The North American Review, Vol. 69 (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from The North American Review, Vol. 69 <p>Now, what is the nature Of this permanent connection, this isthmus, in fact, - which resists alike the influence of tempests, of currents, and of the unremitting heat of an arctic summer? That it Should be merely the frozen surface Of a strait, from fifteen to eighteen leagues wide, connecting two oceans, is improbable in the extreme. Nothing but the strongest evidence should be admitted as proving it. Yet no one, so far as is known, has travelled upon it, to ascertain its nature, and the only pretence upon which it is called a frozen strait is, that Parry, when nearest Cape Dundas, thought there was no land in sight encompassing the western horizon. Nevertheless, he does say, (narrative, p. <p>The ice, to the west and southwest, was as solid and com pact, to all appearance, as so much land, to which, indeed, the surface of many of the fields, from the kind of hill and dale I have before endeavored to describe, bore no imperfect resemblance. N ow, the difficulty of distinguishing low land from ice, in the polar region, is well known. Parry, himself, puts this note, in the chart of his discoveries, near Prince Regent's Inlet: N. B. Several of the valleys on this coast resemble bays. At a few miles distance. On page 72, Of his Narrative, he says. <p>About the Publisher <p>Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com <p>This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.