STOP PRESS ( - FROM 1817 )

I have just found this quote on MEP Roger Helmer's excellent blog and thought I would share it with you.

"It will have come to your Lordships’ knowledge that a considerable change of climate, inexplicable at present to us, must have taken place in the Circumpolar Regions, by which the severity of the cold that has for centuries past enclosed the seas in high northern latitudes in an impenetrable barrier of ice has been, during the last two years abated.

This affords ample proof that new sources of warmth have been opened and given us leave to hope that the Arctic seas may at this time be more accessible that they have been for centuries past, and that discoveries may now be made in them not only to the advancement of science but also to the future intercourse of mankind and the commerce of distant nations."

That was the President of the Royal Society, speaking to the Admiralty in London on November 20, 1817.