15 
raised in the tropical regions of the Pacific, to, and its pre- 
cipitation and ultimate congelation in, Arctic regions, from 
which, where land-locked, there can be little or no waste 
by offshoot of icebergs. But no conditions tend to augment 
equally the ice accumulations north of the Atlantic, wherein 
icebergs, the offshoots of the Arctic glaciers, abound. Lieut. 
Parry estimated the weight of one such offshoot from the 
Polar ice, a berg aground in Baffin's Bay, to be 1,292,397,673 
tons, being 4,169 yards long, by 3,689 yards broad, and 51 
feet over water level. Another contained 900,000,000 cubic 
feet, and others of even vaster dimensions have been noted. 
What aspect, then, may we expect these opposite segments 
of the arctic circle to present as the result of these varying 
conditions ? In Behring's Straits the channel is choked by 
ice-floes, and shipping are in constant danger of being 
blocked in by ice as far south as 66° N. lat. , while we have 
no record of open sea, even temporarily available for naviga- 
tion, beyond four degrees north of this. But north of 
Spitzbergen an open sea to latitudes 82° to 84|° has been 
many times recorded, and deer are said to thrive in Spitz- 
bergen to latitude 80°, proof of a mild climate. Science, 
wrongly interpreting the fact of this open area of sea, has 
recently speculated on the probability of finding an open sea 
even to the pole. But although ice-girt seas in polar regions 
may be partially or wholly open as to their midst, that may 
arise from the fact that such areas have been ice-girt for 
centuries ; and as the superficial stratum has remained in an 
almost stagnant state, exposed to a frosty atmosphere, and 
the fresher, and less dense molecules, rising to the surface, 
have been successively frozen, the residue of water is pro- 
bably of an intense saltness, resisting congelation even in 
extreme temperatures, in fact, in its lower depths a concen- 
trated brine precipitating or crystallizing into massive rock 
salt. The occurrence of beds of this material may therefore 
be deemed prima facie evidence of the former occurrence of 
an arctic cliniate, — not merely a local glacial condition similar 
to that of Alpine summits, — hi localities affording as yet no 
other evidences of this to the observation of geologists. 
Now, as to the accumulation of precipitated vapour, en masse, 
within arctic regions, and especially in the south-western 
quarter of the outer confines of frigidity around the arctic 
pole, north of which natural laws would prevent vapour being 
borne atmospherically, my views were, some years ago, op- 
posed by the scientific critic, writing under the nam de plume 
of (Edipus. But research into observations by explorers of 
arctic regions, leaves no doubt of the fact, that accumulation 
