North Polar Exploration. 341 



across the North. Pole. But the facts upon which the theory of 

 a Polar basin rests are that Wrangell met with thin and broken 

 ice at a distance of about twenty miles from the Siberian coast, 

 in February, denoting open water ; and that Anjou saw the same 

 water-holes off the islands of Kotelnoi and New Siberia.* When 

 Barents wintered in Nova Zembla, in 1596, he also saw open 

 water to the northward, in March, after a strong S.E. gale ; 

 but as soon as it began to blow from the N.W., the ice returned 

 from that quarter. He naturally concluded, from this move- 

 ment of the ice, that there must have been open water to the 

 north, into which the ice was blown. The Russians call these 

 water-holes Polynias, and they are occasionally seen in all 

 parts of the Arctic regions, even in the depth of winter. 

 They are caused by currents, and in Baffin's Bay also by 

 movements of icebergs. It is obviously absurd for a man 

 standing on the ice, and finding open water before him, to call 

 it an " immeasurable ocean," when he can only see a distance of 

 a few miles. An argument in favour of a warm Polar climate 

 has also been derived from the supposed influence of unceasing 

 sun-light during six months. Scoresby long ago calculated that, 

 at the summer solstice, the influence of the sun is greater at the 

 Pole than at the Equator by nearly one-fourth. But he points 

 out that, on the same principle, the influence of the sun at 

 78° N. is only T T T th less than at the Pole, and also greater than 

 at the Equator, f Now at 78° N., the mean temperature of 

 the year is 17° Fahr., and ice is formed during nine months 

 in the Spitzbergen seas, neither calm weather nor the proxi- 

 mity of land being essential to its formation. How, then, can 

 the temperature further north be entirely different ? It may 

 readily be admitted that those parts of the Arctic zone where 

 there is much land, such as Greenland and the vicinity of the 

 Magnetic Pole, are colder than portions where there is a wide 

 expanse of ocean ; but to suppose that this difference is so 

 great as to affect the existence or non-existence of ice is 

 wholly inadmissible, even if the Polar pack did not yield a 

 tangible proof that ice is formed round the Pole. Scoresby, by 

 a careful calculation, finds the probable mean annual tempera- - 

 ture of the Pole to be + 10° Fahr. 



The only sound conclusion that can be arrived at from the 

 above considerations is that the Polar region is frozen over 

 during the winter, with occasional lanes and water-holes kept 

 open by the currents ; that this ice drifts south in the summer 

 and autumn, and is gradually loosened and melted at its 

 southern edge by the action of the Gulf-stream, the swell of' 



* The open water of Middendorf, off Cape Tainiyr, was seen in August, when 

 it equally exists in ah parts of the Arctic regions. 



t Solar influence is proportional to the sines of the sun's altitude. 



