Conned ByGrreens
2011-08-30 05:00:18 UTC
"It will without doubt have come to your Lordship's knowledge that a
considerable change of climate inexplicable at present to us must have taken
place in the Circumpolar Regions, by which the severity of the cold that has
for centuries past inclosed the seas in the high northern latitudes in an
impenetrable barrier of ice has been during the last two years greatly
abated. "
"Mr. Scoresby, a very intelligent young man who commands a whaling vesell
from Whitby observed last year that 2000 square leagues (a league is 3
miles) of ice with which the Greenland Seas between the latitudes of 74° and
80°N have been hitherto covered, has in the last two years entirely
disappeared. The same person who has never been before able to penetrate to
the westward of the Meridian of Greenwich in these latitudes was this year
able to proceed to 10°, 30'W where he saw the coast of East Greenland and
entertained no doubt of being able to reach the land had not his duty to his
employers made it necessary for him to abandon the undertaking. "
"This, with information of a similar nature derived from other sources; the
unusual abundance of ice islands that have during the last two summers been
brought by currents from Davies Streights (sic) into the Atlantic. The ice
which has this year surrounded the northern coast of Ireland in unusual
quantity and remained there unthawed till the middle of August, with the
floods which have during the whole summer inundated all those parts of
Germany where rivers have their sources in snowy mountains, afford ample
proof that new sources of warmth have been opened and give us leave to hope
that the Arctic Seas may at this time be more accessible than they have been
for centuries past, and that discoveries may now be made in them not only
interesting to the advancement of science but also tot he future intercourse
of mankind and the commerce of distant nations."
President of the Royal Society, Minutes of Council, Volume 8. pp.149-153,
Royal Society, London. 20th November, 1817.
considerable change of climate inexplicable at present to us must have taken
place in the Circumpolar Regions, by which the severity of the cold that has
for centuries past inclosed the seas in the high northern latitudes in an
impenetrable barrier of ice has been during the last two years greatly
abated. "
"Mr. Scoresby, a very intelligent young man who commands a whaling vesell
from Whitby observed last year that 2000 square leagues (a league is 3
miles) of ice with which the Greenland Seas between the latitudes of 74° and
80°N have been hitherto covered, has in the last two years entirely
disappeared. The same person who has never been before able to penetrate to
the westward of the Meridian of Greenwich in these latitudes was this year
able to proceed to 10°, 30'W where he saw the coast of East Greenland and
entertained no doubt of being able to reach the land had not his duty to his
employers made it necessary for him to abandon the undertaking. "
"This, with information of a similar nature derived from other sources; the
unusual abundance of ice islands that have during the last two summers been
brought by currents from Davies Streights (sic) into the Atlantic. The ice
which has this year surrounded the northern coast of Ireland in unusual
quantity and remained there unthawed till the middle of August, with the
floods which have during the whole summer inundated all those parts of
Germany where rivers have their sources in snowy mountains, afford ample
proof that new sources of warmth have been opened and give us leave to hope
that the Arctic Seas may at this time be more accessible than they have been
for centuries past, and that discoveries may now be made in them not only
interesting to the advancement of science but also tot he future intercourse
of mankind and the commerce of distant nations."
President of the Royal Society, Minutes of Council, Volume 8. pp.149-153,
Royal Society, London. 20th November, 1817.