. Narrative of discovery and adventure in the polar seas and regions [microform] : with illustrations of their climate, geology, and natural history ; and an account of the whale-fishery. Natural history; Sciences naturelles. 'if^,*- CLIMATE. 45 it the height of a mile, which is a most ample allowance, it would lose all its sharpness, and acquire the standard heat in the course of sixty-six hours. Admitting this wind to travel at the rate even of twenty miles each hour, it would consequently spend all its frigorific action in a tract of 1320 miles. The gales from the remotest north must thus d
. Narrative of discovery and adventure in the polar seas and regions [microform] : with illustrations of their climate, geology, and natural history ; and an account of the whale-fishery. Natural history; Sciences naturelles. 'if^,*- CLIMATE. 45 it the height of a mile, which is a most ample allowance, it would lose all its sharpness, and acquire the standard heat in the course of sixty-six hours. Admitting this wind to travel at the rate even of twenty miles each hour, it would consequently spend all its frigorific action in a tract of 1320 miles. The gales from the remotest north must thus discharge their store of cold into the German Sea or the Atlantic Ocean, Nor could such impressions, though continued through a course of ages, have the smallest power to chill the superficial water; for the moment any portion of this was cooled, it would, from its increased density, sink down into the vast abyss. The surface would not be affected till after the cooling had, in its progress, pervaded the whole mass from the bottom upwards. According to the calculations of Laplace, founded on a comparison of the theory of tides with actual observation, the mean depth of the ocean exceeds ten English miles. Supposing, therefore, a wind blowing from s^me northerly point, and ten degrees colder than the water, were to sweep over the Atlantic six months every year, at the rate of fifteen miles an hour, it would take 220 years to abstract from that vast body of water a single degree of heat.* Some persons have imagined that the mountains or islands of ice, which are occasionally drifted into the Atlantic Ocean, must be sufficient, by their frigorific influence, to modify the character of our climate. One of the first who advanced that opinion was the ingenious Richard Bradley, fellow of the Royal Society, and pro- fessor of botany in the University of Cambridge. In " A Survey of the Ancient Husbandry and Gardening, col- * It is true that Laplace, on reviewing his intricate analys
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