Arktis isudbredelse, historiske vidnesbyrd

:-"The recent return of Dr Kane has made the world ring with the announcement of his disco- very of a 'vast open iceless Polar Sea.' The chief result of his voyage may be stated in a few words thus:-Having reached Smith Sound he found further progress by vessel impossible, owing to a body of pack-ice of me heaviest description blocking up the strait. He therefore put his brig into win- ter quar'ers in a bay on the coa^t of Smith Sound, in latitude 78 deg. 44 min. north, (probably the indentation between Pelham Point and Stafford Head of Inglefield) and from this point explored the region east- ward and north w ard in sledges. The re- ports hitherto published in the American papers are not quite clear as to the precise position of the region discovered ; it ap- pears, however, that the arm of the sea forming the continuation of Smith Sound
extends almost due east as far as ÍJO min. west long., whence it is deflected in a NN W direction, until, in lat. 82 min. north, it expands into an extensive sea 'entirely free from ice/ at the time when Dr Kane beheld it. It further appears that the re- gion between 78 minutes and 82 minutes of latitude forming the chief scene of Frank- lin's search further south. In proceeding over this extensive and barren region Dr K tne's party was not a little astonished in noticing a gradual increase of temperature the further they went to the northward, until at last their progress was arrested by that vast sea already mentioned, extending fuither than the eye could reach, teeming with animal life, great numbers of herbivo- rous and other animals, and birds feeding on its shores or roaming in fearless indif- ference in the neighborhood. 'A north wind, fifty-two hours in duration, failed to bring any drift-ice into this area.' Those Í conversant'with the geography of the Arc-
tic Regions will probably a^ree with me if I, in the first ploce,1 venture to suggest tdat the term open Polar Sea applied to la- titudes of 82 degrees and 83 degrees N, can have only a mere relative and vague, uncertain meaning, because, in these lati- tudes, any part of the sea, however narrow and ice-bound, may be open at times, and no part of it, however extensive and deep, can be entirely and always free from ice. The term is more in its place when used in a comparative or circumscribed sense, as» for instance, when saying that Baffin's iBay is an open (ot more open) sea as com 'pared to Wellington Channel, and the lat- her, again, with its northerly outlets, an
>pen (or more open) channel than Banks strait or Prince of Wales Channel. The
rntt ' open Polar Sea,1 no doubt will be Ightly understood in its bearings and im ort, in each individual case so used, by ¿ersons accustomed to a critical view of
ich subjects, but for generalise it leads i much misconception, and is altogether
tperfluous when, as in speaking of Dr lane's open sea, the epithet ' iceless ' is Ided to it. There can be no doubt the
»recise meaning of the latter, for it implies ia sea entirely free frote ice, whereas the tterm í open' sea by no means excludes the [existence of vast quantities of that frigid
«article. As to the term 'iceless' sea, it
sonveys, in this instance, altogether an er- roneous meaning, such as Dr Kane prcba >ly did not intend to impart to it, for in peaking of that Northern Sea under this lenomination, he and his companions de icribe the nature of that sea'at the parti- cular time when they saw it, and these statements I have not the slightest ground JorXwish to doubt or disbelieve. But I do ¡most decidedly "doubt ' it to be a perma-" fnently iceless sea, notwithstanding the ex , trabïdinory; íac&of continued morth .wind havin^failed to briûff%ty ice^into-it.'-ISuch
an oc£uWáld$ oía^^KowsnioSírí effectually theSetffàrmM duÄfeJtKeJprlvidUB 'winter may be swept awayibylthe currents eut of
a sea situated even underjhe most northern latitudes.; I find a simjlar observation re- corded by, jbhafe great ^xctic navigator and acute observer. > Sir Edward Parry, in his Narrative, 1827, p. 127. It relates to the sea north of Spitzbergen (where Captain Phipps had previously found au impenetra- ble barrier of boundless pack ice), as seen after his return to that country from his adventureus boat voyage towards the North, Pole, abouti tbe latter end of4 August :--? " As the wind now blew so much upon tlie shpre, I waa in momentary expectation of seeing some ice come in ; but we were agreeably , surprised to find that none ap
perred, This cireumstance appeared to us , the more remarkable, from ]tfte extraordi- nary rapidity with which, in. the month of Jue¿ the^very lightest air from the west Ward brought the drift ice in upon the land, rendering their shores quite inacces- sible in the course of a few hours.' I haye entered into these remarks on the meaning of the term ' open',and . iceless,' as it seems to me that a great deal of confuaion"doubt, and misconception has arisen ¿in Arctic geography, from different« Interpretations of these terms. But while expressing the foregoing objections to their ambiguous and unrestricted use, lt am-bound to own myself at a loss for another word which, in my humble opinion, would form a pre-
ciso denomination for a sea such as that discovered by Dr Kane. The Russian worh ' Polynia,' means spaces of open water within the icy seas, and is nearly the equi- valent for the English ''Lane," lanes of of open water. Unfrozen sea would al- ready be nearer the mark, namelv, a sea that never freezes entirely over. ÏJeading the reports of Dr Kane's voyage with due regard to the restrictive meaning of the terms in which they are framed, it is be- yond all doubt that he discovered an ex- tensive Polar Sea, which is never entirely frozen over. This evidence of an untrozen sea, and a comparatively mild climate, with kindred phenomena, in latitudes ranging from 82 degrees northward, is a full corro- boraron of the discovery of a similar sea further to the eastward, by Parry, Wran gell, and others ; but it is still more deci- sive in its bearing than either of these, be- cause Dr Kane's sea lies in close contiguity and on the northern side of the most northern land yet ¿discovered, und a land1 be it remembered, of the mot>t dismal de- scription, whereas the sia readied by Sir Edward Parry, in lat. 82| degrees N. is simply the continuation of the Atlantic swept by powerful polar currents with the influence of warm Gulf Stream in its flank, while Wrangell's Sea lies in latitude six degrees further south. Dr Kane's Polar Sea is the most interesting, as it seems pretty evident that it cannot be connected with the groat Arctic Sea, or what I would call the real Polar Basin, namely the sea between Spitsbergen and Siberia. And here I may be permitted to refer briefly to Captain Inglefield's voyage to Smith Sound, three years ago. The view that gentleman took at the time in announcing that, by entering Whale Sound and Smith Sound, he believed that he had ' discovered and entered the Polar Sea,' through which he thought, ' he would have been able to push in the direction of Behring's Strait, had not a gale arisen,' <£c, was strongly com- bated by me then (see " Athenamm, No&. 1,309 and 1,311) and I endeavored to show that such a view was fallacious, and based upon no tenable grounds 1 concluded my remarks in the following words (No. 1,3 li, p. 1,359)-" Thus it appears that the rea- sons assigned for the theory of a commu- nication between Baffin's Bay and the Polar Basin are slight in comparison with those which tell against it. Greenland may, and very likely does, contract about the 80th parallel ; it may there become only a nar- row neck of land ; but that land, there is reason to conjecture extends a great way in a northerly direction towards Behring's Strait, and it is my firm conviction that navigators entering the sea to the north of Baffin's Bay, in the hope of reaching the Polar Basin, would find a mere cul-de-sac, not even connected with the sea to the north of Wellington Channel.' These views have, I think, been pretty closely corroborated by Dr Kane's voyage, he has found that Smith Sound ' terminates in a gulf. The reasons against Captain Ingle- field's theory hold just as good now as then; and, therefore, I am inclined to think that if no stronger ground be,adduced to esta- blish the insularity of Greenland by a channel under the 80th parallel, than the existence in that direction of a mighty gla- cier, it is open to much doubt. That gla- cier, in all probability, rests on land, and no channel nas ever been in that locality,
or else some of the immense masses of drift-wood known to exist on the east side of Greenland would surely have found its Way to the arm of the sea explored by Dr Kane. No positive or direct statement is made 'as to the total absence of this inte- resting object in the report before me, however lengthy and circumstantial they are in other respects, but by indireet evi- dence it seems beyond ¡all doubt that driftwood is entirely absenfin those waters ; the wanfr of fuel is continually complained of, and it became the source of the greatest hardships to Dr Kane's party; ''during *the winter fuel having become
1 short Dr Kauo was comnelkdJ^mn^L
theiflod^IinntrDlajrlkingî s^a^aij&finally the very floors to the,çabinjï in which he himself and officers lodged, jntou fuel.' Again, 'the Esquimaux in thai; region had no hayacks,1 and the'few sledges they pos- sessed were made almost exclusively out of walrus-tusks, and not of wood. It is quite clear, from all these p&rticulars, that no driftwood reaches those waters,' which further renders it all but certain that no connection exists between them and the
great Polar Basin, namely, that sea, in re- ference to which Sir Edward Parry, from personal experience, emphatically declares -*.' A ship might have sailed in the latitude of 82 deg, almost without touching a piece, of ice.' (Parry's Narrative, p. 148.) But, jhowever this may bo, the truth of the grand geographical feature of
an unfrozen Polar Sea to the north of the
most northern land yet discovered cannot be for a moment doubtad. In considering the bearing ¡of Dr Kane*s discovery on Arctic Geography, we are led to the North Pole itself, as the point around which all others in the Arctic Regions are naturally grouped. The question is, What is the nature of that interesting spot? Whe- ther land or sea (I am inclined to think the latter,) does it or does it mot comprise the maximum of ice, and snow, and cold, as it does from the mathematical centre of the Frigid Zone ? And do, in a corres- ponding manner, the lines of latitude indi- cate the progressive ratio of decrease of the temperature aud other phenomena fol- lowing in its train ? It has been the ge- neral, and perhaps still is the more pre- vailing opinion that such is the case. It so happens that the expeditions in search of Franklin have, most of them extended to latitudes between 70 degrees and 77 de- grees N., and only in a few cases beyond that. They have in these latitudes, found a labyrinthic system of clumps of lands and islands connected together by narrow channels, full of ice and glaciers most dif- ficult and hazardous for navigation. It has been generally inferred, if the Arctic Eegions between 70 degrees and 77 deg. North latitude are of so dreary, so difficult and dangerous a character, how much more so must they be further north and under the Pole itself. So much did this impres- sion prevail that, whon Captain Penny, in 1851, discovered, north of Wellington Channel, a sea more open, more extensive, and with more animal life than those arms of the sea to the south of it, it was actually disbelieved at first by many of the prin- ciple officers of the searching squadron. Then, again, when Captain Inglefield re- ported the discoveries he had made at the top of Baffin's Bay, it was said that ' they did not appear to give much promise of Elysian fields and oasis near the Pole, Others had even calculated how much the mean animal temperature at the Pole must be as that compared with that of southerly lalitudes. In vain did the re- sults of the memorable journeys of Sir Edward Parry, Wrangell, Anjou, and others, point to the fallacy of such views ; the favourite theory was still clung to. Sir Edward Parry's journey to the North Pole was undortaken, as is well known, on the supposition that Captain Phipp's ' main or heavy ice ' extended to the North Pole ; but the further he went up the less ' indi- cation of it could be seen ;' and, at last, under the highest latitude reached, namely, 82 degrees 40 minutes 23 seconds (at one time probably 45 minutes) ' go small was the ice around them, that they were obli- ged to halt for the night, at two a.m., on the 25th, being upon the only piece in sight, in any direction, on which they could ven- ture to trust the boats while they rested. Such was the ice in 82£ degree. So Wran- gell and Anjou, the higher they went the surer they were in finding, at last, the ' wide immeasurable ocean before them. Dr Kane's discovery is a full corrobora tion of what is indicated in the foregoing, namely that towards the North Pole the temparature, animal and Vegetable life, the open state of the sea, &c, do not uniformly or regularly decrease,- in short that these features of the Arctic Eegions depend much less on the configuration, extent, and ar- rangement of land and water, and the oceanic currents. Thus, an extensive sea, exposed to the mighty currents running from the Siberian shores into the Atlantic will, even the Pole itself, be clearer of ice and more open, it will possess a tempera- ture higher, organic life more developed and abundant than the ice-bound choked up labyrinth of the chief scene of fhe Frank- lin search 29 degrees 8. of the North Pole. Thus, the only Polar sea accessible by ves- sels, and undoubtedly, as fit for navigation as Baffin's Bay, remains, that beyond Spitz- bergen and Novaya Zemlaya. What sig-
nificant lessons does Dr Kane's adventur-
ous voyage again convey ? By almost su- perhuman efforts he only reached 85£§de g. of latitude, while by the ship he could not possibly get any further than 78£- deg. whereas that same latitude, 82£ deg. on the sea of Spitzbergen, has been reached again and again, in former as well as in re- cent times with comparative ease. And nothing is more natural, for in the Spitz- bergen Sea ice navigation only commences abont "the same latitude where Dr Kane's vessel came to a full stop, namely, fietween 78 deg. and 79 deg. N. latitude. This very summer several Norwegian whalers, among others the schooner JEolus, from Bergen,
have reached the latitude of 82 deg. Ni of
Q-.:J--'U- -i-v-is-"--M*M
cessful in the fisbSngi ?%& JEolus became full <in two ot three daySjiandreached'Ber gen from'that high,latitude, 82 deg. in li days ! My views on Arctic Geography, first Submitted itq ¡public notice in the Athenaeum nearly four years ago, have not only been controverted, but more and more
corroborated by recent research; and I( shall conclude by declaring my conviction, that through the Sea of Spitzbergen the North Pole will one day be reached, and that with much leBS danger and difficulty than has attended most Arctic voyages that have not gone beyond the latitude of 75 deg. North."

Jørgen Petersen skrev:
Meget interessante observationer

Periodisk varme, eller tilfælde?