Mar. 5.
Tue Arctic expedition which is to start next summer from th State of Maine is probably on less ambitious scale than other which have been carried out dur ing the present century. Of its importance, however, there can no question, An attempt is to be made to circumnavigate Baffin Land and, if possible, explore its unknown western regions. Three hundred years have passed since William Baffin discovered the seas which Dr. MacMillan is now preparing to explore still further other adventurous spirits have in the meantime added to the sum of our knowledge concerning them; yet still to-day what we know is all too little. The public, not unnaturally, is hazy in its ideas why we should want to know all about these barren, ice, bound regions, and, carried away by the romance of these expeditions misses the utilitarian pain of view. That aspect, however, is really very much to the fore, for it is recognized, to mention only one feature, that until we have full knowledge of conditions in these remote parts of the earth, our meteorological services will re-mair. incomplete, It has been lestfned, for instance, that periods of drought in South America are preceded by certain well-defined features in the Antarctic winter. This fact alone conveys a hint of the limitless possibilities open to the scientific inquirer in thes areas, of the storehouse of information waiting to be opened.
But it is natural that no material gain can compete in impressiveness with the glamour of Polar ex ploration. It is the personal experience of men like the heroic' Scott and his gallant companions that chiefly calls to us, and scarcely at all what they added to our knowledge of the world. The story of the three comrades blizzard-bound in their shelter within eleven miles of the food depot, with Scott writing brave messages in his diary, is unforgettable. Oates walking to his death in the blizzard in the vain hope of saving the others is an incident which will ever compel admiration. Again we see Shackleton marching over the ice with Scott on his first venture: he is ill, but struggles along gamely, and after making what then was '"'farthest south'' he reaches safety. He knows what it is to undertake such an expedition, he has the fate of Scott before him as a deterrent, if, indeed, such a man can be deferred, nevertheless by 1914 he is off again to these regions of death. This time he is again unlucky, his ship is crushed in the ice, and for weeks he and his crew are adrift on a floe. A barren island is finally reached, and then in an open boat the leader undertakes a voyage of 800 miles over a tempest-ridden sea, so that he may bring a rescue ship to his followers. The hardships are incredible, he has been dicing with fate under the most adverse conditions, he has only just come through alive. Yet this week has come the news that he is to make yet another attempt to wring from the Polar regions still more of their secrets.
It is all very wonderful. We have gone for incident only te one branch of Polar exploration but we might multiply indefinite: ly the instances of sheer heroism We know, so far as words can tell us, of the appalling difficul ties which face the intruder into these inhospitable climes, and we recognize that to all but the first-rate man such countries are forbidden. When we consider the conditions under which these ventures have to be made, international jealousy vanishes; Peary and Amundsen and all the others of the great fraternity of ex-blorers belong to the world, not to any one section. We shall find the ex-whalers of Britain taking just as deep an interest in Dr. MacMillan's expedition as do the people of Maine, whence it is to start. The whaling fleet of the British Isles is now no more, possibly the famous Terra Nova is the' sole survivor, and the whalers no longer. venture to the borders of Lancaster Sound after the valuable bone. It is not so many years since they were doing so, and the waters they fished will probably come within the scope of Dr. Mae-Millan's expedition. Of course he will go far beyond the scope of these hardy adventurers, and with a fair proportion of luck will bring the geography of the district to a pitch of accuracy, which it is important that we should have. He and Sir Ernest Shackleton will go on their expeditions taking with them the warmest wishes of all countries.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.