212 OBSERVATIONS ON THE MEAN TEMPERATURE 



quest the attention of the Society to the nature of the argu- 

 ment by which I conceive that we may ascertain the maximum 

 limit of the Polar temperature. 



In the Old Continent, the mean heat at 60° of latitude is 

 40°. In 78° of latitude, Mr Scoresby makes it 17°, and thence 

 infers that it must be 10° at the Pole. Now, if Mr Scoresby 

 had approached the Pole in a meridian passing through the 

 New World, he would have encountered a cold of 24° in the 

 latitude of 60° ; and in the parallel of 78° this cold would have 

 increased to 4°, as deduced from the formula. If we then 

 subtract from this an anomaly calculated after Mr Scoresby's 

 ingenious process, we' shall find that the Polar temperature 

 computed in this way is many degrees below the zero of Fah- 

 renheit's scale. Or, to state the argument more popularly, 

 since the cold at the Pole is 10°, as inferred from observations 

 made in the mildest meridian, it must fall greatly below this, 

 and even below zero, if inferred from observations made in the 

 coldest meridian. The winds which blow from the continent 

 of Greenland, — from the northern extremities of America, — 

 and from the frozen coast of Siberia, must produce at the 

 North Pole an influence which is scarcely felt in the Spitzber- 

 gen Seas. 



From all these considerations, we are entitled to infer 

 that the formula, which represents the actual temperatures 

 with such accuracy from the Equator, - and through all the va- 

 rieties of climate in the Temperate Zone, even to the parallel 

 of 78°, where the fixed ice acts with its full influence, is not 

 likely to fail in its accuracy when extended to its limit ; and, 

 therefore, that the temperature of the Pole itself is not far 

 from 0' of Fahrenheit *. 



The 



* As this reasoning is founded on the assumption that the Pole is the coldest 

 i oint of the Globe, the results given above will admit of considerable modification, 



if 



