If the author could make himself heard at Washington, he would also urge the government to lose no time in following our own expedition under Dr. Kane, who, if he finds a clear entrance from Smith’s sound into the Arctic sea, may be induced to push on, and endeavor to make his way through the pack towards Behring’s straits, and thus fall into the same snare as Franklin. According to the theory, the higher the passage into the Arctic sea, the less will it be incumbered with ice, and, consequently, Smith’s sound is the best both to enter and return by; and had the author not already smarted enough by having his professions derided, he would have submitted these views to the patrons of that expedition before it sailed.
The scientific world is, in reality, chargeable with the disastrous results of Franklin’s expedition. The polar basin is hemmed in by the coast line of Europe, Asia, and America, in about latitude 70° north, for the greatest part of the entire circumference. And this coast line, and the islands adjacent, will cause the polar ice to accumulate and form a frozen belt along these shores, in consequence of the constant tendency of the earth’s rotation to press the ice to the southward. The fact that an open passage exists between this belt and the shore in summer time, is no objection, as the tides, river currents, and warm land breezes, may very well explain this. The learned have insisted, and do yet insist, that the earth’s rotation can produce no motions in the Arctic sea, and, under this delusion, Franklin has passed into the comparatively open waters inside the pack, perhaps has lost his ships; yet it is very possible that the party may have escaped, and derived a subsistence from the more genial waters of the central portion of that ocean unto this day.
We have already alluded to the difference of level between the Atlantic and Pacific waters. It is well known that the currents in the Spitzbergen and Greenland seas is to the southward, and that Parry, in his attempt to reach the pole, was foiled by this very current, frequently setting him back in twenty-four hours more than his party could travel in the same time over the ice. Through Baffin’s and Hudson’s bay the northern waters are also continually bearing their frozen freight southward. We are, therefore, entitled to ask, what supplies this immense drain? Behring’s straits are only about sixty miles wide, and twenty-five fathoms deep; the supply, therefore, through this channel is totally inadequate, yet there is no other channel into the Arctic sea where the current is inward. We have already explained the reason why the current through Behring’s straits is an exception to the general rule, yet still confirming the principle by referring it to the configuration of the land enclosing the Pacific ocean. The whole south Pacific lies open to the pole, and the inertia of the immense mass of mobile waters pressing northward, and continually contracted by the form of the American and Asiatic coasts, is not balanced by a contrary impulse of the waters of the north Pacific, inasmuch as this ocean becomes narrower as it extends northward, and the only passage to the frozen ocean is through the narrow straits of Behring. The axifugal force of rotation due to the northern waters is, therefore, overborne by the vast preponderance due to the southern waters, and, hence, the northern Pacific may be considered as relatively at a higher level, and there will be a current northward through Behring’s straits, as we find it. The same cause accumulates the waters under the equator, thus giving a higher level to the Pacific than to the Atlantic at the isthmus of Panama, where the difference of level is found by actual measurement to be five or six feet. This fact has never before been explained; but the cause is too obvious to admit of question.
That the sea is deeper than was formerly admitted, is now fully confirmed. We have before alluded to the results obtained by Captain Denham, of H. M. ship Herald, who found bottom at 7,706 fathoms, or about nine English miles. Now, whether that spherical shell, which we have contended to be the true form of the solid earth, be continuous and entire; or, whether it may not be wanting in localities of limited extent where the ocean would be absolutely unfathomable, we know not; but if such be the internal constitution of our globe, there will be, no doubt, many channels of communication between the internal and external ocean, and, as a consequence of the earth’s rotation, the axifugal current of the Arctic sea may be supplied by an upward current from the interior of the globe; and this current may have a higher temperature than the surface waters of that sea, and thus the middle portions may, in truth, remain open the whole year round, and be teeming with animal life. According to Captain Penny’s observations in 1850, whales and other northern animals existed to the westward, where he saw the open sea stretch out without a bound before him.
It has been a question mooted by some, that Franklin’s ships might be overtaken, at an early stage of the voyage, by a storm, and foundered amidst the ice. The theory would give a negative answer to this question. Stiff gales may prevail far to the north when the vortices do not reach so high; but no storm, properly speaking, will be found far beyond their northern limit. After the coming winter (1853), the vortices will gradually penetrate farther and farther to the northward, and the years 1857, 1858, and 1859, will be highly favorable for northern discovery, accompanied, however, with the necessary draw-back of tempestuous weather.
FOOTNOTES:
[48]The reader will of course understand these as celestial longitudes, and the latitudes as terrestrial.
[49]Mr. William McDonald, of Canada.