nce 1845--Sir John Franklin's track--Probable
existence of islands north of Behring's Straits--Possibility of
subsisting in the Arctic islands--News from the
Investigator--Necessity of searching in a higher latitude than the
Investigator visited--Franklin's misfortunes due to Scientific
Errors--Relative levels of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans--The Arctic
seas more accessible in a few years--Conclusion. 233

PREFACE.

On presenting to the public a work of this novel character,
overstepping, as it does, the barriers erected by modern systems to the
further progress of knowledge, a few words of explanation may not be
inappropriate. Early imbued with a desire to understand the _causes_ of
natural phenomena, the author devoured with avidity the interpretations
contained in the elementary works of orthodox science, until reason and
observation rendered him dissatisfied with the repast. To him it
appeared that there was an evident tendency in scholastic instruction,
to make the knowledge of nature inaccessible to the many, that the world
might be made more dependent on the few; while many of the _established
principles_, on which the learned rested, seemed to be at variance with
the simplicity and consistency of truth. Thus situated, he ventured to
think for himself, and looking back on the history of the past, and
finding so many cases in which the philosophy of to-day was supplanted
by a different system on the morrow, he was led to suspect the
possibility of future revolutions, and was thus determined to be no
longer embarrassed by previous systems, nor deterred by opinions
however learned, which conflicted with a rational recognition of the
mechanical nature of all physical phenomena.

The science of meteorology, to which the following pages are devoted,
is, and always has been, a confessedly complex subject; and on this
account, any suggestions and facts which observation gleans,--no matter
how humble the source may be, should not be denied a hearing by those
professedly engaged in the pursuit of truth. Step by step, the author
became more and more confirmed in his doubts of the soundness of many
modern theories; and in 1838 he had attained a position which enabled
him to allege in the public prints of the day, that there did exist
certain erroneous dogmas in the schools, which stood in the way of a
fuller development of the causes of many meteorological phenomena. This
annunciat