The Arctic regions and the northern whale-fishery

by William Scoresby

The universal interest which has been attached to this question of a sea communication between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, by the north, ever since it was first suggested, about three hundred and thirty or three hundred and fifty years ago, is fully proved by the facts, that the speculation has never but once been abandoned by the nations of Europe for more than twenty-five years together, and that there have been only three or four intervals of more than fifteen years in which no expedition was sent out in search of one or other of the supposed passages, from the year 1500 down to the present time. And it is not a little surprising that, after nearly a hundred different voyages have been undertaken with a view of discovering the desired communication with the Indian seas, all of which have failed, Britain should again revive and attempt the solution of this interesting problem.

Several facts may be brought forward, on which arguments of no mean force may be founded, in support of the opinion of the existence of a sea communication by the north between Europe and China. They may be enumerated in order.

1. The prevailing current in the Spitzbergen sea flows, we are well assured, during nine months of the year, if not all the year round, from the north-east towards the south-west. The velocity of this current may be from five to twenty miles per day, varying in different situations, but is most considerable near the coast of Old Greenland. The current, on the other hand, in the middle of Behring’s Strait, as observed by lieutenant Kotzebue, sets strongly to the north-east, with a velocity, as he thought, of two miles and a half an hour; which is greater, however, by one-half than the rate observed by captain Cook.

2. By the action of the south-westerly current, a vast quantity of ice is annually brought from the north and east, and conducted along the east shore of Old Greenland as far as Cape Farewell, where such masses as still remain undissolved are soon destroyed by the influence of the solar heat and the force of the sea, to which they then become exposed from almost every quarter. This ice being entirely free from salt, and very compact, appears originally to have consisted of field-ice, a kind which perhaps requires the action of frost for many years to bring it to the thickness which it assumes. The quantity of heavy ice, in surface, which is thus annually dissolved, may, at a rough calculation, be stated to be about twenty thousand square leagues, while the quantity annually generated in the regions accessible to the whale-fishers is, probably, not more than one-fourth of that area. As such, the ice, which is so inexhaustible, must require an immense surface of sea for its generation, perhaps the whole or greater part of the so-called “Polar Basin;” the supply required for replacing what is dissolved in Behring’s Strait, where the current sets towards the north, being, probably, of small moment. The current, in opposite parts of the northern hemisphere, being thus found to follow the same line of direction, indicates a communication between the two across the Poles; and the inexhaustible supply of ice, affording about fifteen thousand square leagues, to be annually dissolved above the quantity generated in the known parts of the Spitzbergen seas, supports the same conclusion.

3. The origin of the considerable quantity of drift-wood, found in almost every part of the Greenland sea, is traced to some country beyond the Pole, and may be brought forward in aid of the opinion of the existence of a sea communication between the Atlantic and the Pacific; which argument receives additional strength from the circumstance of some of the drift-wood being worm-eaten. This last fact I first observed on the shores of the island of Jan Mayen, in August, 1817, and confirmed it by more particular observation when at Spitzbergen the year following. Having no axe with me when I observed the worm-eaten wood, and having no means of bringing it away, I could not ascertain whether the holes observed in the timber were the work of a ptinus or a pholas. In either case, however, as it is not known that these animals ever pierce wood in arctic countries, it is presumed that the worm-eaten drift-wood is derived from a transpolar region. Numerous facts of this nature might be adduced, all of which support the same conclusion.

4. The northern faces of the continents of Europe and Asia, as well as of that of America, so far as yet known, are such as renders it difficult even to imagine such a position for the unascertained regions, as to cut off the communication between the Frozen Sea, near the meridian of London, and that in the opposite part of the northern hemisphere, near Behring’s Strait.

5. Whales, which have been harpooned in the Greenland seas, have been found in the Pacific Ocean; and whales, with stone lances sticking in their fat, (a kind of weapon used by no nation now known,) have been caught both in the sea of Spitsbergen and in Davis’s Strait. This fact, which is sufficiently authenticated, seems to me the most satisfactory argument.

The Russians, it appears, have, at intervals, discovered all the navigation between Archangel and the Strait of Behring, excepting a portion of about two hundred miles, occupied by the eastern part of a noss, or promontory, lying between the rivers Khatanga and Piacina. The northern extremity of this noss, called Cape Ceverovostochnoi, appears to have been doubled by lieutenant Prontschitscheff, in the year 1735, so that ice, and perhaps some small islands, seem in this place to form the great obstruction to the navigation. As far as can be well substantiated, the portion of the route between Archangel and Kamtchatka, which has been hitherto accomplished, clearly proves that, if a sea communication between the Atlantic and Pacific by the north-east really exists, it could never be practicable in one year. Inasmuch as the Russians were five or six years in performing so much of the navigation as has been accomplished, though they employed a number of different vessels in the undertaking, it is probable that the voyage could never be performed in one vessel, unless by mere accident, in less than eight or ten years. It is clear, therefore, that the discovery of a “north-east passage” could never be of any advantage to our commerce with China or India.

Though, however, the voyages undertaken in search of a north-east passage by the different nations of Europe have amounted to about twelve, besides numerous partial attempts by the Russians, and though all of them have failed in their principal intention, yet they have not been wholly lost to us; the Spitzbergen whale and seal fisheries, so valuable to the country, with the trade to Archangel, having arisen out of them.

The voyages of Davis, in the years 1585-6 and 1587-8, of Hudson, in 1610, and of Baffin, in 1616, were the source of the greatest part of the discoveries which have been made in the countries situated to the northward and westward of the south point of Greenland. To these regions, consisting of what have been called bays and straits, the names of these celebrated voyagers have been applied. All the voyages, indeed, since undertaken for discovery in the same quarter, amounting to nearly thirty, have done little more than confirm the researches of these three individuals, and show how little there was to be found, instead of discovering anything of moment. The ostensible object of most of these voyages, was the discovery of a shorter passage to India than that by the Cape of Good Hope, by the north-west. The existence of such a passage is not yet either proved or refuted. In an account of “a Voyage to Hudson’s Bay,” by Henry Ellis, such a passage is inferred to exist from the following considerations:—the want of trees on the west side of Hudson’s Bay beyond a certain latitude; the appearance of a certain ridge of mountains lying near the same coast, and extending in a direction parallel to it; the direct testimony of the Indians, that they have seen the sea beyond the mountains, and have observed vessels navigating therein; and, most particularly, the nature and peculiarities observed in the tides. This latter argument is by far the most conclusive. From observations on the winds and tides in the Baltic, Mediterranean, and other inland seas, Ellis proceeds to show, that every circumstance with regard to the tides in Hudson’s Bay is different from what would take place in an inland sea, and then concludes that Hudson’s Bay is not such a sea, but has some opening which communicates with the Frozen Ocean on the north-west.