304 Mr PetcrmaniTs Notes on the Distribution of 



liaps, the most uninteresting, as well as the most difficult 

 and dangerous portion of the Frigid Zone. 



Without going further into detail, I will merely add a few 

 words as to the bearing of the foregoing observations on Sir 

 John Franklin's Expedition. 



The general opinion is that the missing vessels have 

 been arrested somewhere between Wellington Channel and 

 Behring Strait and the Siberian shores. Most probably their 

 position is nearer to the latter than to the former points. 

 As these three regions abound in animal life, we may fairly 

 conclude that the intervening portion partakes of the same 

 character, and moreover, that the further Sir John Franklin 

 may have got away from Wellington Channel, and the nearer 

 he may have approached the north-eastern portion of Asia, 

 the more he will have found the animals to increase in num- 

 ber. The direction of the isothermal lines corroborates this 

 assumption, as they are indicative of a higher summer tem- 

 perature in that region than in any other within the Polar 

 basin. Those countries being probably uninhabited by man, 

 the animals there would have continued unthinned by the 

 wholesale massacres by which myriads are destroyed for the 

 sake only of their skins or teeth. 



An interesting fact was mentioned in this Society by 

 Lieutenant Osborn, namely, that Captain Penny, in Septem- 

 ber 1850, had seen enormous numbers of whales running 

 southwards from under the ice in Wellington Channel. We 

 know this to be also the case in the Spitzbergen Sea every 

 spring, and that these animals are numerous along the Sibe- 

 rian coasts. This not only tends to prove the existence of 

 one, or perhaps two, Polar Seas, more or less open through- 

 out the year, but also that these seas abound in animal life, 

 as to satisfy enormous numbers of whales a large amount of 

 foodis required. And it is well known among the Tchuktchi, 

 on the north-eastern coasts of Siberia, — where land to the 

 N. is said to exist in contiguity and probably connected with 

 the lands discovered by Captain Kellett, — that herds of rein- 

 deer migrate between those lands and the continents. 



Taking all these facts into consideration, the conclusion 

 seems to be a reasonable one, that Franklin, ever since enter- 



