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up with the march of knowledge, that the world is indebted for most of the discoveries that have been made, since the cupidity of the navigators tempted them to explore unknown seas in search of the treasures of an unknown world. The circumnavigation of the globe, with the general diffusion of commerce, has left no reason to expect that any continents or islands of much importance, have escaped the eyes of the seamen of this age; and the expeditions, which have been sent out within the last thirty years, are chiefly undertaken with a view to the advancement of learning. To Geographical knowledge there must necessarily be limits, but to the elementary part of the study belong facts that are more or less connected with the whole sisterhood of the sciences. Although we cannot be ignorant of any nations that, like the ancient Mexicans, can add millions to the known numbers of the human race; or of islands that, like NewHolland, may aspire to the name of continents; yet we are gradually filling up the picture whose outlines were drawn by Columbus, Magelliaen, de Gama, and Van Dieman. Some of its rudest lineaments are within the Arctic Circle, but there are facts connected with the knowledge of these inhospitable regions, which are thought to be of more importance to the advancement of Géographical science, than those which depend on an acquaintance with all the rest of the world. Without including any of the interesting experiments connected with the extremes of cold, and its effects on animal and vegetable life, we have the position of the magnetic pole-the principle of magnetic attraction-the cause of the variation of the needle, and the beautiful phenomenon of the Aurora Borealis. These are all mysteries which the eye of theory has never been able to penetrate, and which will probably continue concealed until the hands of enterprise and perseverance have enabled us to remove their veil. The late voyage of Captain Parry promises to aid us greatly in the undertaking, and we wait impatiently for the moment when an authentic relation of his progress may enable us to build up something of a theory, whose foundation can be laid on the results of his experience. We have devoured the gleanings of information that have already found their way into the pages of the periodical works of his country, and have learnt enough to justify our hopes, that the time is approaching when we are to prevail over the frozen barriers which have so long hidden ten degrees of latitude from our investigation. In following the hardy mariners in their dangerous voyage, the heart of the scholar warms in proportion as the bodies of the adventurers freeze.-This interesting expedition has determined Greenland to be a large island, and created a strong probability that there is a communication between Hudson's Bay and the polar sea, by an inlet detaching also the country

of the Esquimaux from the main. But we are doing injustice to our author.

Mr. William Scoresby, jun. has, for many years, been the master of a Greenland whaler, from the port of Whitby, in the north of England. In this work he does not confine himself to the incidents of any one voyage in particular, but relates such facts as he has collected in the course of sixteen years' experience in the business. The first volume is confined to the more scientific part of the subject, and contains various experiments, which, if not of any great moment to the learned world, are extremely creditable to the author, and might serve as incentives to others, in similar situations, to employ their leisure hours in a similar way. The second treats more particularly on the affairs of the fishery. In anticipation of the official report of Mr. Parry, we will defer the examination of the matter of the former, until we are enabled to compare the experiments of the two; and as the work is very rare in this country, shall make large extracts from that which dwells on the incidents of a life that is so little known to the mass of our readers. In justice, however, to Mr. Scoresby, we must give a sample of his manner of treating the graver parts of his subject. The Fisheries at the north are carried on in seas of vast depth, and the whale is supposed to seek the bottom of the ocean when running under the impulse of affright from the first blow of a harpoon. At such moments he sometimes takes from the boats between one and two miles of "line," and the state of exhaustion in which he rises is thought by our author to be as much produced by the vast pressure he undergoes, as by his animal exertions. Under this impression, Mr. Scoresby made a variety of experiments, at various depths, and with different sorts of wood, until he succeeded in inventing a kind of barometer [or bathometer] to determine the depth of the water; the result is curious, although it will not prove very useful to the mariner.

At great depths, the effect of the pressure of the sea is not a little curious. My father met with the following singular instance, in the year 1794, which I have taken from his log-book:

'On the 31st of May, the chief mate of the Henrietta of Whitby, the ship my father then commanded, struck a whale, which "ran' all the lines out of a boat, before assistance arrived, and then dragged the boat under water, the men mean while escaping to a piece of ice. When the fish returned to the surface to "blow," it was struck a second time, and soon afterwards killed. The moment it expired, it began to sink, which not being a usual circumstance, excited some surprise. My father, who was himself assisting at the capture, observing the circumstance, seized a grapnel, fastened a rope to it, threw it over the tail of the fish, and fortunately hooked it. It continued to sink; but the line being held fast in the boat, at length

stopt it, though not until the "strain" was such that the boat was in danger of sinking. The "bight," or loop of a rope being then passed round the fish, and allowed to drop below it, inclosed the line belonging to the sunken boat, which was found to be the cause of the phenomenon observed. Immediately the harpoon slipped out of the whale, and was, with the line and boat attached to it, on the point of being lost, when it was luckily caught by the encompassing rope. The fish being then released from the weight of the lines and boat, rose to the surface; and the strain was transferred to the boat connected with the disengaged harpoon. My father, imagining that the sunken boat was entangled among rocks at the bottom of the sea, and that the action of a current on the line produced the extraordinary stress, proceeded himself to assist in hauling up the boat. The strain upon the line he estimated at not less than three-fourths of a ton, the utmost power of twenty-five men being requisite to overcome the weight. The laborious operation of hauling the line in, occupied several hours, the weight continuing nearly the same throughout. The sunken boat, which, before the accident, would have been buoyant when full of water, when it came to the surface required a boat at each end to keep it from sinking. "When it was hoisted into the ship, the paint came off the wood in large sheets, and the planks, which were of wainscot, were as completely soaked in every pore, as if they had lain at the bottom of the sea since the Flood!" A wooden apparatus that accompanied the boat in its progress through the deep, consisting chiefly of a piece of thick deal, about fifteen inches square, happened to fall overboard, and though it originally consisted of the lightest fir, sunk in the water like a stone. The boat was rendered useless; even the wood of which it was built, on being offered to the cook as fuel, was tried and rejected as incombustible.

This curious circumstance induced me to make some experiments on the subject. I accordingly attached some pieces of fir, elm, and hickory, containing two cubical inches of wood each, to the marinediver, and sent them to the depth of 4000 feet. Pieces of wood, corresponding with each of these in shape and weight, were immersed in a bucket of sea-water, during the time the marine-driver, and its attached pieces, were under water, by the way of distinguishing the degree of impregnation produced by pressure, from the absorption which takes place from simple immersion. On being brought up, they were all specifically heavier than sea-water; and, when compared with the counter-parts, the clear effect of impregnation by pressure, was found to be 302 grains in the fir and hickory, and 316 grains in the ash. This experiment was repeated in latitude 78° 2', on the 7th June, 1817, by the immersion of several articles of different shapes* and sizes, to the depth of 4566 feet. On this occasion, the apparatus was 90 minutes on its way down, rested 48 minutes, and took 36 minutes in drawing up, being altogether 160 minutes under water.' Vol. i. pp. 191-194.

Our author goes on to give the results of numerous experi

*My friend Professor Leslie suggested this variation of trying the relative degree of impregnation, on pieces of the same kind of wood of different shapes; a hint which I profited by in my later experiments.'

ments made on small pieces of wood, but their length precludes our extracting more. We will give the reader some idea of the dangers peculiar to whaling in the northern seas.

From a narrative of the loss of several of the Dutch Greenland fleet in the year 1777, we learn, that the ship Wilhelmina was moored to a field of ice on the 22d of June, in the usual fishing station, with a large fleet of other whalers. On the 25th, the ice having rapidly closed around, the Wilhelmina was closely beset. The pressure of the ice was so great, that the crew were under the necessity of working almost incessantly for eight days, in sawing a dock in the field, wherein the ship was at that time preserved. On the 25th of July, the ice slacked, and the ship was towed by the boats to the eastward. After four days laborious rowing, they reached the extremity of the opening, where they joined four ships, all of which were again beset by the ice. Shortly afterwards, they were drifted within sight of the coast of Old Greenland, about the parallel of 751° north. On the 15th of August, nine sail were collected together; and about the 20th, after sustaining a dreadful storm, and being subjected to an immense pressure of the ice, which accumulated around them twenty or thirty feet high, two of the ships were wrecked. Two more were wrecked four or five days afterwards, together with two others at a distance from them. On the 24th, Iceland was in sight; some of the ice was in motion, and two ships seemed to escape. Another was lost on the 7th of September; and, on the 13th, the Wilhelmina was crushed to pieces, by the fall of an enormous mass of ice, which was so unexpected, that those of the crew who were in bed, had scarcely time to escape on the ice, half naked as they were. One ship now alone remained, to which the crews of four, and the surviving part of the crew of a fifth, (that was wrecked on the 30th September,) repaired. By the beginning of October, they had drifted to the latitude of 64°; and on the 11th, the last ship was overwhelmed by the ice, and sunk. Thus, between three and four hundred men were driven to the ice, and exposed to the inclemency of the weather, almost destitute of food and raiment, and without hut or tent to shield them from the piercing wind.

On the 30th of October, the miserable sufferers divided. The greater part betook themselves to the land, and attempted to travel along its rugged shores, while the rest remained on a field of ice. until it drifted as far as Staten Hook, and then proceeded in their boats along shore. The want of shelter and proper clothing, exposed them to dreadful fatigue and suffering, being often under the necessity of walking to and fro on a sheet of ice during the obscurity of night, to save themselves from being frozen to death. At length, after experiencing several acts of kindness from the native Greenlanders, about 140 of the men reached the Danish settlements on the west coast of Greenland; the remainder, consisting of about 200 persons, perished.*

Thus, it appears, that the ship which survived to the latest period, set with the ice in a south-westerly direction from the usual fishing station, (probably in latitude 78° to 80°) to the latitude of about * Beschryving der Walvisvangst, vol. iv. p. 18-32. &c.

62°; and, at the same time, from the longitude, perhaps, of 5o to 6o east, to about 40° west; and that the ice still continued to advance along the land to the southward. This extensive drift, at the lowest calculation, must have embraced a distance of about 1300 miles, on a course S. 43° W. (true), and having been performed in about 108 days, averages twelve miles a-day exclusive of the advance that was made towards the east, from the 25th to the 28th of July.'

Vol. i. pp. 215-217.

This is only one species of danger to be apprehended from the ice: It is divided into several kinds, and to each belongs its peculiar danger. Icebergs or mountains abound less, and are perhaps less to be dreaded than the field-ice. They are oftentimes the means of safety to a ship when threatened by the approach of enormous bodies of the other. The "berg" when on soundings, frequently touches the bottom, and becomes stationary; and at all times it is less affected by the currents, than that which floats on the surface of the water. The vessel will therefore beat up under the lee of an Iceberg, and continue there in safety, while the field-ice is separated by the mountain, and drifts by on either side; without such a defence, the ship would inevitably be taken from her course-and perhaps crushed between two masses of the field-ice. In such situations the danger to be dreaded is from the parturition of the "berg" itself. Whalers call their game "the Bull," "the Cow," and "the Calf." From this nomenclature they have derived the term "Calving" as applied to Icebergs. It is meant to express the separation of masses from the mountain, and is of two kinds, that which falls, and that which rises. The former is seldom injurious to any thing but the boats, for the vessel will hardly approach so near to a visible danger, as to come under their weight. But the latter, breaking off from the main body at the bottom of the sea, from their lesser gravity rise and strike the vessel with such a momentum, as proves fatal even to the double fastening of a Greenland whaler.

The second volume of our author is more particularly devoted to his immediate profession; and as he is a discerning and practical man, we shall draw largely on this volume for interest, feeling confident that the novelty of the subject will find it readers. Speaking of instances of extraordinary luck, he relates a case or two, where, to use the language of Dr. Franklin's fisherman, he got something more than a "glorious nibble." The ease with which some whales are subdued, and the slightness of the entanglement by which they are taken, is truly surprising; but with others it is equally astonishing, that neither line nor harpoon, nor any number of each, is sufficiently strong to effect their capture. Many instances have occurred where whales have escaped from four, five, or even more harpoons, while fish equally large have been killed through the medium of a single harpoon. Indeed, whales have

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