thence by some other vessel to England. Meanwhile, two of M'Clure's officers Lieutenant Cresswell, and Mr. Wynniall, mate-with the sickly part of the crew, have already returned, after having for the first time completely circumnavigated the | entire American continent.

The existence of an open sea in the vicinity of the north pole has been a subject of earnest discussion among physical geographers for a long series of years. And now that some more light has been thrown on the matter, it may not be uninteresting to collect the arguments used in support of the theory declaring its existence, as well as to recapitulate the evidence which recent investigators have contributed in confirmation of that theory. So early as the beginning of the present century, doubts were expressed by eminent navigators as to whether the ice which had obstructed their progress was so continuous as had till then been believed; and opinions gained currency among one class which were warmly combated by another, till two parties were established, the one denominated the polists, and the other the anti-polists. As we are now merely adducing evidence of an open polar sea, it is only necessary here to state the opinions of the polists, together with the circumstances which led to their belief in that rather anomalous physical fact. The earliest discoveries which led to a belief in an open polar sea were those connected with the observed temperature of northern climates. It was found that the average annual temperature about the 80th parallel of latitude was several degrees higher than that recorded at from eight to twelve degrees farther south. As this is contrary to what might have been expected from the increased obliquity of the solar rays, it became necessary to cast about for some other explanation of so unlooked-for a fact. As an example of this elevation of temperature, we may adduce the Island of Spitzbergen, directly north of Norway, where, under the 80th parallel, the deer propagate, and on the northern coast of which the sea is quite open for a considerable time every year. But at Nova Zembla, five degrees further south, the sea is locked in perpetual ice, and the deer are rarely if ever seen on its coast. This has led physical geographers to suppose that the milder temperature of Spitzbergen must be attributable

to the well-known influence of proximity to a large body of water, while the contiguity of Nova Zembla to the continent was thought to account for the severity of its climate. Again, we find that when Parry visited those regions in 1827, he began his boat voyage toward the pole in latitude 81° 12′; he traveled among broken masses of ice for thirty-five days, during which it rained nearly the whole time. In such a latitude, one might have expected icebergs, or snowballs at the very least, if any fall whatever. The same difference has been observed in parallels more widely separated, among the bays and inlets of North America. Parry was compelled to return to Spitzbergen, after the voyage just mentioned, in consequence of the quantity of ice drifted to the southward, and against which he could not make way. This points to another physical fact tending to induce a belief in the existence of an open polar sea, viz., that powerful currents are continually setting from the pole to the temperate oceans. Besides the current now noticed by Parry, others had been determined before, and more have been ascertained since; so that a perpetual flow of the ocean southward may be considered as established. Add to this a third fact, that ice never forms in deep water when in motion, and the following inferences are easily made. First, that the ice which blocks up the large bays and straits of the north has not frozen there, but consists of floes and bergs which have broken away from the shore, and have drifted down in such large quantities, that they met and adhered to each other in, one large conglomerate mass; an inference strengthened by the circumstance of all ice found far from the land being, not "sheet," but " "pack" ice. Secondly, the polar sea, if indeed it be a sea, must be open, because there is no land in contiguity with which ice can form itself, which excludes the possibility of "pack" ice; and the sea itself is in constant motion, and that excludes the possibility of ice being formed on its surface.

Such are the arguments in support of the view that an open sea exists in the vicinity of the pole, and it would be cause of some regret if the researches of the last five years did not contribute something toward a solution of the problem, either in the negative or the affirmative. That cause of regret, however, is not in

flicted, for the existence of an almost unencumbered sea has been all but proved. In 1852, Captain Inglefield, in making his summer search for Sir John Franklin, explored the entire northern boundaries of Baffin's Bay, when he ascertained that two sounds, which had till then been laid down on the maps as inclosed and terminated by land, were entirely open, and permitted the readiest ingress to ships of the largest burden. The first of these was Whale Sound, in the north-east of Baffin's Bay. In exploring it, after passing two or three new islands, he beheld with surprise "two wide openings to the eastward, into a clear and unencumbered sea, with a distinct and unbroken horizon, which, beautifully defined by the rays of the sun, showed no sign of land save one island;" but a sense of duty to his lost countrymen, which plainly pointed northward and westward, forbade his proceeding further in an easterly direction. He proceeded to the extreme north of Baffin's Bay, and there explored Sir Thomas Smith's Sound. He says that

"On rounding Cape Alexander," (Cape Alexander being at the entrance of the sound,) "the full glory of being actually in the Polar Sea burst upon my thoughts; for then I beheld the open sea stretching through seven points of the compass, and apparently unencumbered with ice, though bounded east and west by two headlands."

And a little further on he remarks:

"The changed appearance of the land to the northward of Cape Alexander was very remarkable: south of this cape, nothing but snowcapped bills and cliffs met the eye; but to the northward an agreeable change seemed to have been worked by an invisible agency-here the rocks were of their natural black or reddish brown color, and the snow, which had clad with heavy flakes the more southern shore, had only partially dappled them in this higher region, while the western shore was gilt with a belt of ice twelve miles broad, and clad with perpetual snows."

pages, What has become of Sir John Franklin? Is he given up? Or do those persons, competent to form a judgment, think he is yet living? The general opinion among men most intimately acquainted with the state of the search is, that Franklin cannot have been wrecked, because there has never been found a single fragment or spar in those seas which can be considered at all likely to have come from his ships; and it is scarcely credible that two such vessels could have been so completely swallowed up by the ocean, as entirely to obliterate all traces of their existence. Further, it is well ascertained that no storms occurred in those seasons, when he was traversing the explored seas, which could have put the ships in more than ordinary danger. Nor do they believe he has visited any of those straits and inlets through which the searching vessels have passed, since there is not a cairn, post, or record of any kind, to signify so much. The general belief seems to be, that he has made his way into the Polar Basin, and in trying to make his way southward again, was beset by the ice, from which he has not since been able to extricate himself. So that, | although the public ardor may be somewhat declining, it is probable that adventurers will yet be found determined to pursue the search till no hope of ultimate success remains.

[Since the above was written, the problem of Franklin's fate has been solved; the public know the melancholy fate of the gallant band by starvation.]

The captain was driven back by a gale and a subsequent storm, which prevented him doing more in that direction. We might add to these evidences of an unfrozen basin, but cannot do more now than just say, that equally satisfactory knowledge has been obtained of Wellington Channel, and that the observations of all recent explorers tend to confirm the impressions these discoveries have induced.

-

[For the National Magazine.]

or when plenty loads them with fruitage, brilliant enough to vie with the gardens

WHAT

"This world is full of beauty,

As are the worlds above;

And if we did our duty,

It would be full of love.”

[HAT man, in grace, beauty, and dignity, is in the animal kingdom, trees are in the vegetable world. Trees! full of glowing memories of the past as they are of leaves-where the gay-hearted birds have for centuries made nests, and reared the denizens of the air! Grand old trees! with spreading boughs, stretched forth, like wings, to protect a peaceful spot from sun, wind, or storm. Glorious old trees! majestic masses of freshest foliage, reared like emerald domes, high into the mid heavens! Sublime old trees! whose every leaf seems written with a history more precious than the books of the famous Sibyl! Beautiful trees! so graceful in form-so various in color-so changing with every new light, with every varying shadow of cloud, or with every deepening haze of atmosphere! Trees! always lovely, whether in forest or meadow; on hillside or lawn; by rock or river; in valley or on mountain; on the prairie or in the garden; whether standing single, in clusters, upon the park, or ranged in files, like sentinels, by the village high-way; always greeting the eye refreshingly, and speaking to the heart of that first garden, in whose blest clime God's own hand planted "every tree that was pleasant to the sight, or good for food!" suggestive also of a time yet to come, when " the fir-tree, the pine-tree, and the box together, shall be brought to beautify the place of the Lord's sanctuary."

Who does not love trees,-whether bursting into bud and leaf in spring time, and crowning the landscape with a purple glory and an etherial odor of sprouting foliage; or, a few days later, absolutely burdening the prospect with the magnificence of blossoms, and the Sabean incense of innumerable flowers? Who does not delight still more in trees, when, in summer's prime, they stand mantled in rich and royal robes of green, casting, at noon and night, refreshing shadows upon the heated earth, and awaking genial breezes by their own majestic coolness? Who but admires trees in autumn, when the frostking puts them in liveries, more splendid than those of an eastern monarch's court;

a melancholy pleasure in gazing on them when, stripped of their honors by winter, they stand in naked desolation, defiant of his icy power, and seem, like virtue in distress, relying on their own inherent strength and integrity to bring beauty out of ruin, and triumph out of disaster? Under a transparent sky—in the dimness of mist—when resting motionless in the calm -when rocked and tossed by the surging wind-during the drizzling rain, or beaten by the pelting storm-beneath the flashing glare of sunlight, or under the gentle beams of the mild-eyed moon-with the black masses of lazy 'shadows, slowly creeping toward them in morning, or flying away from them at evening-who does not, at all times, believe them to be friends, whose every leaf is a study for curiosity, whose every process is a subject for wisdom, and whose every whisper, when our hearts are in sympathy with them, teaches a lesson of duty, love, and good-will?

The love for trees, and the taste for their cultivation, have been despised rather than cherished by our countrymen. A better day seems to be dawning, brought on in good part by the labors of the late lamented Downing. We wish to do what we can, still further to spread the growing light. Americans, to their shame be it said, seem not unfrequently to have reckoned trees and shrubs, especially our native ones, as natural enemies-not, indeed, to be conquered and made servants, but to be exterminated and supplanted by monotonous levels. Especially have we overlooked the utility of trees, often considering them troublesome in meadows and in pastures, and proscribing them as shutting out the prospect, obstructing the light, or preventing the circulation of air, about our houses. We esteem them harborers of insects, or attractions for gnats and flies. If, however, we had been properly instructed we should regard them very differently. They are our best friends on the meadows to prevent dryness and parching, as well as to give coolness and protection to the animals we rear. They afford shelter to birds, which perform for us incalculable service in destroying worms and moths, that otherwise would prey on our crops and waste our harvests. They gather a vast amount of fertilizing matter

from the atmosphere, and, when they lay aside their leafy robes to wrestle with winter, they deposit it to provide for our future seed-times. And daily are they treasuring up materials with which to erect our dwellings, to build our machines, to replenish our home-cheering fires, and to enlarge our world-ranging navies.

Then how many of them bless us with refreshing fruits! Forest-trees that yearly bend beneath a load of wholesome nuts; and orchards that glow and brighten with comfort-bringing fruitage-the purple grape, the juicy plum, the melting peach, the sugary pear, the rosy apple-how these store for us and our families such luscious richness as hardly angels can wish improved! And should these not teach us how highly to prize trees, and warn us against the heinous ingratitude of undervaluing their blessings? And can there be a question that trees, and especially forests, have a vast influence upon the state of the weather-in procuring for us showers, or in attracting to the earth refreshing dews? Do they not break off the wasting fury of winter's winds, and aid in retaining the warm, fertilizing mantle of snow, which God's care provides, like wool, for the comfort of the tender grass during the extreme of cold? Will not a country well covered with trees be cooler and less parched by droughts in summer, and warmer and less afflicted with sudden changes in winter, than that from which these majestic natural ornaments of the landscape have been shorn away by the cupidity, or allowed to decay by the carelessness of man?

There is, then, truly a useful benevolence in cherishing the trees which centuries have rendered venerable, or in planting others which future generations shall admire. And in a community like ours, where two-thirds at least of the people change their abodes in half a score of years, every man, even in a temporary residence, should plant, that others may enjoy after him some of the blessings which he has received from those before him.

But in this plea for trees, we have said not a word on the general topic of the utility of that beauty which they add to a country. Trees are the most fitting ornaments of a landscape, and any locality in whose soil they will flourish-and rare indeed is the situation where they will not

thrive-may by them be made attractive and pleasing. They take from the broad plain its naked bleakness, and by the luxuriant heaps of their foliage they conceal its tediousness and banish its suggestions of solitude. They relieve the sloping hillside of its seeming difficulty and danger. They remove that sense of barrenness, which a smoothly-rounded knoll, in some degree, always possesses without them; and when they crown the distant mountain, they prevent those ideas of coldness, gloom, and terror, which otherwise attach to crags and peaks. Among rocks they are beauties, and to the close-shaven velvet of a lawn they add a fresh luster. By the sea-side their green contrasts finely with the blue of the waters; and by the side of the tiny rill, or overhanging the bubbling spring, their shadows enhance all loveliness. In all situations a tree is a thing of beauty," and therefore a joy forever."

66

66

Trees around a house have a visible charm in imparting to it a home-like character. Americans build houses enough, yet comparatively few are the homes they adorn. A small collection of trees, judiciously selected and placed, well planted in soft earth, and kept richly manured from year to year, will soon give to the humble cottage a home look, which the great naked houses of our country so much lack. A few elms, maples, and lindens, together with the larch, the mountain ash, the cedar, and the fir, will render a logcabin attractive. A house thus surrounded and embowered in foliage, will always seem as if a good, gentle family had lived in it for centuries, and had brought up many generations there. It is the place where we know, at a glance, the home affections dwell, and whence homebred virtues go forth on errands of goodness. How warm such a home seems, when wintry winds howl around it! How cool, when the summer sun beats upon it! How quiet behind its leafy shield, when storms rage without! How comfortable-always the picture of contentment and good living! What an effect such a tree-shaded home must have on the minds and hearts of the children, who play about it; and how sweet and transforming must have been the holy companionship of such goodly trees! Let no man call himself a lover of nature, or an admirer of God's ways, who lives without planting near his home

a bower of glorious trees. Let no man fancy himself a worker together with God, who neglects to beautify his grounds and lawns with these noblest ornaments of this world of beauty. And let no man imagine himself a lover of God, or a lover of his neighbor, who is content to dwell on a spot barren, by his neglect, of the leafy honors so abundant in Paradise, and which earth still so rejoices, even in her state of condemnation, to bring forth to make the place of God's feet glorious.

Each species of our American foresttrees has its own peculiar style and appropriateness of beauty. The elm is, perhaps, the most popular for shade, both in towns and villages. It also affords the largest number of varieties of shape and foliage, and can easily adapt itself to the most diverse situations. There are not less than six species, several of which are unnoticed by our popular writers on the culture of lawn and shade-trees. All, however, are admirably adapted to grounds that are level, moderately sloping, or gently rolling the wide extent of its branches being rather a drawback to its good appearance on steep declivities or hill-sides. But on meadows or overhanging houses, where the land is even or the slope gradual, no tree can excel it. The trunk broad and firmly attached to the sinewy roots at the base; then gradually lessening, till near the branches it again enlarges, the very figure of Herculean strength and sprightliness; thence the branches spring off in the noble upward curve of the Gothic arch, and at a distance of perhaps fifty feet, let fall graceful festoons of foliage nigh down to the ground, and hold them always changing and dancing in the breath of the slightest zephyr. This is the elm of New-Haven, and generally of Connecticut River, a very differently habited tree from the two kinds most frequent on the Boston Common, which are rounder, and throw off branches more nearly at right angles with the trunk. There is a kind, called in Rhode Island the feather-elmlike the first named, in the graceful and majestic curves of its branches, but having all its limbs and twigs covered with little shoots, set with dense foliage, giving the appearance of a wreath of feathery leaves. A species of elm found in Northern NewEngland and New-York has the upward and outward tendency of the branches, but they do not fall toward their extremi

ties; and hence the tree assumes the shape almost of an inverted pyramid. Still another kind sends its branches upward in somewhat the manner of the Lombardy poplar. This is a small tree, and loves hill-sides. The only objection to the elm as a shade-tree is, that it affords forage to several species of insects. These, however, are very easily and effectually destroyed.

The sugar-maple ranks next to the elm, if indeed it be not really more valuable. It has a great profusion of leaves, as thick as a forest in itself; has a fine conical, globular, or spindle-shaped head; and casts the deepest, the coolest, and the softest shadow upon the grass beneath it, which it always stimulates to a fresher greenness. It is never subject to any ravages of insects, and the severest droughts and heats of summer never diminish its brilliancy. It is beautiful in any situationplain, meadow, hill, valley, or mountainand is particularly fitted for planting in clusters, where it shoots up taller in the center, and rounds its branches on the circumference, so that a half-dozen of these trees will form almost a perfect globe of foliage.

The linden or basswood has of late become very common in villages and cities, for roads and parks. While young, it shoots up in a beautiful cone, too trim if possible; but when grown older, it assumes a fine, massive, rounded, elliptical head, with here and there openings toward the body. When standing alone, and fully grown, with its broad-rounded leaves, from which its delicately-perfumed blossoms curiously depend in spring, and bear in autumn its jewel-like clusters of berries, and with its light golden green color, it is a noble and magnificent ornament. park-tree, or on a level meadow, it is invaluable. Many insects, however, delight in. its sweet foliage.

As a

The trees above enumerated are all invaluable in cities and villages. They will thrive where the roots are obliged to hide beneath a brick or flagged sidewalk, or to run beneath a traveled road or a pavement. Few are the trees that will not droop and wither in such circumstances; but these grow so finely even there, as to bring much of health and freshness to densely-populated towns, and to remind the denizens of cities of the beauties of nature, and of the glories of hill-sides and