Dr. Haughton, of Trinity College, Dublin, is known to have
expressed the opinion as long ago as 1857,—that is, eighteen years ago,—that there was a point in the polar regions where the opposite courses of the Atlantic and Pacific tides, from Lancaster Sound and Behring's Straits, respectively, meet, and where, consequently, pack-ice is certain to accumulate in such considerable quantities as to render it hopeless that any ship entering from one ocean should get through it to the other ocean ; and on that occasion he pointed out to Captain M'Clin- tack that the spot where these tides would be likely to meet was -one very near to the place where the 'Erebus' and 'Terror' -were beset and the wrecks were subsequently found. Dr. Haughton wrote to Thursday's Times to explain that in all pro- bability to the north of Smith's Sound, the same collision between Atlantie and Pacific currents will be found to produce the same result of collecting an impenetrable mass of pack-ice pressed together from opposite sides ; and that if the 'Alert' and 'Dis- covery' so find it, then their best chance of reaching the Pole would be to keep their ships to the southward of the ice-barrier, and to organise an expedition with sledges, upon the pack-ice so collected, to the North Pole. Dr. Haughton explained his views clearly to Captain Mares and to others of the officers under him, and his scientific authority stands deservedly so high, and has borne so well the test of verification in relation to this particular subject, that we trust his counsel may have good results in pro- moting the object of the expedition.
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