Art. XXV. The Northwest Passage, the North Pole, and the Greenland Ice.
Art. XXV. The Northwest Passage, the North Pole, and the Greenland Ice.
In looking over the foreign journals, we find no articles of intelligence so interesting as those which respect the three subjects mentioned above. Indeed, as they have found their way into most of our newspapers, it is now generally known in this country, that, in consequence of the reported breaking up of the Greenland ice, an expedition has already left England, in two divisions, the one for the purpose of exploring a northwest passage to Asia, around the North American continent, by the way of Davis's Straits; the other, for effecting the same object by passing over the north pole.
If Horace thought that man almost impiously daring who first adventured upon the open sea, what shall we say of the hardihood of the attempt to visit THE POLE?—the pole, which it is impossible to contemplate without awe—which, in all probability, has never been visited by any living being—where the dreary solitude has never been broken by human voice—where the sound of war has never been heard, and darkness and cold exert an almost undisputed dominion! What must be the emotions of that man who first stands upon the point of the earth's axis! Who, no longer partaking of the revolution, in circles of latitude, slowly revolves on the axis of his own body, once in twenty-four hours—to whom the sun does not rise or set, but, moving in a course very oblique to the horizon, makes scarcely a perceptible progress in twenty-four hours, and at the end of three months, when he has attained his noon, is only 23° 28′, on the arc of a vertical circle, above the horizon—to whom longitude is extinct, and who can move in no possible direction but south—to whom the stars are a blank, and to whom the polar star, could he see it, would appear in the zenith. Such are some of the most obvious results of a position on the pole. The man who first establishes himself on this sublime point, will have more reason for self-congratulation than he who led the Persian myriads into Greece, or he who pushed the Macedonians to the Indus.
On these interesting subjects, we beg leave to refer our readers to a very able treatise in the Quarterly Review for February, 1818, where all the topics at the head of this article are discussed with much learning and ability.—We extract the following passage:
"If an open navigation should be discovered across the polar basin, the passage over the pole or close to it, will be one of the most interesting events to science that has ever occurred. It will be the first time that the problem was practically solved with which the learners of geography are sometimes puzzled—that of going the shortest way between two places lying east and west, by taking a direction of north and south. The passage of the pole will require the undivided attention of the navigator. On approaching this point, from which the northern coasts of Europe, Asia, and America, and every part of them, will bear south of him, nothing can possibly assist him in determining his course, and keeping on the right meridian of his destined place, but a correct knowledge of the time: and yet no means of ascertaining that time will be afforded him. The only time he can have, with any degree of certainty, as long as he remains on or near the pole, must be that of Greenwich, and this he can know only from good chronometers; for, from the general hazy state of the atmosphere, and particularly about the horizon, and the sameness in the altitude of the sun at every hour in the four-and-twenty, he must not expect to obtain an approximation even of the apparent time, by observation, and he will have no stars to assist him. All his ideas respecting the heavens and the reckonings of his time will be reversed, and the change not gradual, as in proceeding from the east to the west, or the contrary, but instantaneous. The magnetic needle will point to its unknown magnetic pole, or fly around from the point of the bowl in which it is suspended, and that which indicated north will now be south; the east will become the west, and the hour of noon will be that of midnight.
"These curious circumstances will probably be considered to mark the passage by the pole, as the most interesting of the two, while it will perhaps be found equally easy. We have, indeed, very little doubt, that if the polar basin should prove to be free from land about the pole, it will also be free of ice. A sea of more than two thousand miles in diameter, of unfathomable depth, (which is the case between Greenland and Spitzbergen,) and in constant motion, is not likely to be frozen over at any time. But if all endeavours to discover a passage to the Pacific by either route should prove unavailing, it will still be satisfactory to have removed every doubt on this subject by ascertaining the fact. In making the attempt, many objects interesting and important to science will present themselves to the observation of those who are engaged in the two expeditions. That which proceeds up Davis's Straits, will have an opportunity of adjusting the geography of the northeast coast of America, and the west coast of Greenland; and of ascertaining whether the latter be not an island or an archipelago of islands; and much curious information may be expected from both.
"They will ascertain, what is as yet but very imperfectly known, the depth, the temperature, the saltness, and the specific gravity of the sea-water in those high latitudes—the velocity of the currents, the state of atmospherical electricity in the arctic regions, and its connexion, at which we have glanced, with the inclination, declination, and intensity of force of the magnetic needle; on which subject alone, a collection of facts towards the upper part of Davis's Straits would be worth a voyage of discovery. It has, indeed, been long suspected that one of the magnetic poles will be found in this neighbourhood, as in no part of the world have such extraordinary phenomena been observed, or such irregularities in the vibration and the variation of the needle.
"A comparison of the magnetic influence near the pole, with what it has been observed to be on the equator, might lead to important results; and the swinging of a pendulum as near the pole as can be approached, to compare with the oscillations observed in the Shetland Islands, and in the southern hemisphere, would be a great point gained for science."
We have no room in this Number to consider the probability of success in this attempt, nor the question, whether the breaking up of the Greenland ice, and its passage to, and dissolution in, the south, have been attended with a chilling influence on the continents. That such a chilling effect might be extensively exerted, is certainly credible. Approaching some of the icebergs, in April 1805, on the shoals of Newfoundland, we were rendered very sensible of the vicinity of such dangerous neighbours, by the great chill in the air, long before they were visible; and when we had passed them, the weather again grew milder.
Perhaps it militates against the probability of finding the northern polar basin free of ice, that Captain Cook, in his approximation to the southern pole, in January, 1773, when in latitude 67° 15′ south, "could proceed no farther; the ice being entirely closed to the south, in the whole extent from east to west-southwest, without the least appearance of any opening." The advanced season of the year did not, however, permit Captain Cook to ascertain whether he could coast around this ice—whether it was ultimately attached to land, or was a part of a vast field extending to the south pole. This last is however highly improbable, because being found about 23° from the pole, it is hardly credible that it would occupy so extensive a region as to embrace the pole, and, perhaps extend as much farther beyond; especially as in similar latitudes in the opposite hemisphere, navigation is comparatively free, and has been pushed even to more than 80° of north latitude.
The scientific, as well as the commercial world, will wait with no small impatience for the termination of the two grand arctic expeditions, which are among the most original and daring, and may be among the most interesting and momentous hitherto undertaken by man.