'Mr, Crement Markaax, in the Academy, claims Captain Nares' arctic edition as a great success, True, it failed to reach the pole, but the pole being only a geographic abstraction, any other point was of equal interest. Be that as it may, the expedition has made valuable discoveries, and Captain Markham may claim to have brought his party nearer the pole than ever civilized men have penetrated before. Mach as has been done, it is however evident that more might have been accomplished had the expedition been better manned, and in some respects better provided. Probably in no preceding arctic voyage have the officers and crews done so much individual work, but the experience of the present goes to prove that there is a limit, beyond which men in arctic regions cannot go. Again, the warming of the ships was defective, and known to be 80 before they set sail, while the relief ship which should have been provided to communicate with the other two during the summer, did not form part of the programme. What the ships did do is, however, well worthy of note. They got to the extreme north of Greenland, and apparently of the arctic archipelago lying north of America, and discovered a vast icy ocean, on the shores of which the Alert wintered in Lat. 82° 27'. The Strait, the lower portion of which is known as Smith Sound, here opened out into the Polar Ocean. In the spring, Captain Markham and Lieutenant Parr essayed to reach as far north as possible, and set out with their sledges across the stupendous masses of ice which form the Polar sea. Never before were such difficulties encountered in arctic travel, All previous experience was at fault as to what a frozen sea really meant. To the west Lieut. Aldrich pushed along the shores of Grant Land, while to the east Lieut. Beaumont crossed the Sound and set to to explore the northern fringe of Greenland. East and west these hitherto un travelled shores were explored for a distance of 50° of longitude, or more than one-eighth of the circumpolar distance. The crews were so exhausted, however, with their exertions, that Captain Nares, having done all that seemed practicable, wisely returned to England without staying another winter in a position which afforded no hope of further advance. Most interesting of the discoveries made were doubtless those referring to the geology of the regions explored; and of those again the most important was the occurrence of a fossil evergreen forest in 82° 44' N. latitude. At various localities, from Greenland to Melville island, traces of forests of Tertiary age have been found in the Arctic regions, and have excited recently the attention of scientific men. The prevalent opinion has been that, at some geologic period, a mild climate prevailed unto the north pole. Granting this, it seemed just possible that plants of temperate climates could accustom themselves to three or four months of darkness. The new discovery adds to the difficulties we sketched out the other day. We cannot conceive trees preserving their Teaves during a night of 150 days duration. However mild the climate may have been (and we find an equal difficulty in imagining mild climat when the surface of the soil was exposed to celestial radi months, without rect heat from the sun), the absence of light would have rendered growth im. possible, and we should have hada marked deciduous in place of an evergreen vegetation, The astronomers, we take it, are fault in their ideas as bat to the immobility of the axis of revol Intion, One good thing performed by the expedition was to set at rest the fanciful theories dreamt of by nonpractical men, of an open Polar sea, Still it is not impossible that we may one day reach the pole. To do 80, it would however be necessary to have a permanent arctic station with crews and vessels ready to atart on a moment's notice. On some occasion, such as that which occurred to the Polaris, a vessel drops in on an unexpected lane of water, or mayhap an unusually mild summer.
The story is told her success, and two years after an expedition is fitted out to look for a clear passage in the same direction. The result, as might be calculated, is generally disappointing. The expedition, as in Captain Nares' case, lights on an unusually unfavourable season, and comes back with half its work unaccomplished.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.