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POPULAR SCIENCE REVIEW. 
advances the pack gradually breaks up into contending masses, 
small pools of water appearing occasionally. In September the 
frost sets in again, cementing the broken masses of ice, and by 
the end of October or beginning of November the pack, which 
till then had been drifting up and down the channel, begins to 
settle itself for the winter. No movement whatever has been 
observed during that season, occasional cracks, caused by tidal 
currents, alone excepted. A certain qnantity of this ice cer- 
tainly escapes through Eobeson Channel into Smith Sound and 
Baffin Bay, but compared with the vast extent of the Palseo- 
crystic Sea this quantity is but small, and the evacuation is more 
than compensated for by the constant western drift of the ice 
due to winds and currents. The sea to the north of Eobeson 
Channel indeed appears to be hopelessly ice-bound, and the 
only chance of penetrating the Palseocrystic Sea would appear 
to be offered by pushing northward along the unexplored coast 
of Wrangel Land. 
Captain Sir G. Nares is of opinion that the Greenland coast 
does not extend much further north than 82° 55' , and that a 
portion of the ice of his Palseocrystic Sea finds an outlet to the 
north of that island and drifts southward along its eastern coast. 
We would observe, however, that driftwood of Pacific or 
American origin might be expected to be drifted upon the 
eastern coast of Greenland if such were the case. The drift- 
wood collected by the German expedition contained Siberian 
species only, such as are found on the northern and 
eastern coasts of Spitzbergen, and this proves conclusively 
that the cold Arctic current passing along that coast carries 
away the ice formed in the Asiatic half of the Polar basin, and 
not that formed in the western, American half. Thus much 
appears to be certain that there are no glaciers in Northern 
Greenland, or to the north of it, for no icebergs were observed 
by Sir George Nares. This absence of glaciers is due to the 
small quantity of snow which falls in these high latitudes, and 
in their absence the musk ox, lemming, and other animals 
could easily have migrated from Grinnell Land by a northern 
road to Eastern Greenland, as suggested by Dr. Brown in an 
able article published in the “ Arctic Papers of the Eoyal 
Geographical Society,” even if that island should be found to 
extend far beyond 83° N. Dr. Petermann has hazarded an 
opinion that the American and Asiatic halves of the Polar basin 
are separated by land or a chain of islands, extending from 
Greenland to Wrangel Land. The late Admiral Sherard 
Osborn likewise assumed the sea, now named the Palseocrystic, 
to be land-locked, and this theory we believe to be most in 
accordance with the physical geography of the Arctic regions, 
as far as it is known to us. 
