Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society. Vol. 13, no. 3.

Date:
1869
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society. Vol. 13, no. 3. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    105/128 (page 235)
    To this 1 roply that, beyond doubt, an enormous majority of bergs drift south ; none have been seen to the westward of Banow s Straits or Jones’s Sound, or to the northward of the Parry Island, noi in the open sea of Kane, notwithstanding this supposed submaiine current and its close proximity to the great nursery of bergs (if I may use the expression) in the head of Baffin’s Bay. According to the drift of bergs, this current should be the other way; but as few are over 100 fathoms below the surface, and Baffin’s Bay is probably much deeper, no argument for or against can, in my opinion, be drawn from their drift, and M‘Clintock in December, 1857,* says, “ Neither surface nor submarine currents were detected.” This warm under current may come to the surface and ameliorate the climate; but I am not aware of any cold Polar current coming to the surface and tempering the heat of tropical climates, and that cold under currents exist in the tropics is beyond dispute. Regarding his second argument, Maury states, “ The observations of explorers indicate the existence of a milder climate, which may also be inferred from the migration of birds to the northward, evidently in search of a milder climate, which can only be caused by the proximity of a large body of open water.” j In reply to this, I am not aware who the explorers are who have given practical proofs of this milder climate. The following facts will show climate is not the cause of the birds migrating. Ptarmigan were killed in numbers by the Plover’s crew during their four winters in Behring’s Straits. Some also at Port Kennedy by the Fox’s crew in February, 1857, temp. 47°. Two were on Dealy Island all the winter of 1852, and shot in February. M‘Clintock and De Haven, during their drifts down Baffin’s Bay, saw dovekies throughout the winter. Richardson mentions water- fowl, such as dovekies, wintering off Spitzbergen. Water-fowl are always shot long before the disruption of the ice, in the cracks and lanes of water; and as most of them migrate from our latitudes to the Polar regions, it can scarcely be said they are seeking a milder climate; but, like the salmon that always returns to its native river, these birds’ instinct probably lead them to return to their native haunts and open water, where they can breed undis- turbed. Regarding the open seas of Penny and Kane, and the subsistence procured by the latter for his crew in his Polynia, Penny’s may be briefly dismissed, as we now know it was only a considerable space * Voyage of the Fox, chap. v. t Par. 425. VOL. XIII. S