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546 ACCESS TO A 
Cape Farewell, passing up the Greenland coast to latitude 74° 76' ; where, after 
coming to the western side of the bay, it passes along the eastern coast of 
America, even to the Capes of Florida. During the winter, when the great 
rivers of Siberia and America lose their volume by the action of the frost, a cur- 
rent has been noted from the Faroe Islands, north and east, along the Asiatic 
coast, toward Behring's Straits. And then it is that the great surface ice, form- 
ed upon the coasts of Asia, gives place to a warmer stream, and the heated 
waters of the C4ulf current bathe and temper the line of the Siberian coast. 
All these facts go to prove that the polar basin is not only the seat of an act- 
ive supply and discharge, but of an intestine circulation independent of either; 
while the intercommunication of the whales {B. mysUcetus), between the Atlan- 
tic and Pacific, as shown by Maury, proves directly that the two oceans are 
united. 
Admitting the- important fact of a moving, open sea, the recognized equaliza- 
tion of temperatures attending upon large water masses follows of course. 
But is the Arctic Sea, in fact, an vinvaried expanse of water 1 For if it be not, 
the excessive radiation and other disturbing influences of land upon general 
temperature are well known. It is, I think, an open sea. And an. argument 
may be deduced for this belief from the icebergs. The iceberg is an offcast 
from the polar glacier, and needs land as ah essential element in its production 
— as much so as a ship the dock-yard on which she is built, and from which she 
is launched. From the excessive submergence of these great detached masses, 
they may be taken as reliable indices of the deep-sea currents, while their size 
is such that they often reach the latitudes of the temperate zone before theii 
dissolution. Now it is a remarkable fact that these huge ice hulks are con- 
fined to the Greenland, Spitzbergen, and Baffin Seas. Throughout the entire 
circuit of the Polar Ocean, almost seven thousand miles of circumscribing coast 
we have but forty degrees which is ever seen to abound in them. 
A second argument, bearing upon this, is found in the fact that a large area 
of open water exists, between the months of June and October, in the upper 
parts of Baffin's Bay. This mediterranean Polynya is called by the whalers 
the North Water. After working through the clogging ice of the intermediate 
drift, you pass sudfienly into an open sea, washing the most northern known 
shores of our continent, and covering an area of 90,000 square miles. 
The iceless interval is evidently caused by the drift having traveled to the 
south without being re-enforced by fresh supplies of ice ; and the latest explora- 
tions from the upper waters of this bay speak of avenues thirty-six miles wide 
extending to the north and east, and free. 
The temperature of this water is sometimes 12° above the freezing point ; 
and the open bays or sinuosities, which often indent the Spitzbergen ice as high 
as 81° north latitude, have been observed to give a sea-water temperature as 
high as 38° and 40°, while the atmosphere indicates but 16° above zero. 
But, besides these, we have arguments growing out of the received theories 
of the distribution of temperature upon the surface of the earth. 
The actual distribution of heat in this shut-out region can only be inferred. 
The system of isothermals, projected by Humboldt upon positive data, ceased 
at 32° ; and the views of Sir John Leslie (based upon Mayer's theorem), that 
the north pole was the coldest point in the Arctic regions, have, as the members 
are aware, since been disproved. 
