If the author could make himself heard at Washington, he would also urge the government to lose no time in following our own expedition under Dr. Kane, who, if he finds a clear entrance from Smith's sound into the Arctic sea, may be induced to push on, and endeavor to make his way through the pack towards Behring's straits, and thus fall into the same snare as Franklin. According to the theory, the higher the passage into the Arctic sea, the less will it be incumbered with ice, and, consequently, Smith's sound is the best both to enter and return by; and had the author not already smarted enough by having his professions derided, he would have submitted these views to the patrons of that expedition before it sailed. The scientific world is, in reality, chargeable with the disastrous results of Franklin's expedition. The polar basin is hemmed in by the coast line of Europe, Asia, and America, in about latitude 70° north, for the greatest part of the entire circumference. And this coast line, and the islands adjacent, will cause the polar ice to accumulate and form a frozen belt along these shores, in consequence of the constant tendency of the earth's rotation to press the ice to the southward. The fact that an open passage exists between this belt and the shore in summer time, is no objection, as the tides, river currents, and warm land breezes, may very well explain this. The learned have insisted, and do yet insist, that the earth's rotation can produce no motions in the Arctic sea, and, under this delusion, Franklin has passed into the comparatively open waters inside the pack, perhaps has lost his ships; yet it is very possible that the party may have escaped, and derived a subsistence from the more genial waters of the central portion of that ocean unto this day.