contravention of the popular theory. It had long been 

 my wish, indeed, to have a subject of so much geographical interest 

 duly examined, — and not earned, as it has prevalently been of late, 

 by a sort of popular acclamation. With a view to this I made appli- 

 cation to the President of the Geographical Society in the month of 

 May last for my bringing a paper before that Society on the specific 

 question, in order to its being fairly discussed ; but the opportunity, 

 within the fortnight which I had then at command, was unfortunately 

 not afforded. 



No inconsiderable ambiguity, it should be noted, has been thrown 

 around the topic by the mixing up of two very different forms of the 

 theory of the existence of " a Polar Sea," — viz., the theory of the exist- 

 ence of a polar ocean, and that of a navigable ocean up to or immediate- 

 ly around the northern pole. 



Ab to the theory; in the first of these forms, there is no difference, 



