THE ARCTIC EXPEDITION.

Globe, Volume IV, Issue 331, 5 July 1875, Page 4

THE ARCTIC EXPEDITION.

The Times of April 28th says : Though it has taken ten years to induce the country to undertake another Arctic expedition, no time has been wasted since it was determined to make a renewed national attempt to penetrate the three millions of square miles of unknown area which surround the Pole, and to plant the Union Jack at the Pole itself; and the Government deserve great credit for the liberal manner in which the expedition has been equipped, the admirable foresight which have characterised the preparations, and the amplitude of the means which they have placed at the disposal of Captain Naves. The advantages under which the enterprise starts are neither few nor unimportant. Many things have been determined by long and painful experience, and the explorers will avoid many of the mistakes into which their predecessors fell. They know that however powerful their ships may be to force their way through the floe, nothing is to be gained, but much to be lost, by entering the drift pack, and that the success, no less than the safety, of the expedition depends upon their hi gging the shore and giving the floating ice as wide a berth as possible. The failures of former Arctic navigators have also made it manifest that it is worse than usless to attempt to solve the supreme problem by braving the bergs of Behring’s Straits or encountering the Polar pack which obstructs the route through the Spitzbergen seas. All this is something gained. Captain Nares will proceed by way of Baffin’s Bay and Smith’s Sound: and though he has the satisfaction of knowing that, so far as has been ascertained, no absolute barrier has been dis covered to prevent his progress in this direction, we must not lose sight of the fact that it is just as likely that it may rest with him to discover the existence of some unimagined obstruction as to discover that no obstruction in the path to the Pole exists which cannot be surmounted by enterprise and pertinacity. Beyond the inner circle of 90 degrees everything is very much a matter of conjecture. Smith’s Sound is the most promising channel for many reasons, the principal being that either from its narrowness or the warmer temperature of its currents, it is remarkably free from pack ice, that it possesses a continuous coast line, and that by pursuing it the explorers can. in case of failure, easily fall Imek upuu llioir depots. But thoro is the dreadful alternative that Smith’s Sound may turn out a cul de sac. The Polaris proceeded as far as 82deg 16min in the short space of five days, and was only then brought to a standstill by floating masses of ice which it is thought would prove no obstacle to the progress of a vessel possessing the engine power of the Alert, Taking to his sledges at this point, Hall pushed forward for upwards of thirty miles further north, finding the sea navigable as far as could be seen, with a “ water sky” ahead, and meeting with a current setting direct from the Pole and bringing down with it fugitive masses of Siberian driftwood, from which he concluded that there exists an open water communication between Baffin’s Bay and the northern coasts of Siberia. This conclusion is apparently confirmed by the Swedish Expedition, under Captain Koldewey, who discovered open water in the very latitude in which Parry discovered nothing but an illimitable ice-field. The existence of an open sea at the Pole is also asserted by Dr Kane, who succeeded in tracing Kennedy Channel at the head of Smith’s Sound, as far north as 81.22 deg, and who discovered to the north-east a tidal sea extending as far as the eye could reach. But instead of contending that this Polar Ocean communicated with the North Atlantic, the American investigators supposed that it was either land or ice locked. “ Its waves,” Captain Murray writes, “ were dashing on the beach with the swell of a boundless ocean. The tides ebbed and flowed in it, and I apprehend that the tidal wave from the Atlantic could no more pass under the icy barrier to be propagated in the seas beyond than the vibrations of a musical string can pass a fret on which the musician has placed his fingc r. The tides must have been born in that cold sea, having their cradle about the North Pole.” Whether this mysterious sea is isolated or conjoined with the North Atlantic Ocean is one of the problems the solution of which Captain Nares will attempt to solve. Should its existence prove a reality, the progress of the Alert even to the world’s axis itself will be comparatively easy in the summer months of 1876, but under less advantageous circumstances the existence of a sea at the Pole may present insurmountable barriers to the success of the expedition. Whether, however, the expedition reach the Pole or not, it cannot fail to prove of great public utility. Arctic voyages have long ceased to possess any commercial or maritime importance; and Mr Disraeli, in the letter in which he made known the intention of the Goverment to send out another expedition, was far from limiting its utility to the one purpose of penetrating the immemorial secret. He announced, in fact, that the object of the expedition was to benefit science and to encourage the spirit of enterprise which has always distinguished British seamen. There are many highly interesting experiments which can only be carried out in high Polar latitudes. Pendulum observations at the highest attainable point will dd very materially in settling the question >f the true figure of the earth; geology, with special reference to the glacial period

botany, geography, and ethnology are certain to gain from the investigations which will be pursued; ai.d the application of spectrum analysis to the phenomenon of the aurora borealis will probably lead to some interesting discoveries. Though the expedition may fail in the object which the public imagination will inevitab’y associate with it, we may rest assured tint in many things it will not prove unsuccessful.