Page:Physical Geography of the Sea and its Meteorology.djvu/233

Rh the records of all that he may ever know concerning this his cosmical hearthstone.

421. Voyages of discovery to the North Pole.—Researches have been carried on from the bottom of the deepest pit to the top of the highest mountain, but these have not satisfied. Voyages of discovery, with their fascinations and their charms, have led many a noble champion of human progress both into the torrid and frigid zones; and notwithstanding the hardships, sufferings, and disasters to which many northern parties have found themselves exposed, seafaring men, as science has advanced, have looked with deeper and deeper longings towards the mystic circles of the polar regions: there icebergs are framed and glaciers launched: there the tides have their cradle, the whales their nursery: there the winds complete their circuits, and the currents of the sea their round in the wonderful system of oceanic circulation: there the Aurora Borealis is lighted up and the trembling needle brought to rest; and there too, in the mazes of that mystic circle, terrestrial forces of occult power and of vast influence upon the well-being of man are continually at play. Within the arctic circle is the pole of the winds and the poles of the cold; the pole of the earth and of the magnet. It is a circle of mysteries; and the desire to enter it, to explore its untrodden wastes and secret chambers, and to study its physical aspects, has grown into a longing. Noble daring has made arctic ice and snow-clad seas classic ground. It is no feverish excitement nor vain ambition that leads man there. It is a higher feeling, a holier motive—a desire to look into the works of creation, to comprehend the economy of our planet, and to grow wiser and better by the knowledge. Soon after the discovery of America, John Cabot and his sons, with five ships, sailed upon the first arctic expedition. Between that year and the present no less than 155 vessels, besides boat and land parties, have at various periods, and with divers objects in view, been sent from Europe and America, up into those inhospitable regions. Whatever may have been the immediate object of these various expeditions, whether to enlarge the fields of commerce, to carry the Bible, to spread civilization, to push conquests, or to bring back contributions to science, they have never lost sight of the promise made by Columbus of a western route to India.

422. The first suggestions of an open sea in the Arctic Ocean.—Like the air, like the body, the ocean must have a system of circulation