544 
ACCESS TO A 
tending to the east by Jan Meyen's Land and Spitzbergen, it crosses the merid- 
ian of Greenwich at some point between the latitudes of 70° and 73°. 
I now call your attention to a remarkable feature in this great ice coast hne. 
Upon reaching a longitude of about 70° east, it suddenly turns toward the north, 
forming a marked indentation as high as latitude 80° ; then, coming again to the 
southeast until it reaches Cherie Island, it continues on with a varying line to 
the unexplored regions north of Nova Zembla. 
This indentation or sinuosity, best known as the old "Fishing Bight" of the 
Greenland Seas, is undoubtedly due to the thermal influences of the Gulf Stream. 
We know that the coasts of Nova Zembla feel the influences of its waters ; and 
Petermann, and many others, guided by the projected curves of Dove, suppose 
that its heated current is deflected by that peninsula, so as to impress the polar 
ice to a greater degree of northing than on any other part of our globe. 
It would be important to the objects of my communication, that I should trace 
this ice throughout its entire extent ; but I have not the means of doing so with 
exactness. Barentz, in 1596, was arrested by ice in latitude 77° 25', upon the 
meridian of 70° east. Pront-schitschefF met the same rebuflFat the same height 
thirty degrees further west (100° east). Anjou, Matieuschin, and Wrangell 
found it in a varying belt along the Asiatic coast, at furthest but fifty miles in 
width. 
The enterprise of our American whalers has also traced this ice across Beh- 
ring's Straits, as high as latitude 72° 40' ; and it is probable that Herald Island, 
in latitude 71° 17', is a part of a great island chain, continued from Cape Yacan 
to Banks' Land and the Parry Islands ; an archipelago whose northern faces 
are yet unexplored, but which undoubtedly serves as a cluster of points of ice- 
cementation, and abounds more or less with polar ice at all seasons of the year. 
We have now followed, throughout its entire circuit, this immense investing 
body. The circumpolar ice, as I will venture to name it, may be said to bound 
an imperfect circle of 6000 miles in circumference with a rude diameter of 
2000 miles, and an area, if we admit its continuity to the pole, one third larger 
than the continent of Europe. 
But theory has determined that this great surface is not continuous. It is an 
annulus, a ring surrounding an area of open water — the Polynya, or Iceless Sea. 
Polynya is a Russian word, signifying an open space ; and it Is used by the 
Siberians to indicate the occasional vacancies which occur in a frozen water 
surface. Although such a vacancy as applied to a polar sea is generally recog- 
nized to exist, it is right for me to state that this opinion is not based upon the 
results of exploration. It it due rather to the well-elaborated inductions of Sa- 
bine and Berghaus, and especially of our accomplished American hydrographer. 
Lieutenant Maury. The observations of Wrangell and Penny, and still more 
lately of Captain Inglefield, although strongly confio-matory, were Umited to a 
range of vision in no instance exceeding fifty miles, and were subject to all the 
deceptions of distance. As, however, the arguments in favor of the existence 
of such a sea are of the highest interest to future geographical research, and, so 
far as I am aware, have never yet been grouped together, I shall take the lib 
erty of presenting them to the society. 
The North Polar Ocean is a great m'editerranean, draining the northern slopes 
of three continents, and receiving the waters of an area of 3,751,270 square 
mUes. Indeed, the river systems of the Arctic Sea exceed those of the Atlantic. 
