orm of the American and Asiatic coasts, is not balanced by a contrary
impulse of the waters of the north Pacific, inasmuch as this ocean
becomes narrower as it extends northward, and the only passage to the
frozen ocean is through the narrow straits of Behring. The axifugal
force of rotation due to the northern waters is, therefore, overborne
by the vast preponderance due to the southern waters, and, hence, the
northern Pacific may be considered as relatively at a higher level, and
there will be a current northward through Behring's straits, as we find
it. The same cause accumulates the waters under the equator, thus giving
a higher level to the Pacific than to the Atlantic at the isthmus of
Panama, where the difference of level is found by actual measurement to
be five or six feet. This fact has never before been explained; but the
cause is too obvious to admit of question.

That the sea is deeper than was formerly admitted, is now fully
confirmed. We have before alluded to the results obtained by Captain
Denham, of H. M. ship Herald, who found bottom at 7,706 fathoms, or
about nine English miles. Now, whether that spherical shell, which we
have contended to be the true form of the solid earth, be continuous and
entire; or, whether it may not be wanting in localities of limited
extent where the ocean would be absolutely unfathomable, we know not;
but if such be the internal constitution of our globe, there will be, no
doubt, many channels of communication between the internal and external
ocean, and, as a consequence of the earth's rotation, the axifugal
current of the Arctic sea may be supplied by an upward current from the
interior of the globe; and this current may have a higher temperature
than the surface waters of that sea, and thus the middle portions may,
in truth, remain open the whole year round, and be teeming with animal
life. According to Captain Penny's observations in 1850, whales and
other northern animals existed to the westward, where he saw the open
sea stretch out without a bound before him.

It has been a question mooted by some, that Franklin's ships might be
overtaken, at an early stage of the voyage, by a storm, and foundered
amidst the ice. The theory would give a negative answer to this
question. Stiff gales may prevail far to the north when the vortices do
not reach so high; but no storm, properly speaking, will be found far
beyond their northern limit. After the coming winter (1853), the
vo