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ship;' and it was found in the Discovery, that, when they were as high as the seventieth parallel of latitude, the wind at W. N. W. occasioned a great swell, Captain Burney knows that these things could not well have happened in a close bay with the wind from the land, and where there was little or no current.' This expression occurs, it is true, once, and but once, in the published voyage-and on what occasion does it occur? we answer,-when at anchor, at a very short distance from the American coast, in six fathoms water, to the northward of, and far within, Cape Prince of Wales,' and consequently out of any current setting to the northward; in both years, however, a northern current was found, under the influence of which the ships were driven 'more from the south-west than any other quarter,'-though never to exceed one mile an hour.'

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Captain Burney, however, judiciously reserves what he considers to be his strongest argument to the last. The deepest soundings,' he says, we had in this sea (between Asia and America) did not exceed thirty fathoms, and this depth was found in lat. 68° 45'; midway between the coast of Asia and the coast of America; northward beyond that latitude, the soundings were observed to decrease; and, in our run from the coast of America westward, we did not find the depth to increase, as is usual in running from land, which peculiarities made us conclude that there was land at no great distance from us to the north, and that we were sailing in a parallel line with its coast.'

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If there be any truth in the charts, or in the journals of Captains Cook and Clerke, the soundings in 68° 45′ abcut the middle between the two continents, were found to be twenty-eight and twenty-nine fathoms, while those farther north by nearly a whole degree of latitude, namely in 69° 30', instead of decreasing, are marked down at twenty-nine and thirty fathoms; but on this point we will not contend with Captain Burney for a few fathoms.* It is the latter part of his statement that principally calls for notice :In our run from the coast of America westward, we did not find the depth to increase, as is usual in running from land.' Now Captain Cook states distinctly that, in approaching the American coast, the water shoaled gradually,' (vol. ii. p. 453;) and further, that, being obliged to anchor in six fathoms, it was found, by sending a boat to sound, that the water shoaled gradually towards the land.'-Again, in standing to the westward, 'they soon got into deep water;' (ibid.) As we advanced to the west, the

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*Admitting Captain Burney's statement to be correct, the reasoning is inconclusive. The Strait of Dover is the same depth, and a little more than half the width of the Strait of Behring; and though the sea shallows on both sides of it, yet is not closed by land on either.

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water deepened gradually to twenty-eight fathoms;' (p. 462.) and this, by the way, was to the northward even of 69°. Nay, farther still to the north, Captain Cook observes, as we approached the land the depth of water decreased very fast, so that at noon we had only eight fathoms ;' (465.) and Captains Clerke and Gore, in the following year, frequently repeat the same observation, and state generally, that the depth of water in the midway between the two coasts was twenty-nine and thirty fathoms, decreasing gradually as we approached either continent;' (vol. iii. p. 277.) observing moreover, that so regular were these soundings, that they could safely approach either continent even in foggy weather. What could induce Captain Burney to set himself against these numerous and well authenticated facts of which he must have been an eye-witness?

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It does not appear that Captain Cook entertained any doubt whatever of a passage through Behring's Strait into the arctic sea;-and his examination of it was postponed solely from the lateness of the season. Had his valuable life been spared to renew the attempt, we should not now in all probability have had occasion to discuss the question. His calamitous fate, the lingering illness of his successor, and the length of time which the ships had been from England, seem to have cast a damp on the spirits of the whole party; and they became, to use their own words, so heartily sick of a navigation full of danger,' that they resolved to give it up at a time (July) which was most favourable for commencing it. But not the slightest doubt ever appears to have entered into the minds of any of them, of the separation of the two continents; nor did they contemplate any other difficulty in making the passage to the Atlantic than that which was anticipated from obstruction of ice. Every circumstance, in fact, was favourable to the supposition of a complete separation of Asia and America the two continents, as they proceeded to the northward, were found to have diverged from thirteen to one hundred leagues, in the short distance of three degrees of latitude: and so far were they from any appearance of approximation, that the farther they were traced to the northward, the farther they were observed to diverge from each other. A French geographer, of the name of De Lisle, and, after his example, a German called Hederstrom, by one of those geographical dashes on paper, so easy to imagine, but so mischievous in their consequences, have thought fit to unite the imaginary land in the Siberian sea, not with Asia, to which it is supposed to be opposite, but with America, and have thus deprived Captain Burney of the smallest chance of incorporating the Asiatic Tschutski with the American Eskimaux. We call these lands imaginary, on the authority of one of the ablest navigators

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and best informed men in all Russia, from whose letter to us on this subject we venture to make the following extract:

It is generally understood that four of the seven vessels, which composed the expedition of Deshneff, were lost in the ice; and there is a tradition in Siberia, that their crews were saved on an unknown land lying to the northward of the Kovyma. Since that time this land has frequently been the object of research, and is even supposed to have been discovered by some adventurers, though, in all probability, there is not the least foundation for the story. However, in the year 1758, three officers were dispatched to examine into the truth of this alleged discovery; but they returned without having fallen in with any land. A. length one Andreanoff was sent in 1762, by the governor of Tobolsk, with the same view, and by him the land in question is said to have been actually found. According to Andreanoff's account it is inhabited by two different races of people, one having beards, and strongly resembling the Russians; the other evidently of Tschutski origin; they call themselves Chrachoy, and their country Tikilshen. Two interpreters of Captain Billing's expedition, Daurkin and Kobaleff, have pretended to vouch for the veracity of Andreanoff's relation, and have even given a drawing of the land, making it a continuation, on one hand, of the coast of America, and, on the other, stretching to what is called New Siberia, which, with some islands lying to the northward of the river Jana, is supposed to have been discovered in the year 1808 by one Hederstrom, who had been sent out by Count Romanzoff to make discoveries in those seas. As to Andreanoff's discovery, it is, to say the least of it, doubtful; and Count Romanzoff, in order to clear up the doubt, has particularly desired Captain Ricord, of the navy, the present governor of Kamtschatka, to employ proper persons to proceed by sea, in baidars, and also parties of Tschutski by land, or on the ice, with the view of exploring whether these supposed lands to the northward of the Kovyma have really any existence.'

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We have less apprehension of the passage through Behring's Strait being closed against our navigators, except by ice, than of the difficulties which they may probably have to encounter on this side of America; not that we despair of a water communication between the Atlantic and the arctic sea; for many arguments may be adduced in favour of the separation of Greenland from America, as 1. The north-west current and swell of the sea.* 2. The ice-bergs and drift-wood brought down by that current. 3. The whales wounded off Hakluyt's headland and caught in Davis's strait. 4. The general trending of the American coast, in or about the 70th parallel, from Icy Cape to Hearne's river. 5. The native American Indian maps, painted on skins, which continue the sea from Copper Mine river to the northward of Repulse bay, but be

*Last year the Andrew Marvel of Hull, the Thomas, and several other ships, were as high as 759 20', when the sea was open, and a heavy swell from the west.

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low the parallel of 70°.* 6, and lastly, and what botanists will consider as the strongest argument of all, two species of erica-the vulgaris and cærulea-both natives of northern Europe, and both very abundant on the east coast of Greenland, whereas it is well known that no species of heath has been found on any part of the continent of America, either north or south.

But though there is every reason to believe Old Greenland to be an island or an archipelago of islands, we have no inclination to deny that some of them may not stretch far enough to the westward to form those several sounds of which Baffin so briefly and vaguely speaks, the narrow channels of which, if they actually exist, may occasionally be choked up with ice. It is to guard against a failure from such a possibility, we conceive, that the polar expedition has been planned; in order that, by attempting to sail on a meridian across the pole, or to double Old Greenland to the north-westward, another chance may be afforded of reaching Behring's Strait by a more direct route. In the mean time, while these expeditions are pending, it may not be uninteresting to discuss the points on which the probability of their success may be calculated, and which we think will mainly depend on two circumstances the existence of a circumvolving current from the North Pacific into the North Atlantic, which would prove the communication, and of a great polar sea free from land; two positions very difficult, we admit, of direct proof, and therefore the more fitting to be canvassed.

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In discussing the question of the current, which we have supposed to set through Behring's Strait into the Atlantic, it will not be necessary to inquire, whether there be little current' here, or 'no current' there; it being well known that the strength and direction of partial currents are affected by a thousand local circumstances, which are too often overlooked by superficial observers; the important and indeed the only point to be ascertained is, the general and permanent direction taken by the great body of the northern Pacific-for it is scarcely now a question that, in this as well as in every part of the ocean, the water, either by tides or currents, is kept in a perpetual state of motion, and thus made to undergo a perpetual circulation. This motion may not every where be obvious, though it may every where exist. No one, however, can doubt the perpetual and unchangeable direction of

One of these maps,' says Dalrymple, indicates that, beyoud the limits of Capt. Middleton's discoveries, the sea is continued to the Copper river; in this fact all the Indian maps and reports concur; so that there is every reason to believe Repulse bay does not close up Hudson's bay on that side, but that it communicates with the hyperborean sea-Memoir of a Map of the Lands around the North Pole, 1784.

+ Geiscke, Art. Greenland, in Edin. Encyclop. The cærulea, however, is no longer considered by botanists as an erica.

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the great current which sets' round the Cape of Good Hope from the Indian ocean into the Southern Atlantic; or of the vast equinoxial current which bears its broad belt of water in a constant stream from the shores of Africa into the Gulf of Mexico; from whence it is discharged in a more confined, but not less constant, stream along the western coast of America to the Great Bank of Newfoundland; where, meeting with another perpetual current from the arctic seas, it is deflected towards the east, to supply the unceasing demand of the Mediterranean, and replenish those very shores of Africa, from which it first set out.*

As little reason is there, we conceive, to doubt of a great body of water of the Northern Pacific being in a state of perpetual motion towards Behring's Strait. It is well known to navigators that a current sets in that direction along the coast of America, on the one side, and those of Japan and Kamstchatka on the other; but as the observations on the currents of these coasts have been few, and the currents observed might therefore be local and partial, we mean not wholly to rest our argument on them, but to have recourse to other and less equivocal proofs for the general movement of the Pacific towards the north. This is indisputably proved by the immense quantities of drift-wood constantly thrown up on the southern shores of the Aleutian islands; consisting of larch, fir, aspen, and other trees, the common produce of the two continents of Asia and America: but as a proof of the more southerly parts of the Northern Pacific partaking of the same motion, there is a curious fact mentioned in the voyage of Stephen Glottof, that, among other floating bodies (thrown up on the Aleutian islands) is found the true camphor-wood, and another sort very white, soft, and sweet-scented.'+ This camphor-wood could

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* A multitude of examples might be brought to confirm the fact of the gulf-stream turning off to the eastward, and continuing to the coasts of France, Spain, Portugal, and Africa; among others, the two following deserve notice, and have not, we believe, been yet made public:-On the 10th of November last, a sealed bottle was picked up in the bay of Carnata, in the kingdom of Gallicia, three leagues south of Cape Finisterre, in which was the following memorandum : This bottle was thrown overboard from the Catherine of London, in lat. 44° N., longitude by account, 13° 49′ W., on Wednesday, 25th June, 1817. This being intended to ascertain the set of the current, whoever picks it up is requested to acknowledge it by making it public."

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On the very same spot was picked up in May last another bottle corked and sealed, containing a billet, addressed to John Williamson Shik, Esq. Georgia, written by Captain W. Baugh, in latitude 49° N. and longitude 43° W., on board the ship Georgia, on her voyage to Liverpool, but without date.'

It is much to be wished that navigators would make a constant practice of throwing bottles overboard, which would contribute very materially to ascertain the great and permanent currents of the ocean. Had the Resolution and Discovery thrown out a few hundred bottles in Behring's Strait, the question of a free passage through the polar basin would probably long before this have been placed beyond the reach of doubt. + Russian Discoveries, p. 186.

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