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be the first to wave over the most remote and hitherto inaccessible portions of the globe, from the Equator to either Pole.

From this digression we advert, with much pleasure, to the little volume whose title stands second at the head of this Article,the Voyage of Captain Weddell into the Antarctic Seas. It furnishes a striking example of how much may be done, by skill and good management, with slender means; and it furnishes also an additional proof how little there is to apprehend for loss of life, or ships, among fields of ice in the navigation of the Polar seas, when prudence and good seamanship guide the helm. The object of this voyage was to procure cargoes of the furbearing sealskins on the Sandwich Land, which was considered to be the projecting cape of a southern continent, stretching from it east and west, behind the recently recovered (not discovered) islands of Gerritz, which have assumed the new name of South Shetland. Captain Weddell has shown the conjecture we have mentioned to be ill-founded, and has moreover added very considerably to our knowledge of the Antarctic seas.

The two vessels employed on this voyage were, the brig Jane, of 160 tons, commanded by Captain Weddell, and the cutter Beaufoy of 65 tons, by Mr. Brisbane; the former having a crew of twenty-two officers and men, and the latter of thirteen, both ships fitted out in the ordinary way, and provisioned for two years. Mr. Weddell made the best of his way to the South Orkneys, a group of islands which he had discovered the year before, lying to the eastward of the South Shetlands, than which they were represented as being more rugged, peaked and terrific in their appearance. Here they captured a few large sea-leopards, a new species of phoca, which professor Jameson, from its spotted skin, has named the Leopardine Seal.

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Finding no appearance of a continent, Mr. Weddell determined to continue standing to the southward. I accordingly,' says he, informed Mr. Brisbane of my intention, and he, with a boldness which greatly enhanced the respect I bore him, expressed his willingness to push our research in that direction, though we had been hitherto so unsuccessful.'

Mr. Brisbane and his little cutter bring to our recollection the Frobishers, the Davises, and Baffins of former times, who, with their Sunshines and Moonshines of some thirty tons, worked their way in so surprizing a manner through fields and floes of ice. Thus the Beaufoy kept pace with her somewhat more powerful consort through those streams of ice which surround the New Shetlands, the Orkneys, the Sandwich Land, and that more southerly belt, which Captain Cook entered, but was glad to escape from again as speedily as possible.

Proceeding therefore to the southward, in about the lati

tude

tude 65°, they thought they had discovered land, which showed itself in the shape of a black rock; but, on a nearer approach, it proved to be only an ice-island, covered on one of its sides with black earth. Their disappointment, however, was somewhat soothed by the consideration that it must have disengaged itself from some high land possessing a considerable quantity of soil, and the possibility that this land might not be far distant. From this place, however, till their arrival in latitude 69°, detached bergs, or islands of ice, were constantly occurring, so numerous indeed, about the latter point, as almost to impede and prevent their passing farther. Sixty-six,' says Captain Weddell, 'were counted around us; and for about fifty miles to the south, we had seldom fewer in sight.'

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Arrived at 70° 26' S., the wind became moderate, the sea tolerably smooth, the weather pleasant, and the ice-islands had almost disappeared. Unfortunately the two thermometers had been broken, and the temperature from this time could not be ascertained, but we are told it was fully as mild as in the latitude 61°, in the month of December (34° to 36°) and they now near the parallel of 73°. The sea was literally covered with birds of the blue peterel kind, but nothing like land nor any indication of land appeared. The weather continued mild and serene, and not a particle of ice of any description was to be seen;' and this absence of ice continued till the 20th of February, when, in latitude 74° 15′, longitude 34° 17′, three iceislands were in sight from the deck, and one more from the masthead.

Having attained this high latitude, which is three degrees and five minutes farther south than Captain Cook, or any preceding navigator, had reached; and the wind blowing fresh from the south, the season too fast advancing, Captain Weddell deemed it prudent to return.

I would willingly (says he) have explored the S. W. quarter, but taking into consideration the lateness of the season, and that we had to pass homewards through 1000 miles of sea strewed with ice-islands, with long nights, and probably attended with fogs, I could not determine otherwise than to take advantage of this favourable wind for returning.' -Weddell, p. 37.

Captain Weddell, on leaving this high degree of southern latitude, comes to a conclusion which, in our present state of ignorance, he is hardly authorized to do. He says that, as the sea in this high latitude was free from ice, and as in 61° (that is, in a lower latitude by 13 degrees) his ship was beset in heavy packed ice, which extended to the distance of 100 miles from the land, the South Pole must be much more attainable than the North; because, in a much more advanced position towards the latter,

there

there is a great deal of land. If he was led to this conclusion by observing that the greatest quantity of ice was always found hanging about the land, we so far agree with him. Experience has already shown that, wherever there is an extensive sea free from islands, whatever ice may be formed on it in the winter season will, when broken up by gales of wind, be drifted about till it gets hold of some land, where it takes the ground, and becomes fixed to the shores; consequently, where there are numerous islands, as is the case in the Arctic seas, it is jammed in the straits formed between them, and closes entirely, or renders very difficult, the navigation of these straits. But how can he tell what land may exist between the degree of latitude which he reached and the South Pole? Should there be none, we have no doubt whatever of the practicability of an easy navigation to that Pole; and as little have we that Captain Parry will find an uninterrupted navigation for his boats to the North Pole, provided no land intervenes between that and Spitzbergen. The icebergs, it is true, that were seen in this high latitude by Captain Weddell, could only have been formed by the precipitous shores of land existing somewhere in this Antarctic Ocean, but these masses are known to travel far, and in all directions, according as they are influenced by winds and currents.

That field-ice, or extensive floes of ice, cannot be easily formed in a deep and expansive ocean, we are disposed to agree with Captain Weddell, who is not aware perhaps that one of our best old navigators, who made three several attempts to discover a North-west passage, was of the same opinion, observing that the deep sea friezeth not;' an opinion which he deduced from his own experience, and which is, moreover, considerably corroborated by the testimony of the Baron Wrangel, who, after traversing the solid ice which stretches from the northern coast of Siberia into the Polar seas, came to an expanse of water of which he could see no end in any direction; as also by that of Franklin, who saw nothing but water from the mouth of Mackenzie's river; by the observations of Parry in Lancaster Sound; and lastly, by the experience of Mr. Weddell himself in the Antarctic Ocean. Though the fact of the great deep sea not freezing may not be strictly and universally correct, we may safely affirm that it never remains frozen over. Captain Parry has observed that the first strong breeze of wind that agitates the sea, disperses and separates the ice into small heaps or packs, which drift away till they find some large floe, or field, or the shore of some land whereto to attach themselves. Mr. Weddell may therefore be right in his conjecture that the Antarctic sea will probably be found less icy than is generally imagined; and that, if there be no more land to the southward of the spot which he reached, (which is, in

fact,

fact, the whole question,) there may be a clear field of discovery, even to the South Pole.'

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This voyage of Mr. Weddell will assist us in correcting an erroneous and unfounded notion, which has somehow or other got abroad, and passes current like many other vulgar errors,' that the southern hemisphere is considerably colder than the northern one, in the corresponding degrees of latitude; in so much, that ten degrees of latitude, at the least, must be added to the latter to produce an equality of temperature with the former—as in 50°, for instance, of north latitude, the climate is of equal temperature with that of 40° of south latitude. This, we venture to affirm, is not the case, whether on the land or on the ocean; the absurdity, as a general rule, is obvious enough; for as temperature depends very much on local circumstances, by which it is governed perhaps more frequently than by degrees of latitude, no determinate rule of general comparison can possibly be established. Thus we find that oranges will grow in Europe in the same degree of latitude in which oats will scarcely ripen on one side of America; while again, on the opposite side of that same continent, in the very same degree, the delicate humming-bird builds its nest.

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We have already had occasion to remark how much warmer are the western shores of continents and islands than their eastern sides; perhaps one of the most remarkable instances of the high winter temperature of the sea on a western coast in a high latitude, is that of Norway, where the sea, even in its inland deep fiords, is rarely if ever frozen over. Mr. De Capel Brooke saw nothing like ice in the harbour of Hammerfest in lat. 70°, at a time when the thermometer on the shore was at 13° below zero. On walking down,' says he, to the fiord, the whole surface was covered with a thick steam, which arose from the sea.' He tells us, what was not necessary, that this was occasioned by the difference of temperature between the water and surrounding air; that the vapour of the former, being the warmer, is condensed into fog by the colder air, and becomes visible; but he does not tells us why the sea should be warmer on this than on the other side of the Atlantic, where the heated water of the Gulf-stream rolls its current. Is the phenomenon occasioned by the cold water of the surface descending by its increased gravity, while the warmer and lighter ascends to take its place from the great depth below?* or is the heat that puzzles us created by subterranean fire?

* In speaking of Lochness, which is said never to freeze on account of its depth, Dr. Johnson observes, its profundity can have little part in this exemption; for though deep wells are not frozen, because their water is excluded from the external air, yet where a wide surface is exposed to the full influence of a freezing atmosphere, I know not why the depth should keep it open.'

The

The fact is, unquestionably, as stated by Mr. De Capel Brooke. We know that the harbour of New York, in lat. 403°, is almost annually frozen up; and that of Halifax and the adjoining sea (lat. 443°) invariably so for several months; while the sea on the coast of Norway, even up to the North Cape in lat. 71° 10′, is never frozen. The coast of Ireland is not molested by ice; while that of Newfoundland, extending 5° more southerly than that of Ireland, is surrounded with fields of ice for several months every year. The case is the same on the eastern side of the continent of Asia. In the Japan islands, snow will remain on the ground till May. At Pekin, in lat. 40°, the canals are frozen up for two months in the year, and ice is not uncommon at Canton, which lies under the tropic.

These anomalies do not exist, or exist only in a very small degree, in the southern hemisphere, the vast expanse of ocean in proportion to the land there preserving a more equable temperature;-one so equable, so uniform indeed, that, take any one parallel, and it will be found that, in the whole circumference of the globe, no other difference of temperature exists, than what may be accounted for by the different nature of the surface, as mountains, forests, sandy plains, &c.

As there is, therefore, little or no analogy between the two hemispheres, so no comparative estimate can be formed of the difference of temperature between corresponding parallels of latitude. Instead of this difference being equal to 10° of latitude in favour of the northern hemisphere, we should rather be inclined to think that the contrary is nearer the truth: thus we shall find that South Africa has as high a summer temperature as the northern portion of that great continent; and that in winter, it has one that is much more so, especially near its southern extremity; and that South America, both in winter and summer, enjoys a much higher temperature than North America. The sea, too, within the Antarctic circle, as we have seen, is very little encumbered with ice as far as 75°, while a great portion of the Arctic seas, and even 10° or 12° below that circle, where land abounds, are in certain places almost choked up with it. The summer temperature of the ocean was found by Mr. Weddell every where higher than Captain Parry had it in much lower latitudes.

These examples, which might be greatly multiplied, are sufficient to show the absurdity of making any general comparison, and to prove how unfounded is the vulgar notion that the southern hemisphere is colder in corresponding latitudes than the northern

one.

Another circumstance, of a different nature, struck us forcibly

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