The Open Polar Sea. 



59 



south as the cold Arctic current, before mentioned, by the coasts of 

 Greenland, and so along the shores of the United States. It is true 

 no such undercurrent has yet been observed on the north of Europe 

 and Asia, but nothing else is adequate to explain what is really taking 

 place in those regions. But several navigators have noticed such an un- 

 dercurrent of the gulf-stream passing up Davis strait, west of ( ! reenland, 

 and one, too, indicating the passage of a large body of water. Lieut. 

 De Haven, while attempting the northern passage through this 

 strait, found himself drifting back to the south on a surface current. 

 Noticing a large ice-berg drifting steadily north by means of this un- 

 dercurrent, he made his vessel fast to it and in his own language, 

 "was carried north like a shot." These two branches of the gulf- 

 stream, and another through Behring's strait, temper the circum- 

 polar region, and make it mild enough for birds and animals to live 

 on vegetation through the long Arctic winter. As the lands must be 

 free from snow to enable the reindeer to crop the grasses and lichens, 

 so the waters would never be frozen. In short, we may ascribe to the 

 waters of the circumpolar sea a temperature from forty to sixty de- 

 grees, and to the land a climate not far different from that of Alaska. 

 We should expect to find there among the islands adjacent, grasses and 

 lichens in abundance, and a moderate Alpine flora. 



So far we have arrived at results by legitimate inferences from iso- 

 lated facts brought together to show their relations to each other with 

 reference to the land and water of the Arctic zone. Let us now see 

 what we may learn of the atmospheric phenomena of the same region. 

 It is a well-known fact that the circumpolar regions and a belt of 

 land, including the equator and extending a few degrees both north 

 and south of it, are the zones of permanent lowest atmospheric pres- 

 sure. That is to say, that the mercury in the barometer, say at Spitz- 

 bergen, year in and year out, stands lower than it does in New York, 

 owing to a greater amount of vapor in the polar regions. Now, then, 

 as the waters of the gulf-stream give out their last remaining heat 

 about the pole, the enveloping atmosphere would receive the radiated 

 heat. But these are also just the conditions of vaporization from 

 large bodies of water — a warm belt of water bordering upon a colder. 

 This accounts for the vast amount of rain and snow that falls north of 

 latitude seventy-two degrees, as shown by the extensive glaciers of 

 Greenland, Spitzbergen and all the sub-polar lands. But this amount 

 of heat in the circumpolar region would necessarily cause an ascend- 

 ing current of warm air. As it rose the currents of air from the south 

 would flow in in all directions to the north pole. At the same time 

 ,the motion of the earth on its axis would make this column of air to 

 flow from the south-east to the north-west, and so give a spiral motion 



