This resolution once taken, D'Urville communicated it to Captain Jacquinot, and set sail for the strait. On the 12th December Cape Virgin was sighted, and Dumoulin, seconded by the young officers, began a grand series of hydrographical surveys. In the intricate navigation of the strait, D'Urville, we are told, showed equal courage and calmness, skill and presence of mind, completely winning over to his side many of the sailors, who, when they had seen him going along at Toulon when suffering with the gout, had exclaimed, "Oh, that old fellow won't take us far!" Now, when his constant vigilance had brought the vessels safely out of the strait, the cry was, "The —— man is mad! He's made us scrape against rocks, reefs, and land, as if he had never taken a voyage before! And we used to think him as useless as a rotten keel!"

We must now say a few words on the stay at Port Famine.

Landing is easy, and there is a good spring and plenty of wood; on the rocks are found quantities of mussels, limpets, and whelks, whilst inland grows celery, and a kind of herb resembling the dandelion. Another fruitful source of wealth in this bay is fish, and whilst the vessels were at anchor, drag-nets, trammels, and lines captured enough mullet, gudgeon, and roaches to feed the whole crew.

"As I was about to re-embark," says D'Urville, "a little barrel was brought to me which had been found hung on a tree on the beach, near a post on which was written Post Office. Having ascertained that this barrel contained papers, I took it on board and examined them. They consisted of notes of captains who had passed through the Straits of Magellan, stating the time of their visits, the incidents of their passage, with advice to those who should come after them, and letters for Europe or the United States. It seemed that an American captain, Cunningham by name, had been the originator of this open-air post-office. He had merely, in April, 1833, hung a bottle on a tree, and his fellow-countryman, Waterhouse, had supplemented it by the post with its inscription. Lastly, Captain Carrick of the schooner Mary Ann, from Liverpool, passed through the strait in March 1837, on his way to San Blas, California, going through it again a second time on his way back on the 29th November, 1837, that is to say, sixteen days before our own visit, and he it was who had substituted the barrel for the bottle, adding an invitation to all who should succeed him to use it as the receptacle of letters for different destinations. I mean to improve this ingenious and useful contrivance by forming an actual post-office on the highest point of the peninsula with an inscription in letters of a size so gigantic as to compel the attention of navigators who would not otherwise have touched at Port Famine. Curiosity will then probably lead them to send a canoe to examine the box, which will be fastened to the post. It seems likely that we shall ourselves reap the first fruits of this arrangement, and our families will be agreeably surprised to receive news from us from this wild and lonely district, just before our plunge into the ice of the Polar regions."

At low tide the mouth of the Sedger river, which flows into Famine Bay, is encumbered with sand-banks; some 1000 feet further on the plain is transformed into a vast marsh, from which rise the trunks of immense trees, and huge bones, bleached by the action of time, which have been brought down by the heavy rainfall, swelling the course of the stream.

Skirting this marsh is a fine forest, the entrance to which is protected by prickly shrubs. The commonest trees are the beech, with trunks between eighty and ninety feet high, and three or four in diameter; Winteria aromatica, a kind of bark which has long since replaced the cinnamon, and a species of Barbary. The largest beeches seen by D'Urville measured fifteen feet in diameter, and were about 150 feet high.

Unfortunately, no mammiferous animals or reptiles, or fresh or salt water shell-fish are found on these coasts; and one or two different kinds of birds with a few lichens and mosses were all the naturalist was able to obtain.

Several officers went up the Sedger in a yawl till they were stopped by the shallowness of the water. They were then seven and a half miles from the mouth, and they noted the width of the river where it flows into the sea to be between ninety and a hundred feet.

"It would be difficult," says M. de Montravel, "to imagine a more picturesque scene than was spread out before us at every turn. Everywhere was that indescribable wildness which cannot be imitated, a confused mass of trees, broken branches, trunks covered with moss, which seemed literally to grow before our eyes."

To resume, the stay at Port Famine was most successful; wood and water were easily obtained, repairs, &c., were made, horary, physical, meteorological, tidal, and hydrographical observations were taken, and, lastly, numerous objects of natural history were collected, the more interesting as the museums of France hitherto contained nothing whatever from these unknown regions beyond "a few plants collected by Commerson and preserved in the Herbarium of M. de Jussieu."

On the 28th December, 1837, anchor was weighed without a single Patagonian having been seen, although the officers and crew had been so eager to make acquaintance with the natives.

The difficulties attending navigation compelled the two corvettes to cast anchor a little further on, off Port Galant, the shores of which, bordered by fine trees, are cut by torrents resembling a little distance off magnificent cascades from fifty to sixty feet high. This compulsory halt was not wasted, for a large number of new plants were collected, and the port with the neighbouring bays were surveyed. The commander, however, finding the season already so far advanced, gave up his idea of going out at the westerly end of the strait, and went back the way he came, hoping thus to get an interview with the Patagonians before going to the Polar regions.

St. Nicholas Bay, called by Bougainville the Baie des Francais, where the explorers passed New Year's Day, 1838, is a much pleasanter looking spot than Port Galant. The usual hydrographical surveys were there brought to a satisfactory issue by the officers under the direction of Dumoulin. A boat was despatched to Cape Remarkable, where Bougainville said he had seen fossil shells, which, however, turned out to be nothing but little pebbles imbedded in a calcareous gangue.

Interesting experiments were made with the thermometrograph, or marine thermometer, at 290 fathoms, without reaching the bottom, at less than two miles from land. Whereas the temperature was nine degrees on the surface, it was but two at the above-named depth, and as it is scarcely likely that currents convey the waters of the two oceans so far down, one is driven to the belief that this is the usual temperature of such depths.

The vessels now made for Tierra del Fuego, where Dumoulin resumed his surveys. Low exposed, and strewn with rocks which serve as landmarks, there were but few dangers to be encountered here. Magdalena Island, Gente Grande Bay, Elizabeth Island, and Oazy Harbour, where the camp of a large party of Patagonians was made out with the telescope, and Peckett Harbour, where the Astrolabe struck in three fathoms, were successively passed.

"As we struck," says D'Urville, "there were signs of astonishment and even of excitement amongst the crew, and some grumbling was already audible, when in a firm voice I ordered silence, and without appearing at all put out by what had happened, I cried, 'This is nothing at all, and we shall have plenty more of the same kind of thing.' Later these words often recurred to the memory of our sailors. It is more difficult than one would suppose for a captain to maintain perfect calmness and impassiveness in the midst of the worst dangers, even those he has reason to imagine likely to be fatal."

Peckett Harbour was alive with Patagonians, and officers and men were alike eager to land. A crowd of natives on horseback were waiting for them at the place of disembarkation.

Gentle and peaceable they readily replied to the questions put to them, and looked quietly at everything shown to them, expressing no special desire for anything offered to them. They did not seem either to be at all addicted to thieving, and when on board the French vessels they made no attempt to carry anything off.

Their usual height is from four and a half to five feet, but some are a good deal shorter. Their limbs are large and plump without being muscular, and their extremities are of extraordinary smallness. Their most noteworthy characteristic is the breadth of the lower part of the face as compared to the forehead, which is low and retreating. Long narrow eyes, high cheek-bones, and a flat nose, give them something of a resemblance to the Mongolian type.

They are evidently extremely languid and indolent, and wanting in strength and agility. Looking at them squatting down, standing or walking, with their long hair flowing down their backs, one would take them for the women of a harem rather than savages used to enduring the inclemency of the weather and to struggle for existence. Stretched upon skins with their dogs and horses about them, their chief amusement is to catch the vermin with which they swarm. They hate walking so much that they mount horses just to go down and pick up shells on the beach a few yards off.

A white man was living amongst these Patagonians; a miserable, decrepit-looking fellow, who said he came from the United States, but he spoke English very imperfectly, and the explorers took him to be a German-Swiss. Niederhauser, so he called himself, had gone to seek his fortune in the United States, and that fortune being long on the road, he had given ear to the wonderful proposals of a certain whaleman, who wanted to complete his crew. By this whaleman he was left with seven others and some provisions on a desert island off Tierra del Fuego to hunt seals and dress their skins. Four months later the schooner returned laden with skins, left the seal-hunters fresh provisions, went off again, and never came back! Whether it had been shipwrecked, or whether the captain had abandoned his sailors, it was impossible to ascertain. When the poor fellows found themselves deserted and their provisions exhausted, they embarked in their canoe and rowed up the Straits of Magellan, soon meeting with some Patagonians, with whom Niederhauser remained, whilst his companions went on. Well received by the natives, he lived their life with them, faring well when food was plentiful, drawing in his belt and living on roots when food was scarce.

Weary, however, of this miserable existence, Niederhauser entreated D'Urville to take him on board, urging that another month of the life he was leading would kill him. The captain consented, and received him as a passenger.

During his three months' residence amongst them, Niederhauser had learnt something of the language of the Patagonians, and with his aid D'Urville drew up a comparative vocabulary of a great many words in Patagonian, French, and German.

The war costume of the Fuegans includes a helmet of tanned leather protected by steel-plates and surmounted by a crest of cock's feathers, a tunic of ox-hide dyed red with yellow stripes, and a kind of double-bladed scimitar. The chief of Peckett Harbour allowed his visitors to take his portrait in full martial costume, thereby showing his superiority to his subjects, who would not do the same for fear of witchcraft.

On the 8th January anchor was finally weighed, and the second entrance to the strait was slowly navigated against the tide. The Straits of Magellan having now been crossed from end to end, and a survey made of the whole of the eastern portion of Tierra del Fuego, thus bridging over an important gulf in hydrographic knowledge, no detailed map of this coast having previously been made, the vessels steered for the Polar regions, doubling Staten Island without difficulty, and on the 15th January coming in sight of the first ice, an event causing no little emotion, for now was to begin the really hard work of the voyage.

Floating ice was not the only danger to be encountered in these latitudes: a dense fog, which the keenest sight could not penetrate, soon gathered about the vessels, paralyzing their movements, and though they were under a foresail only, rendering a collision with the ice-masses imminent. The temperature fell rapidly, and the thermometrograph marked only two degrees on the surface of the sea, whilst the deep water was below zero. Half-melted snow now began to fall, and everything bore witness that the Antarctic regions were indeed entered.

Clarence, New South Orkney Islands, could not be identified. Every one's attention had to be concentrated on avoiding blocks of ice. At midday on the 20th January the vessels were in S. lat. 62 degrees 3 minutes and W. long. 49 degrees 56 minutes, not far from the place were Powell encountered compact ice-fields, and an immense ice-island was soon sighted, some 6000 feet in extent and 300 in height, with perpendicular sides greatly resembling land under certain conditions of the light. Numerous whales and penguins were now seen swimming about the vessels, whilst white petrels continually flew across them. On the 21st observations gave S. lat. 62 degrees 53 minutes, and D'Urville was expecting soon to reach the 65th parallel, when at three a.m. he was told that further progress was arrested by an iceberg, across which it did not seem possible to cut a passage. The vessels were at once put about and slowly steered in an easterly direction, the wind having fallen.

"We were thus enabled," says D'Urville, "to gaze at our leisure upon the wonderful spectacle spread out before our eyes. Severe and grand beyond expression it not only excited the imagination but filled the heart with involuntary terror, nowhere else is man's powerlessness more forcibly brought before him.... A new world displays itself to him, but it is a motionless, gloomy, and silent world, where everything threatens the annihilation of human faculties. Should he have the misfortune to be left here alone, no help, no consolation, no spark of hope, would soothe his last moments. One is involuntarily reminded of the famous inscription on the gate of the Inferno of Dante—

"'Lasciate ogni speranza, voi ch' entrate.'"

D'Urville now set to work on a very strange task, which, as compared with others of a similar kind, was likely to be of considerable value. He had an exact measurement taken of the outlines of the iceberg. Had other navigators done the same we should have had some precise information as to the direction taken by icebergs, their movements, &c., in the southern Polar regions, a subject still wrapped in the greatest obscurity.

On the 22nd, after doubling a point, it was ascertained that the iceberg was bearing S.S.W. by W. A lofty and broken piece of land was sighted in these latitudes. Dumoulin had begun to survey it, and D'Urville was about, as he thought, to identify it with the New South Greenland of Morrell, when its outlines became dim and it sunk beneath the horizon. On the 24th the two corvettes crossed a series of floating islets, and entered a plain where the ice was melting. The passage, however, became narrower and narrower, and they were obliged to veer round, to save themselves from being blocked in.

Everything pointed to the conclusion that the edge of the ice was melting, the ice-islands fell apart with loud reports, the ice running off in little rivulets: there was undoubtedly a thaw, and Fanning had been right in saying that these latitudes should not be visited before February.

D'Urville now decided to steer for the north, and try to reach the islands of New South Orkney, the map of which had not yet been accurately laid down. The commander was anxious to survey that archipelago thoroughly, and to spend several days there before resuming his southerly course, so as to be in the Antarctic regions at the same time of year as Weddell.

For three days the explorer coasted along the southern shores of New South Orkney without being able to land; he then once more turned southwards, and came in sight of the ice again in S. lat. 62 degrees 20 minutes and W. long. 39 degrees 28 minutes.

A few minutes before midday a kind of opening was discovered, through which the vessels were forced at all risks. This bold manoeuvre was successful, and in spite of the heavy snow, the explorers penetrated into a small basin scarcely two miles in extent and hemmed in on every side by lofty walls of ice. It was decided to make fast to the ice, and when the order to cast anchor was given a young middy on board the Zelee cried naively, "Is there a port here? I shouldn't have thought there were people living on the ice."

Great indeed was now the joyful enthusiasm on both vessels. Some of the young officers of the Zelee had come to empty a bowl of punch with their comrades of the Astrolabe, and the commander could hear their shouts of delight from his bed. He himself did not, however, look upon the situation in quite the same favourable light. He felt that he had done a very imprudent thing. Shut into a cul-de-sac, he could only go out as he had come, and that he could not do until he had the wind right aft. At eleven o'clock D'Urville was awoke by a violent shock, accompanied by a noise of breaking, as if the vessel had struck on some rocks. He got up, and saw that the Astrolabe, having drifted, had struck violently against the ice, where she remained exposed to collision with the masses of ice which the current was sweeping along more rapidly than it did the vessel herself.

When day dawned the adventurers found themselves surrounded by ice, but in the north a blackish blue line seemed to betray the existence of an open sea. This direction was at once taken, but a thick fog immediately and completely enveloped both ships, and when it cleared off they found themselves face to face with a compact ice barrier, beyond which stretched away as far as the eye could reach AN OPEN SEA!

D'Urville now resolved to cut himself a passage, and began operations by dashing the Astrolabe with all possible speed against the obstacle. The vessel penetrated two or three lengths into the ice, and then remained motionless. The crew climbed out of her on to the ice armed with pickaxes, pincers, mattocks, and saws, and merrily endeavoured to cut a passage. The fragment of ice was already nearly crossed when the wind changed, and the motion of the waves in the offing began to be felt, causing the officers to agree in urging a retreat into the shelter of the ice-walls, for there was some danger if the wind freshened of the vessel being embayed against the ice and beaten to pieces by the waves and floating debris.

The corvettes had traversed twelve or fifteen miles for nothing, when an officer, perched in the shrouds, sighted a passage in the E.N.E. That direction was at once taken, but again it was found impossible to cut a passage, and when night came the crew had to make the ship fast to a huge block of ice. The loud cracking noises which had awoke the commander the night before now began with such violence that it really seemed impossible for the vessel to live till daylight.

After an interview with the captain of the Zelee, however, D'Urville made for the north, but the day passed without any change being effected in the position of the vessels, and the next day during a storm of sleet the swell of the sea became so powerful as completely to raise the ice plain in which they were imprisoned.

More careful watch than ever had now to be kept, to guard against the pieces of ice flung long distances by this motion, and the rudder had to be protected from them by a kind of wooden hut.



With the exception of a few cases of ophthalmia, resulting from the continual glare of the snow, the health of the crews was satisfactory, and this was no little satisfaction to the leaders of the expedition, compelled as they were to be continually on the qui-vive. Not until the 9th February were the vessels, favoured by a strong breeze, able to get off, and once more enter a really open sea. The ice had been coasted for a distance of 225 leagues. The vessels had actually sustained no further damage than the loss of a few spars and a considerable portion of the copper sheathing, involving no further leakage than there had been before.

The next day the sun came out, and observations could be taken, giving the latitude as 62 degrees 9 minutes S., and the longitude 39 degrees 22 minutes W.

Snow continued to fall, the cold was intense, and the wind very violent for the three succeeding days. This continuance of bad weather, together with the increasing length of the nights, warned D'Urville of the necessity of giving up all idea of going further. When, therefore, he found himself in S. lat. 62 degrees and W. long. 33 degrees 11 minutes, in other words in that part of the ocean where Weddell had been able to sail freely in 1823, and the new explorer had met with nothing but impassable ice, he steered for New South Orkney. A whole month passed amongst the ice and fogs of the Antarctic Ocean had told upon the health of the crews, and nothing could be gained for science by a continuance of the cruise.

On the 20th the archipelago was again sighted, and D'Urville was once more driven out of his course in a northerly direction by the ice, but he was able to put off with two boats, the crews of which collected on Weddell Island a large number of geological specimens, lichens, &c., and some twenty penguins and chionis.

On the 25th February Clarence Island was seen, forming the eastern extremity of the New South Shetland Archipelago, a very steep and rugged district covered with snow except on the beach, and thence the explorers steered towards Elephant Island, resembling Clarence Island in every respect, except that it is strewn with peaks rising up black against the plains of snow and ice. The islets of Narrow, Biggs, O'Brien, and Aspland were successively identified, but covered as they are with snow they are perfectly inaccessible to man. The little volcano of Bridgeman was also seen, and the naturalists tried in vain to land upon it from two boats.

"The general colour of the soil," says the narrative, "is red, like that of burnt brick with particles of grey, suggestive of the presence of pumice-stone, or of calcined cinders. Here and there on the beach are seen great blackish-looking blocks, which are probably lava. This islet has, however, only one true crater, although thick columns of smoke are emitted from it, nearly all of them issuing from the base on the western side, whilst in the north are two other fumerolles, thirty or forty feet along the water. There are none on the eastern or northern side, or at the top, which is smooth and round. The bulk appears recently to have undergone some considerable modification, as indeed it must have done, or it could not now resemble so little the description given by Powell in December, 1822."

D'Urville soon resumed his southerly route, and on the 27th February sighted a considerable belt of land in the south-east on which he was prevented from landing by the fog and the continuous fall of very fine snow. He was now in the latitude of Hope Island—i.e. in S. lat. 62 degrees 57 minutes. He approached it very closely, and sighted before reaching it a low-lying land, to which he gave the name of Joinville. Then further on in the south-west he came to an extensive district which he named Louis Philippe, and between the two in a kind of channel, encumbered with ice, an island he called Rosamel.

"Now," says D'Urville, "the horizon was so light that we could trace all the irregularities of Louis Philippe's Land. We could see it stretching away from Mount Bransfield in the north (62 degrees W. long.) to the S.S.W., where it faded away on the horizon. From Mount Bransfield to the south it is lofty, and of fairly uniform surface, resembling a vast, unbroken ice-field. In the south, however, it rises in the form of a fine peak (Mount Jacquinot), which is equal perhaps, indeed superior, to Bransfield; but beyond this peak it stretches away in the form of a mountain chain, ending in the south-west in a peak loftier than any of the others. For the rest, the effect of the snow and ice, together with the absence of any objects with which they can be compared, aid in exaggerating the height of all irregularities, and, as a matter of fact, the results of the measurements taken by M. Dumoulin showed all these mountains, which then appeared to us gigantic and equal to the Alps and Pyrenees at least, to be after all of very medium size. Mount Bransfield, for instance, was not more than about 2068 feet high, Mount Jacquinot 2121 feet, and Mount d'Urville, the loftiest of them all, about 3047 feet. Except for the islets grouped about the mainland, and a few peaks rising above the snow, the whole country is one long series of compact blocks of ice, and it is impossible to do more than trace the outlines of this ice-crust, those of the land itself being quite indistinguishable."

On the 1st March soundings gave only eighty fathoms with a bottom of rock and gravel. The temperature is 1 degree 9 on the surface, and 0 degree 2 at the bottom of the sea. On the 2nd of March, off Louis Philippe's Land, an island was sighted which was named Astrolabe, and the day after a large bay, or rather strait, to which the name of Orleans Channel was given was surveyed between Louis Philippe's Land, and a lofty, rocky belt, which D'Urville took for the beginning of Trinity Land, hitherto very inaccurately laid down.

From the 26th February then to the 5th March D'Urville remained in sight of the coast, skirting along it a little distance off, but unable entirely to regulate his course on account of the incessant fogs and rain. Everything bore witness to the setting in of a very decided thaw; the temperature rising at midday to five degrees above zero, whilst the ice was everywhere melting and running off in little streams of water, or falling with a formidable crush into the sea in the form of blocks, the wind meanwhile blowing strongly from the west.

All this decided D'Urville against the further prosecution of this voyage. The sea was heavy, the rain and fog incessant. It was therefore necessary to leave this dangerous coast, and make for the north, where on the following day he surveyed the most westerly islands of the New Shetland group.

D'Urville next steered for Conception, and very arduous was the voyage there, for, in spite of every precaution, the crews of both corvettes, especially that of the Zelee, were attacked with scurvy. It was now that D'Urville measured the heights of some of the waves, with a view to the disproving of the charge of exaggeration which had been brought against him when he had estimated those he had seen break over Needle Bank at a height of between eighty and a hundred feet.

With the help of some of his officers, that there might be no doubt as to his accuracy, D'Urville measured some waves of which the vertical height was thirty-five feet, and which measured not less than 196-1/2 feet from the crest to the lowest point, making a total length of 393 feet for a single wave. These measurements were an answer to the ironical assertion of Arago, who, settling the matter in his own study, would not allow that a wave could exceed from five to six feet in height. One need not hesitate a single moment to accept, as against the eminent but impulsive physicist, the measurements of the navigators who had made observations upon the spot.

On the 7th April, 1838, the expedition cast anchor in Talcahuano Bay, where the rest so sorely needed by the forty scrofulous patients of the Zelee was obtained. Thence D'Urville made for Valparaiso, after which, having entirely crossed Oceania, he cast anchor on the 1st January, 1839, off Guam, arrived at Batina in October, and went thence to Hobart's Town, whence, on the 1st January, 1840, he started on a new trip in the Antarctic regions.

At this time D'Urville knew nothing either of Balleny's voyage, or of the discovery of Sabrina's Land. He merely intended to go round the southern extremity of Tasmania with a view to ascertaining beneath which parallel he would meet with ice. He was under the impression that the space between 120 degrees and 160 degrees E. long. had not yet been explored, so that there was still a discovery to be made.

At first navigation was beset with the greatest difficulties. The swell was very strong, the currents bore in an easterly direction, the sanitary condition of the crews was far from satisfactory, and 58 degrees S. lat. had not yet been reached when the presence of ice was ascertained.

The cold soon became very intense, the wind veered round to the W.N.W., and the sea became calm, a sure indication of the neighbourhood of land or of ice. The former was the more generally received hypothesis, for the ice-islands passed were too large to have been formed in the open ocean. On the 18th January, S. lat. 64 degrees was reached, and great perpendicular blocks of ice were met with, the height of which varied from ninety to 100 feet, whilst the breadth exceeded 3000.

The next day, January 19th, 1840, a new land was sighted, to which the name of Adelie was given. The sun was now burning hot, and the ice all seemed to be melting, immense streams running down from the summits of the rocks into the sea. The appearance of the land was monotonous, covered as it was with snow. It ran from west to east, and seemed to slope gradually down to the sea. On the 21st the wind allowed the vessels to approach the beach, and deep ravines were soon made out, evidently the result of the action of melted snow.



As the ships advanced navigation became more and more perilous, for the ice-islands were so numerous that there was hardly a large enough channel between them for any manoeuvring.

"Their straight walls," says D'Urville, "rose far above our masts, glowering down upon our vessels, which appeared of absurdly small dimensions, as compared with their huge masses. The spectacle spread out before us was alike grand and terrible. One might have fancied oneself in the narrow streets of a city of giants."



The corvettes soon entered a huge basin, formed by the coast and the ice-islands which had just been passed. The land stretched away in the south-east and north-west as far as the eye could reach. It was between three and four thousand feet high, but nowhere presented any very salient features. In the centre of the vast snow plain rose a few rocks. The two captains at once sent off boats with orders to bring back specimens which should testify to the discovery made. We quote from the account of Du Bouzet, one of the officers told off on this important survey.

"It was nearly nine o'clock when to our great delight we landed on the western side of the most westerly and loftiest islet. The Astrolabe boat had arrived one moment before ours, and its crew were already clambering up the steep sides of the rock, flinging down the penguins as they went, the birds showing no small surprise at being thus summarily dispossessed of the island, of which they had been hitherto the only inhabitants. I at once sent one of our sailors to unfurl a tricolour flag on these territories, which no human creature had seen or trod before ourselves. According to the old custom—to which the English have clung tenaciously—we took possession of them in the name of France, together with the neighbouring coast, which we were prevented from visiting by the ice. The only representatives of the animal kingdom were the penguins, for in spite of all our researches we did not find a single shell. The rocks were quite bare, without so much as the slightest sign of a lichen. We had to fall back on the mineral kingdom. We each took a hammer and began chipping at the rock, but, it being of granite, was so extremely hard that we could only obtain very small bits. Fortunately in climbing to the summit of the island the sailors found some big pieces of rock broken off by the frost, and these they embarked in their boats. Looking closely at them, I noticed an exact resemblance between these rocks and the little bits of gneiss which we had found in the stomach of a penguin we had killed the day before. The little islet on which we landed is part of a group of eight or ten of similar character and form; they are between five hundred and six hundred yards from the nearest coast. We also noticed on the beach several peaks and a cape quite free from snow. These islets, close as they are to each other, seem to form a continuous chain parallel with the coast, and stretching away from east to west."

On the 22nd and 23rd the survey of this coast was continued; but on the second day an iceberg soldered to the coast compelled the vessels to turn back towards the north, whilst at the same time a sudden and violent snow-storm overtook and separated them. The Zelee especially sustained considerable damage, but was able to rejoin her consort the next day.

Throughout it all, however, sight of the land had not, so to speak, been lost, but on the 29th the wind blew so strongly and persistently from the east, that D'Urville had to abandon the survey of Adelie Land. It was on this same day that he sighted the vessels of Lieutenant Wilkes. D'Urville complains of the discourtesy of the latter, and says that his own manoeuvres intended to open communications with them had been misunderstood by the Americans.

"We are no longer," he says, "in the days when navigators in the interests of commerce thought it necessary carefully to conceal their route and their discoveries, to avoid the competition of rival nations. I should, on the contrary, have been glad to point out to our emulators the result of our researches, in the hope that such information might be of use to them and increase our geographical knowledge."

On the 30th January a huge wall of ice was sighted, as to the nature of which opinions were divided. Some said it was a compact and isolated mass, others—and this was D'Urville's opinion—thought these lofty mountains had a base of earth or of rocks, or that they might even be the bulwarks of a huge extent of land which they called Clarie. It is situated in 128 degrees E. long.

The officers had collected sufficient information in these latitudes to determine the position of the southern magnetic pole, but the results obtained by them did not accord with those given by Duperrey, Wilkes, and Ross.

On the 17th February the two corvettes once more cast anchor off Hobart's Town, and on the 25th set sail again for New Zealand, where they completed the hydrographical surveys of the Uranie. They then made for New Guinea, ascertained that it was not separated by a strait from the Louisiade Archipelago, surveyed Torres Strait with the greatest care, in spite of dangers from currents, coral reefs, &c.; arrived at Timor on the 20th, and returned to Toulon on the 8th November, after touching at Bourbon and St. Helena.

When the news of the grand discoveries made by the United States reached England, a spirit of emulation was aroused, and the learned societies decided on sending an expedition to the regions in which Weddell and Biscoe had been the only explorers since the time of Cook.

Captain James Clark Ross, who was appointed to the command of this expedition, was the nephew of the famous John Ross, explorer of Baffin's Bay. Born in 1800, James Ross was a sailor from the age of twelve. He accompanied his uncle in 1818 in his first Arctic expedition, had taken part under Parry in four expeditions to the same latitudes, and from 1829-1833 he had been his uncle's constant and faithful companion. Entrusted with the taking of scientific observations, he had discovered the north magnetic pole, and he had also made a good many excursions across the ice on foot and in sledges. He was, therefore, now one of the most experienced of British naval officers in Polar expeditions.



Two vessels, the Erebus and the Terror, were entrusted to him, and his second in command was an accomplished sailor, Captain Francis Rowdon Crozier, companion of Parry in 1824; of Ross in 1835 in Baffin's Bay; and the future companion of Franklin in the Terror, in his search for the north-west passage. It would have been impossible to find a braver or more experienced sailor.

The instructions given to James Ross by the Admiralty differed essentially from those received by Wilkes and Dumont d'Urville. For the latter the exploration of the Antarctic regions was but one incident of their voyage round the world, whereas it was the very raison d'etre of Ross's journey. Of the three years he would be away from Europe, the greater part was to be spent in the Antarctic regions, and he would only leave the ice to repair the damages to his vessels or recruit the health of his crew, worn out as they would probably be by fatigue and sickness.

The vessels had been equally judiciously chosen, stronger than those of D'Urville, they were better fitted to resist the repeated assaults of the ice, and their seasoned crews had been chosen from sailors familiar with polar navigation.

The Erebus and Terror, under the command of Ross and Crozier, left England on the 29th September, 1839, and touched successively at Madeira, the Cape Verd Islands, St. Helena, and the Cape of Good Hope, where numerous magnetic observations were taken.

On the 12th April Ross reached Kerguelen's Island, and there landed his instruments. The scientific harvest was abundant. Some fossil trees were extracted from the lava of which this island is formed, and some rich layers of coal were discovered, which have not yet been worked. The 29th was fixed for simultaneous magnetic observations in different parts of the globe, and by a singular coincidence some magnetic storms such as had already visited Europe, were on this very day observed in these latitudes. The instrument registered the same phenomena as at Toronto, Canada, proving the vast extent of these meteoric disturbances, and the incredible rapidity with which they spread.

On his arrival at Hobart Town, where his old friend John Franklin was now governor, Ross heard of the discovery of Adelie and of Clarie Lands by the French, and the simultaneous survey of them by Wilkes, who had even left a sketch of his map of the coasts.

Ross, however, decided to make for E. long. 170 degrees, because it was in that direction that Balleny had found an open sea extending to S. lat. 69 degrees. He duly reached first the Auckland and then the Campbell Islands, and after having, like his predecessors, tacked about a great deal in a sea strewn with ice-islands, he came beyond the sixty-third degree to the edge of the stationary ice, and on the 1st January, 1841, crossed the Antarctic Circle.

The floating ice did not in any respect resemble that of the Arctic regions, as James Ross very soon discovered. It consisted of huge blocks, with regular and vertical walls, whilst the ice-fields, less compact than those of the north, move about in chaotic confusion, looking, to quote Wilkes' imaginative simile, like a heaving land, as they alternately break away from each other and reunite.

To Ross the ice barrier did not present so formidable an appearance as it had done to the French and Americans. He did not at first venture upon it, however, being kept in the offing by storms. Not until the 5th January was he able to penetrate to S. lat. 66 degrees 45 minutes, and E. long. 174 degrees 16 minutes. Circumstances could not have been more favourable, for the sea and wind were both acting upon and loosening the ice, and thanks to the strength of his vessels, Ross was able to cut a passage. As he advanced further and further southward, the fog became denser and the constant snow-storms added to the already serious dangers of navigation. Encouraged, however, by the reflection in the sky of an open sea, a phenomenon which turned out to be trustworthy, he pushed on, and on the 9th January, after crossing 200 miles of ice he actually entered that open sea!

On the 11th January land was sighted 100 miles ahead in S. lat. 70 degrees 47 minutes and E. long. 172 degrees 36 minutes. This, the most southern land ever yet discovered, consisted of snow-clad peaks with glaciers sloping down to the sea, the peaks rising to a height of from nine to twelve thousand feet. This estimate, judging from D'Urville's remarks on Graham's Land, may, however, possibly be an exaggerated one. Here, there, and everywhere, black rocks rose up from the snow, but the coast was so shut in with ice that landing was impossible. This curious series of huge peaks received the name of Admiralty chain, and the country itself that of Victoria.



A few little islands were made out in the south-east before the vessels left this coast, and on the 12th January the two captains, with some of their officers, disembarked on one of the volcanic islets, and took possession of it in the name of England. Not the slightest trace of vegetation was found upon it.

Ross soon ascertained that the eastern side of this vast land sloped towards the south, whilst the northern stretched away to the north-west. He, therefore, skirted along the eastern beach, forcing a passage in a southerly direction beyond the magnetic pole, which he places near S. lat. 76 degrees, and then returning by the west, thus entirely circumnavigating his new discovery, which he looked upon as a very large island. The mountain chain extends all along the coast. Ross gave to the principal peaks the names of Herschell, Whewell, Wheatstone, Murchison, and Melbourne. He was unable, however, on account of the ever-increasing quantity of ice about the coast, to make out the details of its outlines. On the 23rd January the seventy-fourth degree, the most southerly latitude ever reached, was passed.

The vessels were now considerably hampered by fogs, southerly gales, and violent snow-storms, but they managed to continue their cruise along the coast, and on the 27th January the English disembarked on a little volcanic island in S. lat. 76 degrees 8 minutes and E. long. 168 degrees 12 minutes, to which they gave the name of Franklin.

The next day a huge mountain was seen, which rose abruptly to a height of 12,000 feet above a far-stretching land. The summit, of regular form, and completely covered with snow, was every now and then wrapped in a thick cloud of smoke, no less than 300 feet in diameter. Taking this diameter as a standard of measure, the height of the cloud, in shape like an inverted cone, would be about one-half of it. When this cloud of smoke dispersed, a bare crater was discovered, lit up by a bright red glow, visible even in broad daylight. The sides of the mountain were covered with snow up to the very crater, and it was impossible to make out any signs of a flow of lava.

A volcano is always a magnificent spectacle, and the sight of this one rising up from amongst the Antarctic ice, and excelling Etna and Teneriffe in its marvellous activity, could not fail to make a vivid impression upon the minds of the explorers. The name of Erebus was given to it, and that of Terror to an extinct crater on the east of it, both titles being admirably appropriate.

The two vessels continued their cruise along the northern coast of Victoria, until their further passage was barred by a huge mass of ice towering 505 feet above their masts. Behind this barrier rose another mountain chain, which sunk out of sight in the S.S.E., and to which the name of Parry was given. Ross skirted along the ice barrier in an easterly direction until the 2nd February, when he reached S. lat. 78 degrees 4 minutes, the most southerly point attained on this trip, during which he had followed the shores of the land he had discovered for more than 300 miles. He left it in E. long. 191 degrees 23 minutes.

But for the strong favourable winds which now blew, it seems probable that the vessels would never have issued in safety from amongst the formidable ice masses through which they finally worked their way at the cost of incredible exertions and fatigues, and in face of incessant danger.

On the 15th February yet another attempt was made in S. lat. 76 degrees to reach the magnetic pole; but further progress was barred by land in S. lat. 76 degrees 12 minutes and E. long. 164 degrees, i.e. sixty-five ordinary miles from the position assigned to it (the magnetic pole) by Ross, and the appearance of this land was forbidding and the sea so rough that the explorer gave up all idea of continuing his researches on shore.

After identifying the islands discovered in 1839 by Balleny, Ross found himself on the 6th March amongst the mountains alluded to by Wilkes.

"On the 4th March," says Ross's narrative, "they recrossed the Antarctic Circle, and being necessarily close by the eastern extreme of those patches of land which Lieut. Wilkes has called 'the Antarctic Continent,' and having reached the latitude on the 5th, they steered directly for them; and at noon on the 6th, the ship being exactly over the centre of this mountain range, they could obtain no soundings with 600 fathoms of line; and having traversed a space of eighty miles in every direction from this spot, during beautiful clear weather, which extended their vision widely around, were obliged to confess that this position, at least, of the pseudo-antarctic continent, and the nearly 200 miles of barrier represented to extend from it, have no real existence."[1]

[Footnote 1: The Editor of the Literary Gazette adds the following note. "Lieutenant Wilkes may have mistaken some clouds or fog-banks, which in these regions are very likely to assume the appearance of land to inexperienced eyes, for this continent and range of lofty mountains. If so, the error is to be regretted, as it must tend to throw discredit on other portions of his discoveries, which have a more substantial foundation."—Trans.]

The expedition got back to Tasmania without having a single case of sickness on board or sustaining the slightest damage. The vessels were here refitted, and the instruments regulated before starting on a second trip, on which Sydney and Island's Bay, New Zealand, and Chatham, were the first stations touched at by Ross to make magnetic observations. On the 18th December, in S. lat. 62 degrees 40 minutes and E. long, 146 degrees, ice was encountered 300 miles further north than in the preceding year. The vessels had arrived too early, but Ross, nevertheless, endeavoured to break through this formidable barrier. After penetrating for 300 miles he was stopped by masses so compact that it was impossible to go further, and he did not cross the Antarctic Circle until the 1st January, 1842. On the 19th of the same month the two vessels encountered the most violent storm just as they were entering an open sea; the Erebus and Terror lost their helms, floating ice washed over them, and for twenty-six hours they were in danger of going down.

The detention of the expedition amongst the ice lasted no less than forty-six days, and not until the 22nd did Ross reach the great barrier of stationary ice, which was considerably lower beyond Erebus, where it was no less than 200 feet high. When Ross came to it this year it was only 107 feet high, and it was 150 miles further east than it had been on the previous expedition. The acquisition of this piece of geographical information was the only result of this arduous campaign, extending over 136 days, and greatly excelling in dramatic interest the preceding expedition.

The vessels now made for Cape Horn, and sailed up the coast as far as Rio de Janeiro, where they found everything of which they stood in need. As soon as they had laid in a stock of provisions they again put to sea and reached the Falkland Islands, whence, on the 17th December, 1842, they started on their third trip.

The first ice was this time met with near Clarence Island, and on the 25th December Ross found his further progress barred by it. He then made for the New Shetland Islands, completed the survey of Louis Philippe and Joinville Lands, discovered by Dumont d'Urville, named Mts. Haddington and Parry, ascertained that Louis Philippe's Land is only a large island, and visited Bransfield Strait, separating it from Shetland. Such were the marvellous results obtained by James Ross in his three expeditions.

To assign to the three explorers, whose work in the Antarctic regions we have been reviewing, his just meed of praise, we may say that D'Urville first discovered the Antarctic continent; Wilkes traced its shores for a considerable distance, for we cannot fail to recognize the resemblance between his map and that of the French navigator; and that James Ross visited the most southerly and most interesting part.

But is there such a continent after all? D'Urville was not quite sure about it, and Ross did not believe in it. We must leave the decision of this great question to the later explorers who were to follow in the footsteps of the intrepid sailors whose voyages and discoveries we have related.



II. THE NORTH POLE.

Anjou and Wrangell—The "polynia"—John Ross's first expedition— Baffin's Bay closed—Edward Parry's discoveries on his first voyage— The survey of Hudson's Bay, and the discovery of Fury and Hecla Straits—Parry's third voyage—Fourth voyage—On the ice in sledges in the open sea—Franklin's first trip—Incredible sufferings of the explorers—Second expedition—John Ross—Four winters amongst the ice— Dease and Simpson's expedition.

We have more than once alluded to the great impulse given to geographical science by Peter I. One of the earliest results of this impulse was the discovery by Behring of the straits separating Asia from America, and the most important was the survey thirty years later of the Liakhov Archipelago, or New Siberia.

In 1770 a merchant named Liakhov noticed a large herd of reindeer coming across the ice from the north, and he reflected that they could only have come from a country where there were pastures enough to support them. A month later he started in a sledge, and after a journey of fifty miles he discovered between the mouths of the Lena and Indighirka three large islands, the vast deposits of fossil ivory on which have since become celebrated all over the world.

In 1809 Hedenstroem received instructions to make a map of this new discovery. He made several attempts to cross the frozen ocean on a sledge, but was always turned back by ice which would not bear him. He came to the conclusion that there must be an open sea beyond, and he founded this opinion on the immense quantity of warm water which flows into the Arctic Ocean from the great rivers of Asia.

In March, 1821, Lieutenant (afterwards Admiral) Anjou crossed the ice to within forty-two miles of the north of the island of Kotelnoi, and in N. lat. 76 degrees 38 minutes saw a vapour which led him to believe in the existence of an open sea. In a second trip he actually saw this sea with its drifting ice, and came back convinced of the impossibility of going further in a sledge on account of the thinness of the ice.

Whilst Anjou was thus employed, another naval officer, Lieutenant Wrangell, collected some important traditions about the existence of land the other side of Cape Yakan.

From a Tchouktchi chief he learnt that in fine weather—though never in the winter—from the coast and some reefs at the mouth of a river mountains covered with snow could be seen far away in the north; and that in former days when the sea was frozen over reindeer used to come from there. The chief had himself once seen a herd of reindeer on their way back to the north by this route and he had followed them in a sledge for a whole day until the state of the ice compelled him to give up the experiment.

His father had told him, too, that a Tchouktchi had once gone there with a few companions in a skin boat, but he did not know what they had discovered or what had become of them. He was sure that the land in the north was inhabited, because a dead whale had once been washed on to Aratane Island with spears tipped with slate in its flesh, and the Tchouktchis never used such weapons.

These facts were very curious, and they increased Wrangell's desire to penetrate to the unknown northern districts; but the truth of all the rumours was not verified until our own day.

Between 1820 and 1824 Wrangell made four expeditions in sledges from the mouth of the Kolyma, which he made his headquarters, first exploring the coast to Cape Tchelagskoi, and enduring thirty-five degrees of cold; and in his second trip trying how far he could go across the ice, an experiment resulting in a journey of 400 miles from the land. In the third year (1822), Wrangell started in March with a view to verifying the report of a native who said he had seen land in the offing. He now came to an icefield, on which he advanced safely for a long distance, when it began to be less compact and was soon not solid enough to bear many sledges, so two small ones were selected, on which were packed a wherry, some planks, and some tools. The explorer then ventured on some melting ice which broke under his feet.



"At the outset," says Wrangell, "I had to make way for seven wersts across a bed of brine; further on appeared a surface furrowed with great crevasses, which we could only succeed in clearing by the help of our planks. I noticed in this part several small mounds of ice in such a liquefying condition that the slightest touch would suffice to break it and convert the mound into a round slough. The ice upon which we were travelling was without consistency, was but a foot in thickness, and—what was more—was riddled with holes.... I could only compare the appearance of the sea, at this stage, to an immense morass; and indeed the muddy water which issued from these thousands of crevasses, opening up in every direction, the melting snow mixed with earth and sand, those little mounds whence numerous streamlets were issuing,—all these combined to make the illusion perfect."

Wrangell had advanced some 140 miles, and it was the open sea or the polynia—as he calls vast expanses of water—north of Siberia, the outskirts of which he had reached, the same in fact as that already sighted by Leontjew in 1764, and Hedenstroem in 1810.

On his fourth voyage Wrangell and his small party of followers started from Cape Yakan, the nearest point to the Arctic regions, and, after passing Cape Tchelagskoi, made for the north; but a violent storm broke up the ice, there only three feet thick, and involved the explorers in the greatest danger. Now dragged across some large unbroken slab, now wet to the waist on a moving plank, sometimes above and sometimes under water, or moored to a block serving as a ferryboat, which the swimming dogs dragged along, they at last succeeded in crossing the shifting reverberating ice and regaining the land, owing their life to the strength and agility of their teams of dogs alone. Thus closed the last attempt made to reach the districts north of Siberia.

The Arctic calotte[1] was meanwhile being attacked from the other side with equal energy and yet more perseverance. It will be remembered with what untiring enthusiasm the famous north-west passage had been sought. No sooner had the peace of 1815 necessitated the disarmament of numerous English vessels and set free their officers on half-pay, than the Admiralty, unwilling to let experienced seamen rust in idleness, sought for them some employment. It was under these circumstances that the search for the north-west passage was resumed.

[Footnote 1: The word calotte here used by Verne is untranslateable. It signifies, literally, a particular kind of cap, frequently a monk's cap or cowl.—Trans.]

The Alexander, 252 tons, and the Isabel, 385, under command of the experienced officers, John Ross and Lieutenant Parry, with James Ross, Back, and Belcher, who were to win honour in Arctic explorations amongst their subordinates, were sent by the Government to explore Baffin's Bay and set sail on the 18th April. After touching at the Shetland Islands, and seeking in vain for the submerged land seen by Bass in N. lat. 57 degrees 28 minutes, the explorers came on the 26th May to the first ice, and on the 2nd June surveyed the western coast of Greenland, hitherto very imperfectly laid down in maps, finding it greatly encumbered by ice. Indeed the governor of the Dutch settlement of Whale Island told them that the severity of the winter months had been steadily increasing during the eleven years of his residence in the country.

Hitherto it had been supposed that the country was uninhabited beyond 75 degrees N. lat., and the travellers were therefore greatly surprised to see a whole tribe of Esquimaux arrive by way of the ice. They knew nothing of any race but their own, and stared at the English without daring to touch them, one of them even addressing to the vessels in a grave and solemn voice the inquiries, Who are you? Whence do you come? From the sun or from the moon?



Although in many respects far inferior to the Esquimaux who had become to some extent civilized by long intercourse with Europeans, the new-comers understood the use of iron, of which a few of them had even succeeded in making knives. This iron as far as the English could gather was dug out of a mountain. It was probably of meteoric origin.

As public opinion in England subsequently confirmed, Ross, in spite of qualities as a naval officer of the highest order, showed extraordinary apathy and levity on this voyage, appearing not to trouble himself in the least about the geographical problems for the solution of which the expedition was organized. He passed Wolstenholme and Whale Sounds and Smith's Strait, opening out of Baffin's Bay, without examining them, the last named at so great a distance that he did not even recognize it. Still worse than that was his conduct later. Cruising down the western shores of Baffin's Bay a long deep gulf no less than fifty miles across gradually came in sight of the eager explorers, yet when on the 29th August the two vessels had sailed up it for thirty miles only Ross gave orders to tack about, on the ground that he distinctly saw at the further end a chain of lofty mountains to which he gave the name of Croker. His officers did not share his opinion; they could not see so much as the slightest sign of a hill, for the very excellent reason that the gulf they had entered was really Lancaster Sound, so named by Baffin, and connecting his bay with the western Arctic Ocean.

The same sort of thing occurred again and again in the voyage along this deeply indented coast, the vessels keeping so far off shore that not a detail could be made out. Thus it came about that Cumberland Bay was passed on the 1st October without any survey of that most important feature of Davis Strait, and Ross returned to England, having literally turned his back on the glory awaiting him.

When accused of apathy and neglect of duty, Ross replied with supreme indifference, "I trust, as I believe myself, that the objects of the voyage have been in every important point accomplished; that I have proved the existence of a bay, from Disco to Cumberland Strait, and set at rest for ever the question of a north-west passage in this direction."

It would have been impossible to make a more complete mistake. But fortunately the failure of this expedition did not in the least discourage other explorers. Some saw in it a brilliant confirmation of the venerable Baffin's discovery, others looked upon the innumerable inlets, with their deep waters and strong currents, as something more than mere bays. They were straits, and all hope of the discovery of the north-west passage was not yet lost.



These suggestions so far weighed with the English Admiralty as to lead to the equipment of two small vessels, the bomb-vessel Hecla and the brigantine Griper, which left the Thames on the 5th May, 1819, under command of Lieutenant William Parry, whose opinion as to the existence of the north-west passage had not coincided with that of his chief. The vessels reached Lancaster Sound without meeting with any special adventures, and after a delay of seven days amongst the ice which encumbered the sea for a distance of eighty miles, they entered the supposed Bay "shut in by a mountain chain" of John Ross, to find not only that this mountain chain did not exist, but that the bay was a strait more than 310 fathoms deep, where the influence of the tide could be felt. The temperature of the water rose some ten degrees, and in the course of a single day no less than eighty full-grown whales were seen.

On the 31st July the explorers landed on the shores of Possession Bay, visited by them the previous year, and found there their own footprints, a sign of the small quantity of snow and hoar frost which had fallen during the winter. All hearts beat high when with a favourable wind and all sails set the two vessels entered Lancaster Sound.

"It is more easy," says Parry, "to imagine than to describe the almost breathless anxiety which was now visible in every countenance, while, as the breeze continued to a fresh gale, we ran quickly up the sound. The mast-heads were crowded by the officers and men during the whole afternoon; and an unconcerned observer, if any could have been unconcerned on such an occasion, would have been amused by the eagerness with which the various reports from the crow's-nest were received; all, however, hitherto favourable to our most sanguine hopes."

The two coasts extended in a parallel line as far as the eye could reach, that is to say for a distance exceeding fifty miles, and the height of the waves together with the absence of ice combined to convince the English that they had reached the open sea by way of the long sought passage, when an island framed in masses of ice checked their further progress.

An arm of the sea, however, some twelve leagues wide, opened on the south, and by it the explorers hoped to find a passage less encumbered with ice. Strange to say, as they had advanced in a westerly direction through Lancaster Sound, the vibrations of the pendulum had increased, whilst now it appeared to have lost all motion, and "we now therefore witnessed for the first time the curious phenomenon of the directive power of the needle becoming so weak as to be completely overcome by the attraction of the ship; so that the needle might now be properly said to point to the north pole of the ship."

The arm of the sea widened as the vessels advanced in a westerly direction, and the shores seemed to bend sensibly towards the south-west, but after making some 120 miles further progress was again barred by ice. The explorers therefore returned to Barrow's Strait, of which Lancaster Sound is but the entry, and once more entered the sea, now free from the ice, by which it had been encumbered a few days previously.

In W. long. 92 degrees 1 minute 4 seconds was discovered an inlet called Wellington Channel, about eight leagues wide, entirely free from ice and apparently not bounded by any land. The existence of these numerous straits led the explorers to the conclusion that they were in the midst of a vast archipelago, an opinion daily receiving fresh confirmation. The dense fogs, however, made navigation difficult, and the number of little islands and shallows increased whilst the ice became more compact. Parry, however, was not to be deterred from pressing on towards the west, and presently his sailors found, on a large island, to which the name of Bathurst was given, the remains of some Esquimaux huts and traces of the former presence of reindeer. Magnetic observations were now taken, pointing to the conclusion that the magnetic pole had been passed on the north.

Another large island, that of Melville, soon came in sight, and in spite of the fogs and ice the expedition succeeded in passing W. long. 110 degrees, thus earning the reward of 100l. sterling promised by the English Government. A promontory near Melville Island was named Cape Munificence, whilst a good harbour close by was called Hecla and Griper Bay. It was in Winter Harbour at the end of this bay that the vessels passed the winter. "Dismantled for the most part," says Parry, "the yards however being laid for walls and roofed in with thick wadding tilts, they were sheltered from the snow, whilst stoves and ovens were fixed inside." Hunting was useless, and resulted in nothing but the frost-biting of the limbs of some of the hunters, as Melville Island was deserted at the end of October by all animals except wolves and foxes. To get through the long winter without dying of ennui was no easy matter, but the officers hit upon the plan of setting up a theatre, the first representation in which was given on the 6th November, the day of the disappearance of the sun for three months. A special piece was given on Christmas day, in which allusion was made to the situation of the vessels, and a weekly paper was started called the North Georgia Gazette and Winter Chronicle, which with Sabine, as editor, run into twenty-one numbers, all printed on the return to Europe of the expedition.

In January scrofula broke out, and with such virulence as to cause considerable alarm, but the evil was soon checked by skilful treatment and the daily distribution of mustard and cress, which Parry had managed to grow in boxes round his stove.

On the 7th February the sun reappeared, and although many months must elapse before it would be possible to leave Melville Island, preparations for a start were at once begun. On the 30th April the thermometer rose to zero, and the sailors taking this low temperature for summer wanted to leave off their winter clothes. The first ptarmigan appeared on the 12th May, and on the following day were seen traces of reindeer and of musk goats on their way to the north; but what caused the greatest delight and surprise to the crews was the fall of rain on the 24th May.

"We had been so unaccustomed to see water naturally in a fluid state at all, and much less to see it fall from the heavens, that such an occurrence became a matter of considerable curiosity, and I believe every person on board hastened on deck to witness so interesting as well as novel a phenomenon."



During the first fortnight in June, Parry, accompanied by some of his officers, made an excursion to the most northerly part of Melville Island. On his return, vegetation was everywhere to be seen, the ice was beginning to melt, and it was evident that a start could soon be made. The vessels began to move on the 1st August, but the ice had not yet broken up in the offing, and they got no further than the eastern extremity of Melville Island, of which the furthest point reached by Parry was in N. lat. 113 degrees 46 minutes 13 seconds and W. long. 113 degrees 46 minutes 43 seconds. The voyage back was unmarked by any special incident, and the expedition got back to England towards the middle of November.

The results of this voyage were numerous and important. Not only had a vast extent of the Arctic regions been surveyed; but physical and magnetic observations had been taken, and many new details collected on their climate and animal and vegetable life. In fact in a single trip Parry did more than was accomplished in thirty years by all who followed in his steps.

Satisfied with the important results obtained by him, the Admiralty appointed Parry to the command in 1821 of the Hecla and the Fury, the latter built on the model of the former. On this new trip the explorer surveyed with the greatest care the shores of Hudson's Bay and the coast of the peninsula of Melville, not to be confounded with the island of the same name. The winter was passed on Winter Island on the eastern coast of this peninsula, and the same amusements were resorted to which had succeeded so well on the previous expedition, supplemented most effectively by the arrival on the 1st February of a party of Esquimaux from across the ice. Their huts, which had not been discovered by the English, were built on the beach; and numerous visits paid to them during the eighteen months passed on Winter Island gave a better notion than had ever before been obtained of the manners, customs, character, &c., of this singular people.

The thorough survey of the Straits of Fury and Hecla, separating the peninsula of Melville from Cockburn Island, involved the passing of a second winter in the Arctic regions, and though the quarters were now more comfortable, time dragged heavily, for the officers and men were dreadfully disappointed at having to turn back just as they had thought to start for Behring's Strait. On the 12th August the ice broke up, and Parry wanted to send his men to Europe, and himself complete by land the exploration of the districts he had discovered, but Captain Lyon dissuaded him from a plan so desperate. The vessels therefore returned to England with all hands after an absence of twenty-seven months, having lost but five men, although two consecutive winters had been spent in the Arctic regions.

Although the results of the second voyage were not equal to those of the first, some of them were beyond price. It was now known that the American coast did not extend beyond the 70 degrees N. lat., and that the Atlantic was connected with the Arctic Ocean by an immense number of straits and channels, most of them—the Fury, Hecla, and Fox, for instance—obstructed with ice brought down by the currents. Whilst the ice barrier on the south-east of Melville Peninsula appeared permanent, that at Regent's Inlet was evidently the reverse. It might, therefore, be possible to penetrate through it to the Polar basin, and it was with this end in view that the Fury and Hecla were once more equipped, and placed under the orders of Parry.

This voyage was the least fortunate of any undertaken by this skilful seaman, not on account of any falling off in his work, but because he was the victim of unlucky accidents and unfavourable circumstances. Meeting, for instance, with an unusual quantity of ice in Baffin's Bay, he had the greatest trouble to reach Prince Regent's inlet. Had he arrived three weeks earlier he would probably have been able to land on the American coast, but as it was he was obliged to make immediate preparations for going into winter-quarters.

It was no very formidable matter to this experienced officer to spend a winter under the Polar circle. He knew what precautions to take to preserve the health of his crews, to keep himself well, and what occupations and amusements would best relieve the tedium of a three months' night. Races between the officers, masquerades and theatrical entertainments, with the temperature maintained at 50 degrees Fahrenheit kept all the men healthy and happy until the thaw, which set in on the 20th July, 1825, enabled Parry to resume exploring operations.

He now skirted along the eastern coast of Prince Regent's Inlet, but the floating ice gathered about the vessels and drove them on shore. The Fury was so much damaged that though four pumps were constantly at work she could hardly be kept afloat, and Parry was trying to get her repaired under shelter of a huge block of ice when a tempest came on, broke in pieces the extemporary dock and flung the vessel again upon the shore, where she had to be abandoned. Her crew were received on the Hecla, which, after such an accident as this, was of course obliged to return to England.

Parry's tempered spirit was not broken even by this last disaster. If the Arctic Ocean could not be reached from Baffin's Bay, were there not other routes still to be attempted? The vast tract of ocean between Greenland and Spitsbergen, for instance, might turn out less dangerous, freer as it of necessity would be from the huge icebergs which gather about the Arctic coasts. The earliest expeditions in these latitudes of which we have any record are those of Scoresby, who long cruised about them in search of whales. In 1806 he penetrated in E. long. 16 degrees (reckoning from Paris), beyond Spitzbergen, i.e. to N. lat. 81 degrees 30 minutes, where he saw ice stretching away in the E.N.E., whilst between that and the S.E. the sea was open for a distance of thirty miles. There was no land within 100 miles. It seems a matter of regret that the whaler did not take advantage of the favourable state of the sea to have advanced yet further north, when he might have made some important discovery, perhaps even have reached the Pole itself.

Parry now resolved to do what the exigencies of his profession had rendered impossible to Scoresby, and leaving London on the Hecla on the 27th March, 1827, he reached Lapland in safety, and having at Hammerfest embarked dogs, reindeer, and canoes, he proceeded on his way to Spitzbergen. Port Snweerenburg, where he wished to touch, was still shut in with ice; and against this barrier the Hecla struggled until the 24th May, when Parry left her in Hinlopen Strait, and advanced northwards with Ross, Crozier, a dozen men, and provisions for seventy-two days in a couple of canoes. After leaving a depot of provisions at Seven Islands he packed his food and boats on sledges specially constructed for the occasion, hoping to cross in them the barrier of solid ice, and to find beyond a navigable if not an entirely open sea. The ice did not, however, as Parry expected, turn out to form a homogeneous mass. There were here and there vast gaps to be forded or steep hills to be climbed, and in four days the explorers only advanced about eight miles in a northerly direction. On the 2nd July, in a dense fog, the thermometer marked 1 degree 9' above zero in the shade, and 8 degrees 3' in the sun; and as may be imagined the march across the broken surface, gaping everywhere with fissures, was terribly arduous, whilst the difficulties were aggravated by the continual glare from the snow and ice. In spite, however, of all obstacles the party pressed bravely on, and on the 20th July found they had got no further than N. lat. 82 degrees 37 minutes, i.e. only about five miles beyond the point reached three days previously. Now, as they had undoubtedly made at least about fourteen miles in the interval, it was evident that the ice on which they were was being drifted southwards by a strong current.

Parry at first concealed this most discouraging fact from his men; but it soon became evident to every one that no progress was being made, but the slight difference between their own speed as they struggled over the many obstacles in their path and that of the current bearing the ice-field in the opposite direction. Moreover, the expedition now came to a place where the half-broken ice was not fit to bear the weight of the men or of the sledges. It was in fact nothing more than an immense accumulation of blocks of ice, which, tossed about by the waves, made a deafening noise as they crashed against each other; provisions too were running short, the men were discouraged, Ross was hurt, Parry was suffering from inflammation of the eyes, and the wind had veered into a contrary direction, driving the explorers southwards. There was nothing for it but to turn back.

This venturesome trip, throughout which the thermometer had not sunk beneath 2 degrees 2, might have succeeded had it been undertaken a little earlier in the season, for then the explorers could have penetrated beyond 82 degrees 4 minutes. In any case they would certainly not have had to turn back on account of rain, snow, and damp, all signs of the summer thaw.

When Parry got back to the Hecla, he found that she had been in the greatest danger. Driven before a violent gale, her chains had been broken by the ice, and she had been flung upon the beach, and run aground. When got off, she had been taken to Waygat Strait. All dangers past, however, the explorers got back safely in the rescued vessel to the Orkneys, where they landed, and whence they returned to London, arriving there on the 30th September.

Whilst Parry was seeking a passage to the Pacific, by way of Baffin's or Hudson's Bay, several expeditions were organized to complete the discoveries of Mackenzie, and survey the North American coast. These expeditions were not fraught with any great danger, and the results might be of the most vital importance alike to geographical and nautical science. The command of the first was entrusted to Franklin afterwards so justly celebrated, with whom were associated Dr. Richardson, George Back, then a midshipman in the royal navy, and two common seamen.

The explorers arrived on the 30th August at York Factory on the shores of Hudson's Bay, and having obtained from the fur-hunters all the information necessary to their success, they started again on the 9th September, reaching Cumberland House, 690 miles further, on the 22nd October. The season was now nearly at an end, but Franklin and Back nevertheless succeeded in penetrating to Fort Chippeway on the western side of Lake Athabasca, where they proposed making preparations for the expedition of the ensuing summer. This trip of 857 miles was accomplished in the depth of winter with the thermometer at between 40 degrees and 50 degrees below zero.

Early in spring, Dr. Richardson joined the rest of the party at Fort Chippeway, and all started together on the 18th July, 1820, in the hope of reaching comfortable quarters at the mouth of the Coppermine before the bad season set in; Franklin and his people did not, however, make sufficient allowance for the difficulties of the route or for the obstacles resulting from the severity of the weather, and it took them till the 20th August to cross the waterfalls, shallows, lakes, rivers, and portages which impeded their progress. Game too was scarce. At the first appearance of ice on the ponds the Canadian guides began to complain; and when flocks of wild geese were seen flying southwards they refused to go any further. Annoyed as he was at this absence of good will in the people in his service, Franklin was compelled to give up his schemes, and when 550 miles from Fort Chippeway, in N. lat. 64 degrees 28 minutes, W. long. 118 degrees 6 minutes, he built on the banks of Winter River a wooden house, which he called Fort Enterprise.

Here the explorers collected as much food as they could, manufacturing with reindeer flesh what is known throughout North America as pemmican. At first the number of reindeer seen was considerable; no less than 2000 were once sighted in a single day, but this was only a proof that they were migrating to more clement latitudes. The pemmican prepared from eighty reindeer and the fish obtained in Winter River both run short before the expedition was able to proceed. Whole tribes of Indians, on hearing of the arrival of the whites, collected about the camp, greatly harassing the explorers by their begging, and soon exhausted the supply of blankets, tobacco, &c., which had been brought as means of barter.

Disappointed at the non-arrival of reinforcements with provisions, Franklin sent Back with an escort of Canadians to Fort Chippeway on the 18th October.

"I had the pleasure," says Back, writing after his return, "of meeting my friends all in good health, after an absence of nearly five months, during which I travelled 1104 miles in snow-shoes, and had no other covering at night in the woods than a blanket and deerskin, with the thermometer frequently at 40 degrees, and once at 57 degrees below zero, and sometimes passing two or three days without tasting food."

Those who remained at the fort also suffered terribly from cold, the thermometer sinking three degrees lower than it had done when Parry was at Melville Island, nine degrees nearer the pole. Not only did the men suffer from the extreme severity of the cold, but the trees were frozen to the pith, and axes broke against them without making so much as a notch.

Two interpreters from Hudson's Bay had accompanied Back to Fort Enterprise, one of whom had a daughter said to be the loveliest creature ever seen, and who, though only sixteen, had already been married twice. One of the English officers took her portrait, to the terrible distress of her mother, who feared that if the "great chief of England" saw the inanimate representation he would fall in love with the original.

On the 14th June the Coppermine River was sufficiently free from ice to be navigable, and although their provisions were all but exhausted, the explorers embarked upon it. As it fortunately turned out, however, game was very plentiful on the green banks of the river, and enough musk oxen were killed to feed the whole party.

The mouth of the Coppermine was reached on the 18th July, when the Indians, afraid of meeting their enemies, the Esquimaux, at once returned to Fort Enterprise, whilst the Canadians scarcely dared to launch their frail boats on the angry sea. Franklin at last succeeded in persuading them to run the risk; but he could not get them to go further than Cape Turn-again in N. lat. 68 degrees 30 minutes, a promontory at the opening of a deep gulf dotted with islands, to which the leader of the expedition gave the name of Coronation, in memory of the accession of George IV.

Franklin had begun to ascend Hood River, when he was stopped by a cataract 250 feet high, compelling him to make his way overland across a barren, unknown district, and through snow more than two feet deep. The fatigue and suffering involved in this return journey can be more easily imagined than described; suffice it to say that the party arrived on the 11th October in a state of complete exhaustion—having eaten nothing for five days—at Fort Enterprise, which they found utterly deserted. Ill and without food, there seemed to be nothing left for Franklin to do but to die. The next day, however, he set to work to look for the Indians, and those of his party who had started before him, but the snow was so thick he had to return without accomplishing anything. For the next eighteen days life was supported by a kind of bouilli made from the bones and the skin of the game killed the previous year, and at last, on the 29th October, Dr. Richardson arrived with John Hepburn, only looking thin and worn, and scarcely able to speak above a whisper. It seemed as if they were doomed! We quote the following from Desborough Cooley:—

"Dr. Richardson had now a melancholy tale to relate. For the first two days his party had nothing whatever to eat. On the third day, Michel arrived with a hare and partridge, which afforded each a small morsel. Then another day passed without food. On the 11th, Michel offered them some flesh, which he said was part of a wolf; but they afterwards became convinced that it was the flesh of one of the unfortunate men who had left Captain Franklin's party to return to Dr. Richardson. Michel was daily growing more insolent and shy, and it was strongly suspected that he had a hidden supply of meat for his own use. On the 20th, while Hepburn was cutting wood near the tent, he heard the report of a gun, and looking towards the spot saw Michel dart into the tent. Mr. Hood was found dead; a ball had entered the back part of his head, and there could be no doubt but that Michel was the murderer. He now became more mistrustful and outrageous than before; and as his strength was superior to that of the English who survived, and he was well armed, they became satisfied that there was no safety for them but in his death. 'I determined,' says Dr. Richardson, 'as I was thoroughly convinced of the necessity of such a dreadful act, to take the whole responsibility upon myself; and, upon Michel coming up, I put an end to his life by shooting him through the head!'"

Many of the Indians who had accompanied Richardson and Hepburn had died of hunger, and the two leaders were on the brink of the grave when, on the 7th November, three Indians, sent by Back, brought them help. As soon as they felt a little stronger, the two Englishmen made for the Company's settlement, where they found Back, to whom they had twice owed their lives on this one expedition.

The results of this journey, in which 5500 miles had been traversed, were of the greatest importance to geographical, magnetic, and meteorological science, and the coast of America had been surveyed as far as Cape Turn-again.

In spite of all the fatigue and suffering so bravely borne, the explorers were quite ready to make yet another attempt to reach the shores of the Polar Sea, and at the end of 1823 Franklin received instructions to survey the coast west of Mackenzie River, all the agents of the Company being ordered to supply his party with provisions, boats, guides, and everything else they might require.

After a hearty reception at New York, Franklin went to Albany, by way of the Hudson, ascended the Niagara from Lewiston to the famous Falls, made his way thence to Fort St. George on the Ontario, crossed the lake, landed at York, the capital of Upper Canada (sic), passed Lakes Siamese, Huron, and Superior, where he was joined by twenty-four Canadians, and on the 29th June, 1825, came to Lake Methye, then alive with boats.

Whilst Dr. Richardson was surveying the eastern coast of Great Bear Lake, and Back was superintending the preparations for the winter, Franklin reached the mouth of the Mackenzie, the navigation of which was very easy, no obstacles being met with, except in the Delta. The sea was free from ice, and black and white whales and seals were playing about at the top of the water. Franklin landed on the small island of Garry, the position of which he determined as N. lat. 69 degrees 2 minutes, W. long. 135 degrees 41 minutes, a valuable fact, proving as it did, how much confidence was to be placed in the observations of Mackenzie.

The return journey was made without difficulty, and on the 5th September the explorers arrived at the fort to which Dr. Richardson had given the name of Franklin. The winter was passed in festivities, such as balls, &c., in which Canadians, English, Scotch, French, Esquimaux, and Indians of various tribes took part.

On the 22nd June a fresh start was made, and on the 4th July the fort was reached where the Mackenzie divides into two branches. There the expedition separated into two parties, one going to the east and the other to the west, to explore the shores of the Arctic Ocean. Franklin and his companions had hardly left the river when he met near a large bay a numerous party of Esquimaux, who at first testified great delight at the rencontre, but soon became obstreperous, and tried to carry off the boat. Only by the exercise of wonderful patience and tact were the English able to avert bloodshed on this emergency.

Franklin now surveyed and gave the name of Clarence to the river separating the English from the Russian territories, and a little further on was discovered another stream, which he called the Canning. On the 16th April, finding he had only made half of the distance between Mackenzie River and Icy Cape, though the winter was rapidly approaching, Franklin turned back and embarked on the beautiful Peel River, which he mistook for that of Mackenzie, not discovering his error till he came in sight of a chain of mountains on the east. On the 21st September he got back to the fort, after having in the course of three months traversed 2048 miles, and surveyed 372 miles of the American coast.

Richardson meanwhile had advanced into much deeper water with far less floating ice, and had met with a great many Esquimaux of mild and hospitable manners. He surveyed Liverpool and Franklin Bays, and discovered opposite the mouth of the Coppermine a tract of land separated from the continent by a channel not more than twenty miles wide, to which he gave the name of Wollaston. His boats arrived at Coronation Gulf, explored on the previous trip, on the 7th August; and on the 1st September they got back to Fort Franklin, without having sustained any damage.

In dwelling on Parry's voyages, we have, for the time, turned aside from those made at the same time by Ross, whose extraordinary exploration of Baffin's Bay had brought upon him the censure of the Admiralty, and who was anxious to regain his reputation for skill and courage. Though the Government had lost confidence in him, he won the esteem of a rich ship-owner, who did not hesitate to entrust to him the command of the steamship Victory, on which he started for Baffin's Bay on the 25th May, 1830.

For four years nothing was heard of the courageous navigator, but on his return, at the end of that time, it turned out that his voyage had been as rich in discoveries as had been Parry's first trip. Ross, entering Prince Regent's Inlet, by way of Barrow and Lancaster Sounds, had revisited the spot where the Fury had been abandoned four years previously; and continuing his voyage in a southerly direction, he wintered in Felix Harbour—so named after the equipper of the expedition—ascertaining whilst there that the lands he had passed formed a large peninsula attached on the south to the northern coast of America.

In April, 1830, James Ross, nephew of the leader of the party, set out in a canoe to examine the shores of this peninsula, and those of King William's Land; and in November of the same year all had once more to go into winter-quarters in Sherif Harbour, it being impossible to get the vessel more than a few miles further north. The cold was intense, and it was agreed by the sailors of the Victory that this was the very severest winter ever spent by them in the Arctic regions.

The summer of 1831 was devoted to various surveys, which proved that there was no connexion between the two seas. All that was accomplished this season was to bring the Victory as far as Discovery Harbour, a very little further north than that of Sherif. The ensuing winter was so intensely severe, that the vessel could not be extricated from her ice prison, and but for the fortunate discovery of the provisions left by the Fury, the English would have died of hunger. As it was, they endured daily greater and greater privations and sufferings before the summer of 1833 at last enabled them finally to leave their winter-quarters and go by land to Prince Regent's and Barrow Straits. They had just reached the shores of Baffin's Bay when a vessel appeared, which turned out to be the Isabel, once commanded by Ross himself, and which now received the refugees from the Victory.

But England had not all this time been forgetful of her children, and had sent an expedition in search of them every year. In 1833 Back, Franklin's companion, was the leader, and he starting from Fort Revolution, on the shore of Slave Lake, made his way northwards, discovered Thloni-Tcho-Deseth River, and settled down in winter-quarters, with the intention of reaching the next year the Polar Sea, where he supposed Ross to be held prisoner, when he heard of his incredible return journey overland. Back, therefore, gave up the next season to the survey of the fine Fish River, discovered the previous year, and sighted the Queen Adelaide Mts., with Capes Booth and Ross.

1836 found him at the head of a new expedition, which was to attempt to connect by sea the discoveries of Ross and Franklin. It failed, and the accomplishment of the task assigned to it was reserved to Peter Williams, Dease, and Thomas Simpson, all officers in the service of the Hudson's Bay Company, who, leaving Fort Chippeway on the 1st June, 1837, went down the Mackenzie, arriving on the sea-coast on the 9th July, and making their way along it to N. lat. 71 degrees 3 minutes and W. long. 156 degrees 46 minutes, i.e. to a cape they named Simpson, after the governor of their company.

Thomas Simpson now made his way overland with five men to Port Barrow, already sighted in the direction of Behring Strait by one of Beechey's officers, so that the whole of the North American coast from Cape Turn-again to Behring's Strait was now complete, and there was nothing left to do but to explore the space between the former and Point Ogle, a task accomplished by the explorers in a later expedition.

Leaving the Coppermine in 1838, they followed the eastern coast, arriving on the 9th August at Cape Turn-again, which was too much encumbered with ice to be rounded. Thomas Simpson therefore remained near it for the winter, discovered Victoria Land, and on the 12th August, 1839, arrived at Back River. The rest of the month he devoted to the exploration of Boothia.



The whole of the coast-line of North America was now accurately laid down, but at the cost of what struggles, devotion, privations, and sufferings? What, however, is human life when weighed in the balance with the progress of science? and with what disinterestedness and enthusiasm must be embued the savants, sailors, and explorers, who give up all the joys of existence to contribute to the best of their power to the progress of knowledge and to the moral and intellectual development of humanity.

With the voyages last recorded the discovery of the earth was completed, and with our account of them our work, which began with the first attempts of the earliest explorers, also closes. The shape of the earth is now known, the task of explorers, is done. The land on which man lives is henceforth familiar to him, and he has now only to turn to account the vast resources of the countries to which access has recently become easy, or of which he can without difficulty possess himself.

How rich in lessons of every kind is this history of twenty centuries of exploration. Let us cast a glance behind us and enumerate the main features of the progress made in this long series of years. If we take the map of the world of Hecataeus, who lived 500 years before the Christian era, what do we see? When it was published the known world did not extend beyond the basin of the Mediterranean, and the whole, with a terribly distorted outline, is represented only by a very small portion of southern Europe, the interior of Asia, and part of North Africa; whilst encircling them all is a river without beginning or end, to which is given the name of Ocean.

Side by side with this map, ancient monument as it is of antique science, let us place a planisphere representing the world as known in 1840, and on this vast surface we shall find the portion known, and that but imperfectly to Hecataeus, occupying but an infinitesimal space.

Taking these two typical maps as our starting-point, we shall be able to judge of the magnitude of the discoveries of modern times. Imagine for a moment all that is involved in thorough knowledge of the whole world, and you will marvel at the results achieved by the efforts of so many explorers and martyrs, you will grasp the importance of their discoveries and the intimate relations between geography and all the other sciences. This is the point of view from which can best be seen all the philosophic bearings of a work to which so many generations have devoted themselves.

Doubtless the motives actuating these various explorers differ greatly. First, we have the natural curiosity of the owner anxious to know thoroughly every part of the domain belonging to him, so that he may estimate the extent of the habitable districts, and determine the boundaries of the seas, &c.; and secondly, we have the natural outcome of a trade, which, though still in its infancy, introduced even in remote Norway the products of Central Asian industry. In the time of Herodotus the aim of explorers was loftier: they wished to learn the history, manners, customs, and religion of foreign races; and later, the Crusades, which, whatever else they accomplished, certainly vulgarized oriental studies, inspired some few with a fervent desire to wrest from infidels the scene of our Lord's Passion, but the greater number with a lust of pillage and a yearning to explore the unknown.

THE END