POLAR SEA. 
547 
Sir David Brewster, by a combination of the observations of Scoresby, 
Gieseke, and Parry, determined the existence of two poles of cold, one for 
either hemisphere, and both holding a fixed relation to the magnetic poles. 
These two seats of maximum cold are situated respectively in Asia and Amer- 
ica, in longitudes 100° west and 95° east, and on the parallel of 80°. They differ 
about five degrees in their mean annual temperature ; the American, which is 
the lower, giving three degrees and a half below zero. The isothennals sur- 
round tiiesc two points, in a system of returning curves yet to he confirmed by 
observation ; but the inference which I present to you, without comment or 
opinion, is, that to the north of 80°’, and at any points intermediate between 
these American and Siberian centres of intensity, the climate must be milder, 
or, more properly speaking, the mean annual temperature must be more elevated. 
Petermann, taking as a basis the data of Professor Dove, deduces a movable 
pole of cold, w’hich in January is found in a line from Melville Island to the River 
Lena, and, gradually advancing with the season into the Atlantic Ocean, recedes 
with the fall and winter to its fomicr position. Such a movement is clearly 
referable to the summer land currents witli their freight of polar ice. 
With the consolidation of winter, the ice recedes, and the Gulf Stream enters 
more perceptibly into the far nortli. The mean temperature of the northeast 
coast of Siberia is forty or fifty degrees colder than that of the western shores 
of Nova Zembla, wliile in July it is twenty degrees higher. 
But if any point between 75° and 80° north latitude, a range sufficiently wide 
to include all the theories, be regarded as the seat of the greatest intensity of 
cold, we may, perliaps, infer the state of the Polar Sea from the known temper- 
atures of other regions, equally distant with it from tliis supposed centre ; 
though, as the lines of latitude do not correspond with those of temperature, 
this must be done with caution. 
I have been interested for some time in examining this class of deflections ; 
and I find that they point to some interesting conclusions as to the fluidity of 
the region about the pole, and its attendant mildness of weather. 
Thus, for instance, at Cherie Island, surrounded by moving waters, but in a 
higher latitude than Melville Island, the seat oftlie greatest observed mean an- 
nual cold, the temperature was found so mild throughout tlie entire Arctic win- 
ter, that rain fell there upon Christinas-day. 
Barentz, a most honest and reliable authority, speaks of the increasing warmth 
as he left the land to the north of 77°. The whalers north of Spitzbergen con- 
firm the saying of the early Dutch, that the “ Fisherman’s Bight” is as pleasant 
as the sea of Amsterdam. 
Egedesmindo and Hittenback, two little Danish and Esquimaux settlements 
on the we.st coast of Greenland, in latitude 70°, with a climate influenced by 
adjacent land masses, but ncv(irtheless not completely ice-bound, are in the 
isothermal curve (summer curve) of 50°, giving us a vegetation of coarse grass- 
es, and a few crucifers. 
In West liapland, as high as 70°, barley has been, and I believe is still grown ; 
though liere is its highest northern limit. If 80° be our centre of maximum 
cold, the pole, at 90°, is at the same distance from it as this West Lapland 
limit of the growth of barley ! 
But there are other arguments based upon known facts, and facts popularly 
recognizetl, bearing upon the theory of an open sea : 
