4. There was, indeed, a certain logical consequence in the belief of an inner Polar Sea, as long as it was unknown that ice is formed on the open sea as well as on the coasts. There was also one argument, which made the existence of such a sea not altogether improbable. It might be assumed, that the formation of ice renewed every year in the Arctic regions, would necessarily produce eternal bulwarks of congelation and destroy all organic life, unless sea-currents modified these extremes of climate. The ice which is formed round the Pole—it was argued—is not of an unlimited but of a definite quantity. Since, then, this quantity of ice must be brought with tolerable uniformity from the innermost Polar region to lower latitudes by the action of sea-currents, there are at least one or two months of the summer when the ice is at a minimum, when no new formation takes place, and when a sea relatively ice-free may appear in the place of the sea which had been covered with ice. This sea would be the more open and navigable, just in proportion as less land might be found at the Pole. But in this assumption it is implied, that the ice moves with perfect regularity and in radial lines from a given point without any disturbance from winds, or counter-currents, or land, consequently with a quiet simplicity of hydrography, for which Nature, neither there nor elsewhere, shows any predilection. Dove makes the mean annual temperature of the North Pole, 2·5° F.; but it is probably still less. What, then, is the probability of an open Polar Sea, if this annual mean only be considered? All the accounts too of animal life increasing in exuberance as we advance northwards—from which a more favourable climate within the innermost Polar region and an open Polar Sea have been inferred—must be received with caution, for the appearance of numerous flocks of birds proves only that they remain where open water prevails for a time and that they change their abode with its change of place. 5. In more recent times great influence has been attributed to the Gulf Stream as a power influencing all the seas, known and unknown, of the whole Arctic region. Dr. Petermann, however, in a lately published work, endeavours to show that its effects are discernible only on the northern seas of Spitzbergen and Novaya Zemlya. Its action on the coasts of Spitzbergen has been indisputably established by the Swedes, who discovered there certain tropical plants (_Entada gigalobium_); but the penetration of the warmer waters of this current to the northern coasts of Novaya Zemlya has not been so positively ascertained. In the Austrian Expedition of 1873-4, we discovered no proofs of its existence. We found neither the constant current, nor the water of a higher temperature, which characterizes that renowned stream.