With a view of encouraging advances towards the pole, government has for some years held out a scale of rewards for navigators penetrating to certain latitudes ; but as the first premium is offered for 83°, a latitude much too high for the commencement of the scale, it does not appear to have produced a single energetic attempt.
From the great severity of the cold in the regions beyond the 80th parallel, the mean annual temperature being perhaps 20° below the freezing point, combined with the observations and experience of many years, Captain Scoresby, Jun. is of opinion that the field ice met with in so great profusion around Spitzbergen ex tends (provided there be no land) continuously to the pole. Hence he conceives, that the only access to the pole would be over the ice ; and he several years ago gave a memoir on the subject of the practicability of ac complishing the journey on sledges, drawn by dogs or rein-deer. The feasibleness of the plan he grounds on several examples of considerable journeys having been performed in this manner over snow-clad land, and also across extensive surfaces of ice, which in point of dim dilly appear to bear a considerable relation to the pro bable circumstances of the journey he proposes."§ As the Geography of the Arctic Regions is given under the names of the respective lands, such as GREF.N LAND, SVITZLIERGEN, NOVA ZEMIILA, JAN MAYEN, &c. we shall only have occasion, in this article, to describe the general characters of the countries which are else where given in more particular detail.
The appearance, or character of the arctic portions of the two great continents, is very different from that of the arctic islands. In the former, the mountainous land generally subsides, and the coasts become low and uninteresting, and the sea adjoining shallow ; in the latter, on the contrary, the coasts are bold and pre cipitous; the land mountainous to the very shores ; and the seas deep. Respecting the polar lands of America, we know extremely little. Excepting the discoveries
of Captain Cook, on the north-western margin of Ame rica, extending as high as Icy Cape; of Middleton and Fox in Hudson's Bay, touching the Arctic circle; of Hearne and Mackenzie towards the Frozen Ocean, no other examination, of any moment, of this extensive tract of land had been made, until the recent expeditions under Lieutenant Franklin by land, and Captain Parry by sea, were undertaken.
The vast extent of territory possessed by the Rus sians w ithin the Pular circle, their uncommon facilities for research, in having a population either national or tributat y dispersed almost throughout the whole, to gether with the advantages afforded by the abundant river navigations, extending far into the frigid zone,— ought to have rendered us tolerably familiar with the bleak and barren shores of ice-bound Siberia. But we have not derived that information from these researches which might have been expected The three great rivers, the Obe, Einesi, and the Lena, each of which descending tow ards the north a distance of 1500 or 2000 geographical miles, or even more, must necessari ly reach the sea in a low country ; while the many other extensive rivets, though inferior to these, running in parallel courses, describe the general descent of the land, and the prevailing lowness of the northern coasts. Lapland, however, has a different aspect ; this coast, with sonic of the more considerable of the Russian pro montories, partakes more of the bold and rocky charac ter of the Arctic islands.
In our description of the Arctic islands we shall comprise Greenland, Spiztbergen, Nova Zembla, Jan Mayen, and other smaller islands in the Greenland Sea, together with the land on the western side of Davis' Strait and Baffin's Bay, and that on either hand of Barrow's Strait, extending to the North Georgian Islands, forming the limit of Captain Parry's western navigation in this parallel.