146 
THE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE SEA. 
CHAPTER VII. 
THE OPEN SEA IN THE ARCTIC OCEAN. 
How Whales struck on the east Side of the Continent have been taken on the west 
Side, () 278. — Right Whales can not cross the Equator, 279. — How the Existence 
of a northwest Passage was proved by the Whales, 280. — Other Evidence in Favor 
of it, 281. — An under Current sets into the Arctic Ocean, 283. — Evidences of a 
milder Climate near the Pole, 284.~The Water Sky of Lieutenant De Haven, 285. 
— This open Sea not permanently in one Place, 286. 
278. It is the custom among whalers to have their harpoons 
marked with date and the name of. the ship ; and Dr. Scoresby, 
in his work on Arctic voyages, mentions several instances of 
whales that have been taken near the Behring's Strait side with 
harpoons in them bearing the stamp of ships that were known to 
cruise on the Baffin's Bay side of the American continent ; and as, 
in , one or two instances, a very short time had elapsed between 
the date of capture in the Pacific and the date when the fish must 
have been struck on the Atlantic sitle, it was argued therefore 
that there was a northwest passage by which the whales passed 
from one side to the other, since the stricken animal could not 
have had the harpoon in him long enough to admit of a passage 
around either Cape Horn or the Cape of Good Hope. 
The whale-fishing is, among the industrial pursuits of the sea, 
one of no little importance ; and when the system of investigation 
out of which the "wind and current charts" have grown was 
commenced, the haunts of this animal did not escape attention or 
examination. The log-books of whalers were collected in great 
numbers, and patiently examined, co-ordinated, and discussed, in 
order to find out what parts of the ocean are frequented by this 
kind of whale, what parts by that, and what parts by neither. 
(See Plate IX.) 
279. Log-books containing the records by different ships for 
hundreds of thousands of days were examined, and the observa- 
tions in them co-ordinated for this chart. And this investigation- 
