The quantity of solid matter that is drifted out of the Polar Seas
through one opening--Davis’s Straits--alone, and during a part of the
year only, covers to the depth of seven feet an area of 300,000 square
miles, and weighs not less than 18,000,000,000 tons. The quantity of
water required to float and drive out this solid matter is probably
many times greater than this. A quantity of water equal in weight to
these two masses has to go in. The basin to receive these inflowing
waters, _i. e._ the unexplored basin about the North Pole, includes an
area of 1,500,000 square miles; and as the outflowing ice and water are
at the surface, the return current must be submarine.
These two currents, therefore, it may be perceived, keep in motion
between the temperate and polar regions of the earth a volume of water,
in comparison with which the mighty Mississippi in its greatest floods
sinks down to a mere rill.--_Maury._