From “Arctic Explorations.”

=_272._= THE DISCOVERY OF AN OPEN SEA.

As Morton, leaving Hans and his dogs, passed between Sir John Franklin Island and the narrow beach-line, the coast became more wall-like, and dark masses of porphyritic rock abutted into the sea.  With growing difficulty, he managed to climb from rock to rock, in hopes of doubling the promontory and sighting the coasts beyond, but the water kept encroaching more and more on his track.

It must have been an imposing sight, as he stood at this termination of his journey, looking out upon the great waste of waters before him.  Not a “speck of ice,” to use his own words, could be seen.  There, from a height of four hundred and eighty feet, which commanded a horizon of almost forty miles, his ears were gladdened with the novel music of dashing waves; and a surf, breaking in among the rocks at his feet, stayed his farther progress.

Beyond this cape all is surmise.  The high ridges to the north-west dwindled off into low blue knobs, which blended finally with the air.  Morton called the cape, which baffled his labors, after his commander; but I have given it the more enduring name of Cape Constitution.

...  I am reluctant to close my notice of this discovery of an open sea without adding that the details of Mr. Morton’s narrative harmonized with the observations of all our party.  I do not propose to discuss here the causes or conditions of this phenomenon.  How far it may extend—­whether it exist simply as a feature of the immediate region, or as part of a great and unexplored area communicating with the Polar basin, and what may be the argument in favor of one or the other hypothesis, or the explanation which reconciles it with established laws—­may be questions for men skilled in scientific deductions.  Mine has been the more humble duty of recording what we saw.  Coming as it did, a mysterious fluidity in the midst of vast plains of solid ice, it was well calculated to arouse emotions of the highest order; and I do not believe there was a man among us who did not long for the means of embarking upon its bright and lonely waters.

[Footnote 68:  A traveller, explorer, and writer of high merit; a native of Philadelphia, and a Surgeon in the Navy.  His early death was much deplored.]

* * * * *

=_Bayard Taylor, 1825-._= (Manual, pp. 505, 523, 531.)

From “Eldorado.”

=_273._= MONTEREY, CALIFORNIA.

No one can be in Monterey a single night, without being startled and awed by the deep, solemn crashes of the surf, as it breaks along the shore.  There is no continuous roar of the plunging waves, as we hear on the Atlantic seaboard; the slow, regular swells—­quiet pulsations of the great Pacific’s heart—­roll inward in unbroken lines, and fall with single grand crashes, with intervals of dead silence between.  They may be heard through the day, if one listens,