1878. ] ae Geography and Travels. : 835 
believes it is impracticable to reach the Pole by the Smith Sound 
route. The heavy polar pack, formed of ice from 80 to 100 feet 
in thickness, is rendered almost impassable by dense hummocks 
from 20 to 40 feet in height, or floes of most uneven surface cov- 
ered with deep snow. North from Cape Joseph Henry, in lati- 
tude 83°, no land exists as far as the 84th degree, and he believes 
there is none for a distance of 200 miles 
Whether or not land exists within the three hundred and sixty 
miles which _—— from this limit to the northern axis of the 
globe is, so far as sledge traveling is concerned, immaterial. 
Sixty miles of mace pack, Capt. Nares holds to be an insuperable 
objection to traveling in that direction with our present appli- 
ances. 
The Polar sea extends along the northern coast of Grinnell 
land westward for a distance of at least two hundred miles, when 
the coast trends to the south-west, and no land further north is 
accessible by a sledge i Ap in that direction. Entrance to all 
bays or harbors westward of Cape Joseph Henry is also barred 
by the Polar ice-wall. A similar barrier of ice exists along the North 
Greenland coast, so that no ship can hope to find protection on 
either of these shores. 
apt. Nares also regards the similarity in the character of the 
ice, and the formation of the coast of Banks land and Prince 
Patrick’s island, to that of Grinnell land as evidence that the Polar 
sea extends to their shores, but the reverse conditions existing on 
the northern shore of thé Parry islands indicates the extension of 
Grinnell land more or less continuously for the whole distance to 
Ireland’s Eye, protecting the Parry islands from the Polar ice. 
It is, however, probable that Jones’ sound affords the most direct 
route from Baffin’s bay in a north-westerly direction to the Polar 
sea, separating Grinnell land from the land which protects the 
Parry islands. 
From the “ “aber of Tidal Observations,’ by Dr. Samuel 
Haughton, we learn that the new tidal wave observed on board 
both the A/ert and Discovery is a. was from the Baf- 
fin’s bay tide, and from the tide that the Arctic ocean 
through Behring’ s i and it is, ie Pei eion, a tide that 
has passed from the Atlantic ocean round Greenland northwards 
and then westwards. Greenland probably ends not far north of 
latitude 82° or 83°. 
GEOGRAPHICAL News.—The deep sea soundings taken on board 
the U. S. Coast Survey steamer lake during her voyage in the 
Gulf of Mexico, mentioned in our September number, were made > 
about the south-east of the Gulf, about the Florida bank, west of 
the peninsula of the same name, about the Yucatan ank, and 
north-west of that peninsula. and in the intervening portion of sea 
f the 
between the above-mentioned places and the western end o 
island of Cuba. Prof. Alexander Agassiz who conducted these - 
VOL, XII,—NO. XII. 
