475. Drift of the Resolute.—The drift of these vessels is sufficient, were there no other evidence, to establish the existence of an open sea in the Arctic Ocean; for this drift cannot be accounted for upon any other hypothesis, as a slight examination of the arctic regions on a terrestrial globe, and a careful study of the facts (§ 459), and other phenomena will show.
476. De Haven's drift.—About the middle of September, 1850, being in latitude 74° 40', and in the fair way of Wellington Channel, De Haven found himself, with the Advance, frozen in her tracks, as M'Clintock did the Fox,[1] in August, 1857, who tried to reach the shore, but he was fast bound, and drifting to the west. De Haven, after having been carried as far as 75° 25', and M'Clintock as far as 75° 30', say within nine hundred miles of the pole, found their northerly course was arrested; then commenced with each that celebrated drift of a thousand miles to the south, and which from December lasted, the one till June, the other till April 25th. These vessels were not drifted through the ice, but with the ice; for in lat. 65° 30', when De Haven was liberated on the 9th of June, he had the same "hummocks," the same snowdrifts, and the same icy landscape which set out with him on December 2nd, when he commenced his drift from the parallel of 75° 25'.[2]
477. An anti-polynian view.—Now, upon the theory of no open water, and upon the supposition of an ice-covered sea that seals up in winter all the unexplored regions of the north, let us, in imagination, take a survey of that sea just as the anti-polynians, according to their theory, would have it. Let the time of the survey be at the beginning of winter, when De Haven commenced his southwardly drift. From the Advance to the pole—a distance of 900 miles—no water is to be seen: the frost has bridged it all over. From the pole to the distance of 900 miles beyond, and all around, it is one field of thick-ribbed ice. The flat, and tame, and dreary landscape may be relieved here and there, perhaps, by islands, capes, and promontories dotting the surface, but nevertheless it is now at least as cold—being winter—from
- ↑ A screw yacht of 177 tons.
- ↑ De Haven was frozen in lat. 74° 40', long. 92° 55'; was carried up to 75° 25' N., and thence down to 66° 15' N., 58° 35' W., when he was liberated. The Fox was frozen in 75° 30' N., 64° W.; was carried west to 69° in the same latitude, and thence down to 63° 50' N., and 57° W., when she was liberated. The Resolute was abandoned in lat. 74° 40', long. 101° 20', and was picked up afloat of Cape Mercy in 65° N.
