Η θαύματα πολλὰ,

καί που τι καὶ βροτῶν φρένας

ὑπὲρ τὸν ἀληθῆ λόγον

δεδαιδαλμένοι ψεύδεσι ποικίλοις
ἐξαπατωντι μῦθοι

χάρις δ', ἅπερ ἅπαντα τεύ

χει

τὰ μείλιχα θνατοῖς,

ἐπιφέροισα τιμαν,

καὶ ἄπιστον ἐμήσατο πιστὸν
ἔμμεναι τὸ πολλάκις.

Pind. Olymp. 1. 43-52.

But this is high matter, and deserves not to be mixed up with the gossiping intelligence I have strung together in this lecture on heads, or, if you like it better, this catalogue raisonnée of talent and deformity. N. S.

CAPTAIN PARRY'S THIRD VOYAGE FOR THE DISCOVERY OF A NORTH-WEST PASSAGE.

IN casting our eyes upon the map of the world, we can scarcely avoid being struck with the appearance of a certain uniformity of configuration, as to all the general outlines of the two Continents. In both, the land is widely outspread throughout all the latitudes which approach the Northern Pole; and, in both, the land every where tends to converge to a point, as it approaches either the Equator or the Southern Pole. The Old Continent, which, under the seventieth parallel of north latitude, stretches from the coasts of Lapland and Norway, to those of Kamtschatca, over a hundred and seventy leagues of the earth's surface, terminates, south-easterly, in the peninsulas, or points of land, which form the Malay Peninsula, Cape Comorin, and the rest; and, finally, and at its south-western extremity, in the point or peninsula called the Cape of Good Hope. The New Continent, subjected to the same order of form, spreads, under the same seventieth parallel of north latitude, and from Behring's Strait to the easternmost coasts of Greenland (if Greenland, as the writer of these remarks will be found still to suspect, is portion of that Continent) through a hundred and fifty degrees of longitude; while (to say nothing of Cape Farewell, which constitutes the southern extremity of Greenland) the southern termination of that New Continent once more presents us with a point or peninsula ;— namely, that of Cape Horn, on the western coast of America.

All the great masses of land, therefore, which are discovered upon the surface of the earth, may be described, under general aspects, as severally affecting the shape of a wedge; and all these wedges of land are uniformly placed with their broad ends toward the North Pole, and with their points toward the south. The minor and subordinate examples of this order of configuration, throughout the coasts of the two Continents, are innumerable; local obstacles to its prevalence may, here and there, discover themselves; but, as to the general rule, no instance is adducible in which it is reversed.

But this uniform configuration of the terrene portion of the earth's surface cannot have been produced but through the operation of a cause adapted to the nature of the effect; and, in whatever way we account for the raising of the existing continents and islands from out of the bosom of the deep (a cosmogony in respect of which mankind appear to be universally agreed), the water-lines-the boundaries along the edges of the ocean-will hardly be referred to any other agency than that of the ocean itself. If the tops of mountains have been lowered, or broken into their present forms, by means of the action of the atmospherical fluids; so, also, the ground-plans of all the several portions of dry land have been narrowed and figured by means of the attrition of the restless ocean.

But, again, if it is the currents of the ocean-if it is the flowing of water -that, by wearing away whatever yields to its force, and leaving in its place only that which more or less permanently resists its power-that has determined all the outlines of the dry land upon the globe; then, the general features and direction of those outlines will bear testimony to the general direction of the great currents of the ocean; to the general direction, or points of departure and approach, of that force, and the material

exercising it, to which the terrene outlines are attributable. Now, these terrene outlines incontestably betray a motion, almost every where consentaneous, from north to south. Every where, the points of land, stretched far into the southern latitudes, proclaim a motion of the sea which is felt in a southern direction along their sides, which are thus tapered into the forms that we behold; and nowhere, or almost nowhere, are those points blunted or eaten away, by the motion of waters running from south to north.

In a word, then, the terraqueous figure of the globe invites, at a first view, from every spectator, the unhesitating conclusion, that the ocean has its primitive fountains within the Arctic Circle; that it descends under the name of Atlantic, between the coasts of Europe and Africa, and those of America, as a mighty river between its distant banks; that it fills, as it pours along, the great bays, or gulfs, or mediterranean seas, upon the east and west (and of which number are the Baltic Sea, and the sea called the Mediterranean); that the force of its principal current, bearing the name of the Gulf-stream, is directed, first, against the eastern coast of Europe, and thence, by rebound, into the Gulf of Florida, after circling which, it divides itself east and west, and passes on the one side the Cape of Good Hope, to fill the basin of the Indian Ocean; and on the other Cape Horn, to fill that of the Pacific.

But, the fountains, the head-springs of this mighty river of the briny fluid, are they really within the Arctic Circle; and, if the fountains are really there, into what vast receptacle-into what immeasurable_lake-east, west, or south-does the ocean-river finally discharge itself? In point of fact, we are already sufficiently well-informed, as well of the geography as of the hydrography of the Arctic Circle, to be enabled to answer these questions satisfactorily.

We know enough of the geography of the northern parts of both the Old and New Continents, to be able to say, that there exist but three possible water-communications-in the Pacific Behring's Strait, in the Atlantic Davis's Strait, and the Icy Sea, in which last lie the islands of Spitzbergen and Iceland, and to the southward of which last lie the British islands themselves.

Now the discovery of Behring's Strait, and of the rapid current with which, at that inlet, the ocean pours itself northward, instead of southward, —that is, in an opposite direction to that of the motion of its waters north of the Atlantic-serves at once to dispel any possible illusion as to the existence of the fountains of the ocean within the Arctic regions, and to explain to us into what receptacle the Atlantic, the Indian, and the Pacific Oceans finally discharge themselves. In reality, the waters of the entire ocean move in a never-ending circle; entering what, for the present at least, we venture to call the Polar Basin, with rapidity and proportionate volume through the diminutive inlet of Behring's Strait, and returning southward through channels, or else through a single channel, of which it is more immediately the present purpose to speak.

The reader's indulgence, in the mean time, is to be solicited. Conjecture, theory, hypothesis, inferences presumed to be drawn from insulated facts, are to be offered in place of positive knowledge; probabilities only, and not proofs, are to be submitted;-a possible state of things is imagined-only to await confirmation or correction, and to suggest and stimulate inquiry.

. I. If, then, this theory of a constant circumvolution of the water of the ocean around the globe were received, or found receivable from facts, it would, in the first place, open a new view of the general economy of nature, or rather, a view of a new particular in that economy; but a particular, in strict harmony with all that had been previously known respecting it-with that general balance of adaptations and compensations which is so observable throughout universal creation, and by aid of which so many unexpected results are obtained, under circumstances which, until the machinery is known, appear wholly preclusive. The means which, in the economy of our globe, are resorted to, to moderate the heat of the tropical and equatorial regions, and to moderate the cold of the polar, have already been discovered under various aspects. The influence of the temperature of the sea in cooling the atmosphere, and consequently of providing, more or less, for the maintenance

of animal and vegetable life, within the tropics, has already become the admiration of the philosopher. The influence of the temperature of the same sea, in raising that of the islands and continents of the temperate and frozen zones, has equally attracted observation; but, if the notion now proposed, of a daily and hourly circulation of the waters of the ocean, alternately heated beneath the equator, and cooled beneath the poles, is justified by the actual order of nature, what a mighty and new provision have we not discovered, for equalizing, to the utmost possible degree, the atmospherical temperature of the entire globe, and for thus spreading, to the widest possible extent, life and beauty over all its surface! In the animal body, the blood, circulating from the heart to the head and feet, provides at once for renovated warmth and coolness. In the same body, the blood, returning from momentary period to period, through the lungs, is momentarily purified and salubrified. In the atmosphere, the motion of the winds, the currents of the air, and the combination of fluids, perpetually restore the necessary equilibriums, and provide for life and health, for sustenance and for verdure. In the planetary system, comets have at least been fancied to perform the task, of carrying, in their evolutions to and from the sun, a vivifying warmth to the distant heavenly bodies. What, then, if the circulation of the waters of the ocean presents an analogy with the animal and other systems of nature; and if the waters, which, as they descend or ascend toward the equator, cool all the tropical regions by means of their chemical affinity for the caloric combined in excess in the atmospheres of the tropical regions, are made, in the next stage of their progress, to contribute to the warmth of the temperate and frozen zones, by transporting into them their own heated globules, and then readily parting with their exotic burden, to soften the rigours of the polar air? It is obvious that the water of the ocean, descending from Iceland or Spitzbergen toward the equator, will gradually acquire heat; that, passing the equator, and ascending toward the South Pole, they will part with that heat again; that descending from the South Pole toward the equator once more, they will once more be heated; that ascending afterward, toward the North Pole, by the way of Behring's Strait, and passing thence through the Polar Basin, and to the shores of Iceland and Spitzbergen, Greenland and Lapland, they will again part with caloric, but only to resign it to the colder atmosphere of those frozen climates.

II. But this circulation of the waters of the ocean, and these alternations of their temperature, inversely as the climates beneath which they flow, while they help us to account for the presence of a degree of warmth in the extra-tropical regions of the earth, which, upon the present supposition, exists only through their agency, and could have no existence without them -this circulation of the waters of the ocean, and these alternations of their temperature during their course-this presence, in short, by their means, of an otherwise unattainable degree of warmth in the extra-tropical regions of the earth-all this, while it accounts for the presence of that warmth generally, may also be found, in combination with other circumstances, to account for the partial and unequal distribution, in those very regions, and which, but for the peculiar mechanism of its introduction, we ought to reckon upon equally diffused, and without distinction. Under the fiftieth or the sixtieth parallel of north latitude (for example) we ought (allowance made for differences of elevation, or for other local peculiarities) to meet with similitude of climate, and consequent similitude of fertility of soil, similitude of temperature of the waters of the sea, and similitude of other circumstances favourable to animal life, and growth, and multiplication, whether we turn to the east or to the west side of the Atlantic, or of the Pacific, or of other parts of the ocean. The reverse of this proposition, however, is known to consist with truth. With respect both to the Old Continent and the New, the western coasts uniformly surpass the eastern, in mildness of temperature. The climates of Greenland, Labrador, Canada, Nova Scotia, and the other northeastern parts of America, are not only colder than the opposite and northwestern coasts of Europe, but also than the north-western coasts of America, lying under the same parallels with themselves; and a phenomenon

precisely corresponding presents itself upon the Old Continent, where the north-eastern parts, as Kamtschatca, and the other parts of north-eastern and maritime Siberia surpass in coldness, not only the opposite and north-western coasts of America, but also Lapland, Norway, Denmark, the British Islands, and other north-western parts of Europe. The climates of Quebec, Halifax, and Boston, bear no resemblance to the climates of the British Islands, Germany, France, and Spain, under the same parallel with which they respectively lie. The organic productions of the several countries and seas are influenced accordingly. In the north-eastern parts of America, all is comparatively bleak, and barren, and lifeless; while, in following the same parallels into the north-west, we meet with vegetable and animal abundance. These phenomena are already familiar; but, what remains to be discovered is -the cause?

It may be important, then, to call to recollection some of those marine phenomena which ought to be expected to present themselves, if, as above supposed to be possible, there exists a constant circulation of the water of the ocean, from the sea northward of the northern extremities of Asia, Europe, and America, across the equator, round the Cape of Good Hope and Cape Horn, across the equator a second time, and so, back again, into the Polar Sea or seas, by the inlet of Behring's Strait. The water of the sea, heated during its passage beneath those warmer climates, the atmospheres of which it cools, should there be heated to a greater or less depth beneath its surface, and have its surface, which is brought into immediate contact with the heated atmosphere, and which forms the medium of communication with the water below, should have this surface of a higher temperature than the water beneath: that is, the water of the sea, while passing under the warmer latitudes, should be warmest near the surface, and more cool at every increase of depth beneath. The same water, however, when arrived in the colder and frozen climates, and while and through the operation of its parting with its acquired caloric to the atmospheres of those climates, should first part with the caloric combined with the particles of its immediate surface, and only subsequently with that which is combined with the particles below. But the phenomenon attendant upon this process would be the reverse of that which was observable in the same water, while passing under the warmer climates; for, now, this water, continually despoiled, from its surface, of the adscititious matter of heat acquired during its passage between the tropics, will necessarily be coolest at the surface, because there in immediate contact with the cold atmosphere; while the water beneath the surface, and exactly in proportion to its depth, will retain the longest, and the most largely, the tropical heat. In a word, this stream of the ocean, while passing under the colder climates, will be coolest at the surface, and warmest beneath; instead of (as before) warmest at the surface, and coolest at the depths below. The whole volume of the water will be continually cooling, in proportion as, through the same process, the adscititious warmth of the atmosphere is continually sustained; but the surface of the water will always be its coldest part; the particles rarified by the matter of heat will be continually ascending toward the surface from the volume below; but, once arrived at that surface, the caloric will instantly combine itself with the atmosphere, and leave the surface of the water cold. The water beneath will be the focus, the reservoir of heat; and the water at the surface will constantly assimilate itself, in point of temperature, with the superincumbent atmosphere, and join itself with the latter in forming the medium amidst which the matter of heat is dissipated, dispersed, and, as it were, lost.

Now, the Journal of the Voyage of Captain Ross states that "The temperature of the water on the surface was at thirty-four degrees and a half; and at eighty fathoms, thirty-two degrees. On board the Alexander it was tried at two hundred and fifty fathoms, and found to be twenty-nine degrees and a half." Again, at nine hundred and fifty fathoms' depth, the temperature of the sea was found to be only thirty-five degrees and three-quarters; while at the surface it was forty-one degrees, and the air thirty-seven degrees.

We have it, then, upon the authority of the experiments of Captain Parry, that the temperature of the water of the ocean, where it flows to the east of Greenland (that is, between Greenland and the coasts of Europe) is highest at the greatest depth, and lowest next the surface; while that of the water of the same ocean, flowing within Davis's Strait (that is, to the west of Greenland), offers the directly opposite character; namely, that of being of the higher temperature next the surface, and of the lower beneath it.

There remain, indeed, additional experiments to be desired, in order the more fully to justify the conjecture which is now about to be submitted. It is desirable to know the comparative temperatures of the water of the ocean, as found at and beneath the surface, at different points to the westward of Greenland; as, between the meridians of Greenland and Iceland, and between those of Iceland and Spitzbergen, and Spitzbergen and Cape North. But the conjecture to be submitted is, that as the Pacific pours itself, by a north or a north-easterly course, into the Polar Sea or seas, through Behring's Strait; so, the water thus received into the Polar Sea or seas is again discharged out of those seas in a southern or south-easterly direction, between the meridians of Greenland and Cape North; and that it is the passage of the current of the heated water of the ocean along the north-western coasts of America, and, again, along the north-western coasts of Europe, while the north-eastern coasts of both continents are left unvisited by the genial stream, and are washed only by the dead water of comparatively cold and stagnant seasthat it is to this peculiarity of the direction in which the water of the ocean circulates, that we owe the uniform variation of temperature which characterizes the eastern and western coasts of the two continents respectively. If the sea, by reason of its superior temperature to the atmosphere of the colder climates, invariably mitigates their rigour; then it is certain, that the higher the temperature of the sea, the greater must be the circumjacent mitigation; and, consequently, that the neighbourhood, as well as the bosom, of the colder sea, will be colder, and therefore more barren, than the neighbourhood or the bosom of the warmer. The facts assumed, then, are, That, in the Arctic regions, the general current of the circulating ocean presses everywhere eastward, that is, against the western shores of either continent; that this current visits the Arctic regions while yet comparatively warm from the heat of the tropics; and that, by its presence, along those western shores, communicates, both to sea and land, an extraneous warmth, the same being such their climates cannot enjoy in virtue of their degree of proximity to the path of the sun; while the eastern shores of the same continents, little participating in this extraneous warmth, upon account of their remoteness from the course of the vivifying waters, are abandoned almost to the entire rigours that are incident to the distance of their climates from those of the ecliptic.

III. But this explanation, whether just or otherwise, of the known and uniform phenomenon of the contrariety of climate upon the eastern and western coasts respectively of both the Old and New Continents, is not the only inference which it is here proposed to draw from the results of these ancient experiments of Captain Parry. It is here presumed to infer, That Davis's Strait is no outlet of the water of the ocean from the Polar Sea or seas; that consequently it is no inlet from the Atlantic into the Polar Sea or seas; and that, consequently, it is not by the inlet of Davis's Strait that a north-west passage can ever be attained.-And these propositions are submitted-but yet conjecturally, and not dogmatically-in the face and with the knowledge of the extent to which the inlet, such as it is, afforded by Davis's Strait, has already been found to reach to the north-west; in the face of the discovery of Melville's Island, and of the surrounding seas; and even -though with all diffidence and deference-to the renewed declaration of Captain Parry's own opinion of the certainty of a North Passage through that inlet-as appears from the concluding remarks of the enterprising and intelligent navigator, in his " Journal of a Third Voyage for the Discovery of a North-West Passage," &c. just issued from the press.