secondly, it is absurd to imagine that lands in the vicinity of the Pole
should have any rivers, as the snow-line, as it has been called, reaches
so low down there as the surface of the earth, and as the temperature of
the atmosphere, reckoning from what is known of it in high latitudes,
can scarcely ever be above that point at which water becomes solid. The
second argument is equally unsubstantial, and may be as readily
invalidated. In fact, the principal thing requisite for the congelation
of water in any circumstances of situation, is the reduction of the
temperature to a certain point, to the effect of which, it is well
known, the agitation of the water often materially contributes. It may
be remarked also, that as the beat of the ocean seems to diminish in
pretty regular progression from the surface downwards, so it is highly
probable, that, even at considerable distances from the Pole, the lower
strata may be in a state of congelation; much more probably, therefore,
there may exist at and near the Pole, a mass of ice of indefinite size
and durability, which, extending to greater or smaller distances
according to different circumstances, may serve as the basis, or _point
d'appui_, of all the islands and fields of ice discoverable in this
region. Ice, in fact, is just as capable of a fixed position as earth
is, or any other solid body, and may accordingly have constituted the
substratum of the southern hemisphere within the polar circle, since the
time that this planet assumed its present form and condition. So much
then on the subject of a southern continent, which, after all, we see is
not worth being disputed about, and appears to be set up, as it were, in
absolute derision of human curiosity and enterprise. Wise men, it is
likely, notwithstanding such promissory eulogiums as Mr Dalrymple held
out, will neither venture their lives to ascertain its existence, nor
lose their time and tempers in arguing about it. Cook's observation, it
is perhaps necessary to remark, as to the ice extending further towards
the north opposite the Atlantic and Indian oceans than any where else,