672 TID]eS AND CURRENTS. 



meeting in that channel are the two branches of the Baffin's Bay 

 tide flowing through Lancaster Sound and through Jones' Sound. 

 The shortest way to the north-west end of Wellington Channel 

 being probably through Jones' Sound. 



The flowing of the three tides into the region between Melville 

 Island, Grinnell Land, and Kellett Land, the Behring Strait tide 

 from the S.W., the Baffin's Bay tide from the S.E. through 

 Jones' Sound, and the North Greenland tide through Lady 

 Franklin Strait, and other straits to the north of it, will fully 

 account for the heavy nature of the ice in that region as far as it 

 has been observed, and for the fact that it is never carried out of 

 this Arctic sea through the somewhat narrow openings into it. In 

 this case there will be some point in the open ocean to the north 

 of Melville Island where these three tides meet, forming, as it 

 were, a pole of tides. McClure was prevented from passing from 

 Prince of Wales Strait to Barrow Sound by the ice collected Avhere 

 two opposing tides meet, and was afterwards obliged to abandon 

 his ship in Mercy Bay probably for the same reason. Professor 

 Haughton has shown that where heavy ice exists, as, for instance, 

 on the west of Boothia Felix, the meeting of the tides tends to 

 consolidate the ice and to prevent its drifting, and that it was 

 owing to this meeting of the tides that Sir John Franklin's ships 

 could not escape. 



In the neighbourhood of this pole of tides we should look for the 

 pole of greatest cold, since we may expect that the tides and 

 currents in the air and its temperature will be reculated to some 

 extent by the distribution of sea and land, so that where we get 

 the pole of ocean tides there we may also expect the pole of aerial 

 tides. 



The correspondence between the temperature of the air and the 



surface temperature of the sea is also in favour of this hypothesis. 



Such a position may be expected to be one of comparative rest, 



so that the colder air above will more readily descend to the surface 



of the earth and produce the cold winds. 



Judging from the direction of the cold winds as observed, the 

 pole of cold may be expected to be somewhere to the N.W. of 

 Wellington Channel. 



The fact that " the oscillations of the barometer are much 

 " greater in the neighbourhood of water," although the surface 

 temperature over water is more nearly constant, shows that the 

 distribution of land and water must have an important effect on, 

 and to some extent regulate, the aerial tides. 



May not the flow of the tide through Lady Franklin Bay to 

 the westward, nearly in the direction of the prevailing N.E. winds, 

 be connected with Admiral Belcher's observations in Wellington 

 Channel, which would be about 400 miles to the south-west ? 

 Dr. Bessels saw large ice-fields in latitude 82° 16' which were 

 drifting south, but which were never seen to the south of Lady 

 Franklin Bay, and it is his impression that they go up that sound 

 or strait. Does not this also seem to show that the current of 

 one knot an hour in Robeson Channel flows through Lady Franklin 

 Strait rather than down Kennedy Channel ? 



