ICEBERG SYSTEM. 
349 
be of interest to all to learn from tlieir remains how 
far they had gone along the road of human progress. 
The enormous deposits of wood accumulated upon 
the shores of Arctic lands have their evidence to 
render, which is of especial service to the students of 
nature; the direction of the streams is surely indi¬ 
cated by the species they represent; and the easterly 
coasts of all islands in certain directions being more 
encumbered by ice than the corresponding western 
shores of all those known, point to one description of 
facts, not without their meaning, which tell only a 
portion of the truth they reveal, so long as we are 
restricted in our knowledge of the whole of the Arctic 
cosmography. 
In the Spitzbergen seas we have passed to the east¬ 
ward of the great iceberg system, since icebergs would 
be found drifting from the eastward if they were gene¬ 
rated anywhere in that direction. There are therefore 
no ice-bound coasts to be encountered in this direc¬ 
tion, no floating barriers exist whose frozen walls offer 
no portal for the Polar explorer. The flat ice that is 
found floating on the seas will surely admit of the 
steam ship, easily handled in the various narrow 
channels, as it breaks up for the year; and modem 
appliances can easily be brought into requisition now, 
whose enormous power was not understood during 
