632 Original Articles. [Oct., 



unbroken. Why therefore should we doubt that the same process 

 takes place in our own planet ? Simply, we may answer first, because 

 nothing is more deceptive than to argue in physical science from 

 what seems to be a well-chosen analogy. 



Direct evidence seldom has the same weight as circumstantial, we 

 shall therefore bring forward this our least trustworthy argument first : 

 In the year 1818, Messrs. Barrington and Beaufoy, Fellows of the 

 Royal Society, produced the evidence of several Dutch skippers, to 

 the effect that they had succeeded in reaching within two or three 

 degrees of the pole, that they had found there a sea of comparatively 

 warm temperature, and that there was a swell which indicated no very 

 close proximity of land. One man went so far as to declare that he 

 had passed some two degrees beyond the pole. At this distance of 

 time it is almost impossible to arrive at a very clear idea of the value 

 of the evidence here given. Numerous skippers of whalers told tales 

 of having approached and even passed the pole, after having penetrated 

 the pack ice to the north of Spitzbergen, but whether these were the 

 deliberate accounts of men who really believed that they had done as 

 they had stated, or were mere travellers' tales, it is impossible now to 

 say. And again, if these accounts were given in good faith it may 

 well be doubted whether these men were not deceived through ignorance 

 of some of the now well-known laws which govern the needle and 

 other physical phenomena. 



Soon after the last of these statements was made public, Baron 

 Wrangel, accompanied by Lieutenant Matthiewskin, made several 

 attempts to penetrate northwards from the coast of Siberia, but after 

 having crossed some considerable space of ice, they were on each occa- 

 sion met by open water, which checked further advance. This cir- 

 cumstance naturally drew men's attention to any fact which might 

 lead to similar conclusions, and may well now draw our attention to 

 the indirect but more trustworthy evidence. 



A study of the condition of the sea about Spitzbergen has brought 

 to light some curious results. It has been noticed that all the icebergs 

 to be found in this locality consist only of frozen sea-water, not of 

 masses detached from land-glaciers, as the icebergs of either coast of 

 Greenland invariably are. Moreover, no terrestrial remains, according 

 to the observations of Scoresby, occur on any portions of the ice to the 

 north of Spitzbergen. To the east of that island less pack ice occurs 

 than farther west. Sir Edward Parry (and this is direct evidence of 

 a very different character from that mentioned before) advanced as far 

 north as 82° 40' North latitude, or within 7£ degrees of the pole, the 

 highest latitude as yet reached in open sea to the north of Spitzbergen 

 of which we have any authentic information, and when he was com- 

 pelled to return he still saw open sea before him. 



The narrow channels to the north of the Western Continent, into 

 which innumerable ice-rivers pour their huge masses of frozen material 

 continually, are soon blocked up by the icebergs thus formed, so that 

 currents are stopped, the wind can affect them but slightly and that 

 only at intervals, whilst in the meantime the cold attacks the inter- 

 mediate spaces of undisturbed sea, and iceberg is linked to iceberg, 



