Indiana Republican, Volume 2, Number 83, Madison, Jefferson County, 11 July 1818 — Page 1

The I

O SeBntolicauu mm, "where liberty dwells, there is my country, if

VOL. II.

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the London Quarterly Review, THE POLAR ICE.

tag the changes and viscis-

cs to which the physical con -ion of our globe is perpetuubject, one of the most exdinary, and from which the interesting and important ts my be anticipated, appears ivc taken place in the course ie last two or three years, is still in operation. The uision of an earthquake and motion of a volcano force selves into notice by a dismay

Devastation witn wmui, m

:er or less degree, they are al-

aiwa s blended ; but tne cto which we allude has been

lictlv accomplished, that it

it have remained unknown,

or an extraordinary change

lufew intelligent navigators rked in the state of the arctic

d the reports of the usual

ities of this ice observed in

tlantic. As it is a subject in

the British Islands are parlily interested, we shall en-

Jto some detail of the facts

f their probable consequen-

is frcnernllv admitted that.

n ; ic last four hundred years, an

pave nortion of the eastern

of Old Greenland has been

UP hy an impenetrable barf ice, and with it, the ill-fa-

Jorwcgian cr Danish colonies, f had been established there fore than an equal length of preceding that unfortunate froIhcyand who were thus jff at once from all commuJon with the mother country; ft various attempts have been f rom time to time to apfthis coast with the view of pining the fate of the unforf ; colonists, but in vain, the fing every where impervious; f! all hopes being at length

abandoned, and that part of this extensive tract of land which faces the east took the appropriate name of Lost Greenland. The event to which we have alluded is the disappearance of the whole, or the greater part of this vast barrier of ice. This extraordinary fact, so interesting to science and humanity, appears to rest on no slender foundation. Both its disappearance from its long-rooted position, and its reappearance in a more southern latitude, have been witnessed by various persons worthy of credit. It had been observed in the summer-months of the year 1815, and more particularly in those or 18 16 and 1817, by .ships coming from the West Indies and America, as well as by those going out to Halifax and Newfoundland, that Islands of ice, unusual in magnitude, and number occurred in the Atlantic, many of them as - far down as the fortieth parallel of latitude. Some of these were detached ice-bergs, from a hundred to a hundred and thirty feet above the surface of the water, and several miles in circumference; others were flat Islands of packed ice, presenting so vast an extent of surface, that a ship from Boston is said to have been three days entangled in it, near the tail of the Grand Bank of Newfoundland. The ship of the Unitas Fratum, proceeding to the missions on Old Greenland, was last year, eleven days beset, on the coast of Labrador, with the icebergs, many of which had huge rocks upon them, gravel, soil, and pieces of wood. The packet from Halifax passed, in April last, a mountain of i:e nearly two hundred feet in height, and at least two miles in circumference. By accounts from Newfoundland, Halifax, and other northern ports of America, it would appear, that greater quantities of ice were seen in the months of May, June, and July, than had ever been witnessed by the oldest navigators ; and that the whole island ot New Foundland was so completely environed with it, that the vessels employed in the fishery were unable to get out to sea to follow their usual occupations. The source from which these enormous masses proceeded could not long be concealed. It was vp11 known to the Greenland fish

ermen, that from Staatenkock, the southern promontory of Old Greenland, an uninterrupted barrier of ice stretched north-easter, ly, or parallel nearly to the coast, approaching frequently to the very shores of Iceland; and that the small bland situated in lat. 71 deg. 1 1 min. long. 6 deg. 30 min. W. called Jan May en's island, (a sort of land mark which those engaged in the seal fishery endeavor to make,) had of late years been

The

immen

cupied

completely enveloped in ice ; and that frim this point, it generally took aj more easterly direction, till it btcame fixed to the shores of Spitsbergen, from the 76th to the 80th degree of latitude.

more central parts or tins

e area or ice, wmcn octhe mid-channel between

Greenland and Spitsbergen, sepa

rate from" time to time into large patches and change their position according to the winds and tides; but the general direction in whjch they move with the current' is from rforth-east to the south-west, or directly towards that part of Old Greenland where4 the Danish colonies ivere supposed to be established,' and which are immediately opposite to Iceland. Here it would "seem those masses became

a kiAl of fixed nuclues, round which" a succession of floating fields of ice attached themselves, till the accumulated barrier, probably by its own weight and magnitude and the action of the impeded current, at length bursts its fetter and has been carried away south ward. This a least appear to be the most probable conjecture, 'though anorher circumstance will hereafter be adverted to, not unworthy of attention, in endeavoring to account for the phenomenon. It had been conjectured by philosophers that the remarkable chilliness of the atmosphere, during the two last summers, and more particularly with westerly winds, could only be owing , to the accumulation, or rather to the approximation of the polar ice to the southward. The reports of the Greenland fishermen, on their return in August, 1817, connected with the accounts of the ice seen in the Atlantic, corroborated this hypothesis. In that month there appeared in the newspapers a paragraph stating, that " in the course of the season, the commander of a brig from Bremen,after making Jan Mayen's island about 71 degrees N. stood to the westward in quest of seals; that in 72 degrees, he found land to the wesward: that he tl;en sailed nearly due north along the coast without seeing ice, observing the bays, and inlets and other appearances of the land, till he came to lat. 81 deg. 30 min. when he found that he could steer to the westward, which he did for several days, that he then lost sight of land, and directed his course to the southward, and eastward, & in 70 deg. north fell in with the first fishing vessels he had seen." We took some pains to ascertain the truth of this statement, and found it corroborated in almost every particular by five different masters of whalers belonging to Aberdeen, and to London, to whom, at different times, Olot.Oken (the person alluded to) master

of the Eleanora of Hamburg (not to Bremen,) had given an account of the course which he steered along the eastern coast of Greenland, and Jan Mayen's islands to the degree of latitude above mentioned; and it appears, from the joint testimony of the captain and surgeon of the princess of Wales, of Aberdeen that ' the reckoning in his log book was vorked at the end of every watch, a practice which is also common among British whalers after making the ice; and that the master and mate were very intelligent navigators.' Since that time we have received from Hamburg a copy of capt. Ocken's log, a chart of his route, 6c a

letter addressed by him to Messrs

Elliott and Co. of Hamburg:

from all which it appears that he coasted Greenland with the land in sight, and among loose ice, but that the most noriheiiy point which he saw was about 80 deg. north latitude. 1 But we have the direct testi

mony of Mr. Scoresby the younger, a very intelligent navigator of the Greenland seas, for the disappearance of an immense quantity of arctic ice. In a letter to sir Joseph Banks, he says, ' I observed on my last voyage, (18 17) about twothousand .square leagues (1 8,000 square miles J of the surface of the Greenland seas, included between the parallels 74 deg. and 80 deg perfectly void of ice, all of which has disappeared within the last two years And he further states, that though on former voyages he had very rarely been able to penetrate the ice, between the latitudes of 76 deg. and 80 deg. so far to the west as the meridian of Greenwich, 'on his Iastv.-yage he twice reached the longitu ie of 10 deg. W.; that, in the paiallcl of 74 deg. he approached the coast of Old Greenland ; that there was little ice near the land ; and adding, ' that there could be no doubt but he might have reached the shore had he had a justifiable motive for navigating an unknown sea at so late a season of the year.' He also found the sea so clear in returning to the southward, that he actually landed on Jan Mayen's island, which is usually surrounded with a barrier of ice, and brought away specimens of the rocks. Another fact deserves to be mentioned. Dr. Olinthus Gregory, who sailed from Shetland to Peterhead in the Neptune of Aberdeen, on her return from the fishery, is said to have reported that Driscole, the master, not. only landed on the cast coast of Greenland about the lat. of 70 deg. but found and brought away a post bearing an inscription, in Russian characters, that a ship of that nation had been there in the year 17745" wllicl1 Post