On our own hemisphere, and separated from our own coasts by only a few days’ journey on our own element, there remains a blank circle of unexplored country above 800 miles in diameter. We have tried to cross it, and have not succeeded. Nothing further need be said in reply to those who ask, “Why should we start another Arctic Expedition?”

The records of previous attempts to penetrate this area of geographical mystery prove the existence of a formidable barrier of mountainous land, fringed by fjords or inlets, like those of Norway, some of which may be open, though much contracted northward, like the Vestfjord that lies between the Lofoden Islands and the mainland of Scandinavia. The majority evidently run inland like the ordinary Norwegian fjords or the Scotch firths, and terminate in land valleys that continue upwards to fjeld regions, or elevated humpy land which acts as a condenser to the vapor-laden air continually flowing towards the Pole from the warmer regions of the earth, and returning in lower streams when cooled. The vast quantities of water thus condensed fall upon these hills and table lands as snow crystals. What becomes of this everlasting deposit?

Unlike the water that rains on temperate hill-sides, it cannot all flow down to the sea as torrents and liquid rivers, but it does come down nevertheless, or long ere this it would have reached the highest clouds. It descends mainly as glaciers, which creep down slowly, but steadily and irresistibly, filling up the valleys on their way; and stretching outwards into the fjords and channels, which they block up with their cleft and chasmed crystalline angular masses that still creep outward to the sea until they float, and break off or “calve” as mountainous icebergs and smaller masses of ice.

These accumulations of ice thus formed on land constitute the chief obstructions that bar the channels and inlets fringing the unknown Polar area. The glacier fragments above described are cemented together in the winter time by the freezing of the water between them. An open frozen sea, pure and simple, instead of forming a barrier to arctic exploration, would supply a most desirable highway. It must not be supposed that, because the liquid ocean is ruffled by ripples, waves, and billows, a frozen sea would have a similar surface. The freezing of such a surface could only start at the calmest intervals, and the ice would shield the water from the action of the wave-making wind, and such a sea would become a charming skating rink, like the Gulf of Bothnia, the Swedish and Norwegian lakes, and certain fjords, which, in the winter time, become natural ice-paved highways, offering incomparable facilities for rapid locomotion. In spite of the darkness and the cold, winter is the traveling season in Sweden and Lapland. The distance that can be made in a given time in summer with a wheeled vehicle on well-made post roads can be covered in half the time in a pulk or reindeer sledge drawn over the frozen lakes. From Spitzbergen to the Pole would be an easy run of five or six days if nothing but a simply frozen sea stood between them.

This primary physical fact, that arctic navigators have not been stopped by a merely frozen sea, but by a combination of glacier fragments with the frozen water of bays, and creeks, and fjords, should be better understood than it is at present; for when it is understood, the popular and fallacious notion that the difficulties of arctic progress are merely dependent on latitude, and must therefore increase with latitude, explodes.

It is the physical configuration of the fringing zone of the arctic regions, not its mere latitude, that bars the way to the Pole.

I put this in italics because so much depends upon it—I may say that all depends upon it—for if this barrier can be scaled at any part we may come upon a region as easily traversed as that part of the Arctic Ocean lying between the North Cape and Spitzbergen, which is regularly navigated every summer by hardy Norsemen in little sailing sloops of 30 to 40 tons burden, and only six or eight pair of hands on board; or by overland traveling as easily as the Arctic winter journey between Tornea and Alten. This trip over the snow-covered mountains is done in five or six days, at the latter end of every November, by streams of visitors to the fair at Alten, in latitude 70°, 3½ degrees N. of the Arctic circle; its distance, 430 miles, is just about equal to that which stands between the North Pole and the northernmost reach of our previous Arctic expeditions. One or the other of the above-named conditions, or an enclosed frozen Polar ocean, is what probably exists beyond the broken fjord barrier hitherto explored; a continuation of such a barrier is, in fact, almost a physical impossibility; and therefore the Pole will be ultimately reached, not by a repetition of such weary struggles as those which ended in the very hasty retreat of our last expedition, but by a bound across about 400 miles of open or frozen Polar ocean, or a rapid sledge-run over snow-paved fields like those so merrily traversed in Arctic Norway by festive bonders and their families on their way to Yule-time dancing parties.

Reference to a map of the circumpolar regions, or, better, to a globe, will show that the continents of Europe, Asia, and America surround the Pole, and hang, as it were, downwards or southwards from a latitude of 70° and upwards. There is but one wide outlet for the accumulations of Polar ice, and that is between Norway and Greenland, with Iceland standing nearly midway. Davis’s and Behring’s Straits are the narrower openings; the first may be only a fjord, rather than an outlet. The ice-block, or crowding together and heaping up of the glacier fragments and bay ice, is thus explained.

Attempts of two kinds have been made to scale this icy barrier. Ships have sailed northwards, threading a dangerous course between the floating icebergs in the summer, and becoming fast bound in winter, when the narrow spaces of brackish water lying between these masses of land ice become frozen, and the “ice-foot” clinging to the shore stretches out seaward to meet that on the opposite side of the fjord or channel. The second method, usually adopted as supplementary to the first, is that of dragging sledges over these glacial accumulations. The pitiful rate of progress thus attainable is shown by the record of the last attempt, when Commander Markham achieved about one mile per day, and the labor of doing this was nearly fatal to his men. Any tourist who has crossed or ascended an Alpine glacier with only a knapsack to carry, can understand the difficulty of dragging a cartload of provisions, etc., over such accumulations of iceberg fragments and of sea-ice squeezed and crumbled up between them. It is evident that we must either find a natural breach in this Arctic barrier or devise some other means of scaling it.

The first of these efforts has been largely discussed by the advocates of rival routes. I will not go into this question at present, but only consider the alternative to all land routes and all water routes, viz.: that by the other available element—an aerial route—as proposed to be attempted in the new Arctic expedition projected by Commander Cheyne, and which he is determined to practically carry out, provided his own countrymen, or, failing them, others more worthy, will assist him with the necessary means of doing so.

To reach the Pole from the northernmost point already attained by our ships demands a journey of about 400 miles, the distance between London and Edinburgh. With a favorable wind, a balloon will do this in a few hours, On November 27, 1870, Captain Roher descended near Lysthuus, in Hitterdal (Norway), in the balloon “Ville d’Orleans,” having made the journey from Paris in fifteen hours. The distance covered was about 900 miles, more than double the distance between the Pole and the accessible shores of Greenland.

On November 7, 1836, Messrs. Holland, Mason, and Green ascended from Vauxhall Gardens, at 1.30 P.M., with a moderate breeze, and descended eighteen hours afterwards “in the Duchy of Nassau, about two leagues from the town of Weilburg,” the distance in a direct line being about 500 miles. A similar journey to this would carry Commander Cheyne from his ship to the North Pole, or thereabouts, while a fresh breeze like that enjoyed by Captain Roher would, in the same time, carry him clear across the whole of the circumpolar area to the neighborhood of Spitzbergen, and two or three hours more of similar proceeding would land him in Siberia or Finland, or even on the shores of Arctic Norway, where he could take the VadsÖ or Hammerfest packet to meet one of Wilson’s liners at Trondhjem or Bergen, and thus get from the North Pole to London in ten days.

Lest any of my readers should think that I am writing this at random, I will supply the particulars. I have before me the “Norges Communicationer” for the present summer season of 1880. Twice every week a passenger excursion steam packet sails round the North Cape each way, calling at no less than twenty stations on this Arctic face of Europe to land and embark passengers and goods. By taking that which stops at Gjesvaer (an island near the foot of the North Cape) on Saturday, or that which starts from Hammerfest on Sunday morning, Trondhjem is reached on Thursday, and Wilson’s liner, the “Tasso,” starts on the same day for Hull, “average passage seventy hours.” Thus Hammerfest, the northernmost town in the world, is now but eight days from London, including a day’s stop at TromsÖ, the capital of Lapland, which is about 3 degrees N. of the Arctic circle, and within a week of London. At Captain Roher’s rate of traveling TromsÖ would be but twenty-three hours from the Pole.

These figures are, of course, only stated as possibilities on the supposition that all the conditions should be favorable, but by no means as probable.

What, then, are the probabilities and the amount of risk that will attend an attempt to reach the Pole by an aerial route?

I have considered the subject carefully, and discussed it with many people; the result of such reflection and conversation is a conviction that the prevalent popular estimate of the dangers of Commander Cheyne’s project extravagantly exaggerates them on almost all contingencies. I do not affirm that there is no risk, or that the attempt should be made with only our present practical knowledge of the subject, but I do venture to maintain that, after making proper preliminary practical investigations at home, a judiciously conducted aerostatic dash for the Pole will be far less dangerous than the African explorations of Livingstone, Stanley, and others that have been accomplished and are proposed. And further, that a long balloon journey starting in summer-time from Smith’s Sound, or other suitable Arctic station, would be less dangerous than a corresponding one started from London; that it would involve less risk than was incurred by Messrs. Holland, Mason, and Green, when they traveled from Vauxhall Gardens to Nassau.

The three principal dangers attending such a balloon journey are: 1st. The variability of the wind. 2d. The risk of being blown out about the open ocean beyond the reach of land. 3d. The utter helplessness of the aeronaut during all the hours of darkness. I will consider these seriatim in reference to Arctic ballooning versus Vauxhall or Crystal Palace ballooning.

As regards the first danger, Vauxhall and Sydenham are in a position of special disadvantage, and all the ideas we Englishmen may derive from our home ballooning experience must tend to exaggerate our common estimate of this danger, inasmuch as we are in the midst of the region of variable winds, and have a notoriously uncertain climate, due to this local exaggeration of the variability of atmospheric movements. If instead of lying between the latitudes of 50° and 60°, where the N.E. Polar winds just come in collision with the S.W. tropical currents, and thereby effect our national atmospheric stir-about, we were located between 10° and 30° (where the Canary Islands are, for example), our notions on the subject of balloon traveling would be curiously different. The steadily blowing trade-wind would long ere this have led us to establish balloon mails to Central and South America, and balloon passenger expresses for the benefit of fast-going people or luxurious victims of sea-sickness. To cross the Atlantic—three thousand miles—in forty-eight hours, would be attended with no other difficulty than the cost of the gas, and that of the return carriage of the empty balloon. It is our exceptional meteorological position that has generated the popular expression “as uncertain as the wind.” We are in the very centre of the region of meteorological uncertainties, and cannot go far, either northward or southward, without entering a zone of greater atmospheric regularity, where the direction of the wind at a given season may be predicted with more reliability than at home. The atmospheric movements in the Arctic regions appear to be remarkably regular and gentle during the summer and winter months, and irregular and boisterous in spring and autumn. A warm upper current flows from the tropics towards the Pole, and a cold lower one from the Arctic circle towards the equator. Commander Cheyne, who has practical experience of these Arctic expeditions, and has kept an elaborate log of the wind, etc., which he has shown me, believes that, by the aid of pilot balloons to indicate the currents at various heights, and by availing himself of these currents, he may reach the Pole and return to his ship, or so near as to be able to reach it by traveling over the ice in light sledges that will be carried for that purpose. In making any estimate of the risk of Arctic aerostation, we must banish from our minds the preconceptions induced by our British experience of the uncertainties of the wind, and only consider the atmospheric actualities of the Polar regions, so far as we know them.

Let us now consider the second danger, viz., that of being blown out to sea and there remaining until the leakage of gas has destroyed the ascending power of the balloon, or till the stock of food is consumed. A glance at a map of the world will show how much smaller is the danger to the aeronaut who starts from the head of Baffin’s Bay than that which was incurred by those who started from Vauxhall in the Nassau balloon, or by Captain Roher, who started from Paris. Both of these had the whole breadth of the Atlantic on the W. and S.W., and the North Sea and Arctic Ocean N. and N.E. The Arctic balloon, starting from Smith’s Sound or thereabouts, with a wind from the South (and without such a wind the start would not, of course, be made), would, if the wind continued in the same direction, reach the Pole in a few hours; in seven or eight hours at Roher’s speed; in fourteen or fifteen hours at the average rate made by the Nassau balloon in a “moderate breeze.” Now look again at the map and see what surrounds them. Simply the continents of Europe, Asia, and America, by which the circumpolar area is nearly land-locked, with only two outlets, that between Norway and Greenland on one side, and the narrow channel of Behring’s Straits on the other. The wider of these is broken by Spitzbergen and Iceland, both inhabited islands, where a balloon may descend and the aeronauts be hospitably received. Taking the 360 degrees of the zone between the 70th parallel of latitude and the Arctic circle, 320 are land-locked and only 40 open to the sea; therefore the chances of coming upon land at any one part of this zone is as 320 to 40; but with a choice of points for descent such as the aeronauts would have unless the wind blew precisely down the axis of the opening, the chances would be far greater. If the wind continued as at starting, they would be blown to Finland; a westerly deflection would land them in Siberia, easterly in Norway; a strong E. wind at the later stage of the trip would blow them back to Greenland.

In all the above I have supposed the aeronauts to be quite helpless, merely drifting at random with that portion of the atmosphere in which they happened to be immersed. This, however, need not be the case. Within certain limits they have a choice of winds, owing to the prevalence of upper and lower currents blowing in different and even in opposite directions. Suppose, for example, they find themselves N. of Spitzbergen, where “Parry’s furthest” is marked on some of our maps, and that the wind is from the N.E., blowing them towards the Atlantic opening. They would then ascend or descend in search of a due N. or N. by W. wind that would blow them to Norway, or W.N.W. to Finland, or N.W. to Siberia, or due E. back to Greenland, from whence they might rejoin their ships. One or other of these would almost certainly be found. A little may be done in steering a balloon, but so very little that small reliance should be placed upon it. Only in a very light wind would it have a sensible effect, though in case of a “near shave” between landing, say at the Lofodens or Iceland, and being blown out to sea, it might just save them.

As already stated, Commander Cheyne believes in the possibility of returning to the ship, and bases his belief on the experiments he made from winter quarters in Northumberland Sound, where he inflated four balloons, attached to them proportionately different weights, and sent them up simultaneously. They were borne by diverse currents of air in four different directions according to the different altitudes, viz., N.W., N.E., S.E., and S.W., “thus proving that in this case balloons could be sent in any required direction by ascending to the requisite altitude. The war balloon experiments at Woolwich afford a practical confirmation of this important feature in aerostation.” Cheyne proposes that one at least of the three balloons shall be a rover to cross the unknown area, and has been called a madman for suggesting this merely as an alternative or secondary route. I am still more lunatic, for I strongly hold the opinion that the easiest way for him to return to his ship will be to drift rapidly across to the first available inhabited land, thence come to England, and sail in another ship to rejoin his messmates; carrying with him his bird’s-eye chart, that will demonstrate once for all the possibility or impossibility of circumnavigating Greenland, or of sailing, or sledging, or walking to the Pole.

The worst dilemma would be that presented by a dead calm, and it is not improbable that around the Pole there may be a region of calms similar to that about the Equator. Then the feather-paddle or other locomotive device worked by man-power would be indispensable. Better data than we at present possess are needed in order to tell accurately what may thus be done. Putting various estimates one against the other, it appears likely that five miles an hour may be made. Taking turn and turn about, two or three aeronauts could thus travel fully 100 miles per day, and return from the Pole to the ship in less than five days.

Or take the improbable case of a circular wind blowing round the Pole, as some have imagined. This would simply demand the working of the paddle always northwards in going to the Pole, and always southwards in returning. The resultant would be a spiral course winding inwards in the first case, and outwards in the second. The northward or southward progress would be just the same as in a calm if the wind were truly concentric to the Pole. Some rough approximation to such currents may exist, and might be dealt with on this principle.

Let us now consider the third danger, that of the darkness. The seriousness of this may be inferred from the following description of the journey of the Nassau balloon, published at the time: “It seemed to the aeronauts as if they were cleaving their way through an interminable mass of black marble in which they were imbedded, and which, solid a few inches before them, seemed to soften as they approached in order to admit them still further within its cold and dusky enclosure. In this way they proceeded blindly, as it may well be called, until about 3.30 A.M., when in the midst of the impenetrable darkness and profound stillness an unusual explosion issued from the machine above, followed by a violent rustling of the silk, and all the signs which might be supposed to accompany the bursting of the balloon. The car was violently shaken. A second and a third explosion followed in quick succession. The danger seemed immediate, when suddenly the balloon recovered her usual form and stillness. These alarming symptoms seemed to have been produced by collapsing of the balloon under the diminished temperature of the upper regions after sunset, and the silk forming into folds under the netting. Now, when the guide rope informed the voyagers that the balloon was too near the earth, ballast was thrown out, and the balloon rising rapidly into a thinner air experienced a diminution of pressure, and consequent expansion of the gas.

“The cold during the night ranged from a few degrees below to the freezing point. As morning advanced the rushing of waters was heard, and so little were the aeronauts aware of the course which they had been pursuing during the night, that they supposed themselves to have been thrown back upon the shores of the German Ocean, or about to enter the Baltic, whereas they were actually over the Rhine, not far from Coblentz.” All this blind drifting for hours, during which the balloon may be carried out to sea, and opportunities of safe descent may be lost, is averted in an Arctic balloon voyage, which would be made in the summer, when the sun never sets. There need be no break in the survey of the ground passed over, no difficulty in pricking upon a chart the course taken and the present position at any moment. With an horizon of 50 to 100 miles’ radius the approach of such a danger as drifting to the open ocean would be perceived in ample time for descent, and as a glance at the map will show, this danger cannot occur until reaching the latitudes of inhabited regions.

The Arctic aeronauts will have another great advantage over those who ascend from any part of England. They can freely avail themselves of Mr. Green’s simple but most important practical invention—the drag-rope. This is a long and rather heavy rope trailing on the ground. It performs two important functions. First, it checks the progress of the balloon, causing it to move less rapidly than the air in which it is immersed. The aeronaut thus gets a slight breeze equivalent to the difference between the velocity of the wind and that of the balloon’s progress. He may use this as a fulcrum to effect a modicum of steerage.

The second and still more important use of the drag-rope is the very great economy of ballast it achieves. Suppose the rope to be 1000 feet long, its weight equal to 1 lb. for every ten feet, and the balloon to have an ascending power of 50 lbs. It is evident that under these conditions the balloon will retain a constant elevation of 500 feet above the ground below it, and that 500 feet of rope will trail upon the ground. Thus, if a mountain is reached no ballast need be thrown away in order to clear the summit, as the balloon will always lift its 500 feet of rope, and thus always rise with the up-slope and descend with the down-slope of hill and dale. The full use of this simple and valuable adjunct to aerial traveling is prevented in such a country as ours by the damage it might do below, and the temptation it affords to mischievous idiots near whom it may pass.

In the course of many conversations with various people on this subject I have been surprised at the number of educated men and women who have anticipated with something like a shudder the terrible cold to which the poor aeronauts will be exposed.

This popular delusion which pictures the Arctic regions as the abode of perpetual freezing, is so prevalent and general, that some explanation is demanded.

The special characteristic of Arctic climate is a cold and long winter and a short and hot summer. The winter is intensely cold simply because the sun never shines, and the summer is very hot because the sun is always above the horizon, and, unless hidden by clouds or mist, is continually shining. The summer heat of Siberia is intense, and the vegetable proportionately luxuriant. I have walked over a few thousand miles in the sunny South, but never was more oppressed with the heat than in walking up the Tromsdal to visit an encampment of Laplanders in the summer of 1856.

On the 17th July I noted the temperature on board the steam packet when we were about three degrees north of the Arctic circle. It stood at 77° well shaded in a saloon under the deck; it was 92° in the “rok lugar,” a little smoking saloon built on deck; and 108° in the sun on deck. This was out at sea, where the heat was less oppressive than on shore. The summers of Arctic Norway are very variable on account of the occasional prevalence of misty weather. The balloon would be above much of the mist, and would probably enjoy a more equable temperature during the twenty-four hours than in any part of the world where the sun sets at night.

I am aware that the above is not in accordance with the experience of the Arctic explorers who have summered in such places as Smith’s Sound. I am now about to perpetrate something like a heresy by maintaining that the summer climate there experienced by these explorers is quite exceptional, is not due to the latitude, but to causes that have hitherto escaped the notice of the explorers themselves and of physical geographers generally. The following explanation will probably render my view of this subject intelligible: As already stated, the barrier fringe that has stopped the progress of Arctic explorers is a broken mountainous shore down which is pouring a multitude of glaciers into the sea. The ice of these glaciers is, of course, fresh-water ice. Now, we know that when ice is mixed with salt water we obtain what is called “a freezing mixture”—a reduction of temperature far below the freezing point, due to the absorption of heat by the liquefaction of the ice. Thus the heat of the continuously shining summer sun at this particular part of the Arctic region is continuously absorbed by this powerful action, and a severity quite exceptional is thereby produced. Every observant tourist who has crossed an Alpine glacier on a hot summer day has felt the sudden change of climate that he encounters on stepping from terra firma on to the ice, and in which he remains immersed as long as he is on the glacier. How much greater must be this depression of temperature where the glacier ice is broken up and is floating in sea-water, to produce a vast area of freezing mixture, which would speedily bring the hottest blasts from the Sahara down to many degrees below the freezing point.

A similar cause retards the beginning of summer in Arctic Norway and in Finland and Siberia. So long as the winter snow remains unmelted, i.e., till about the middle or end of June, the air is kept cold, all the solar heat being expended in the work of thawing. This work finished, then the warming power of a non-setting sun becomes evident, and the continuously accumulating heat of his rays displays its remarkable effect on vegetable life, and everything capable of being warmed. These peculiarities of Arctic climate must become exaggerated as the Pole is approached, the winter cold still more intense, and the accumulation of summer heat still greater. In the neighborhood of the North Cape, where these contrasts astonish English visitors, where inland summer traveling becomes intolerable on account of the clouds of mosquitoes, the continuous sunshine only lasts from May 11 to August 1. At the North Pole the sun would visibly remain above the horizon during about seven months—from the first week in March to the first week in October (this includes the effect of refraction and the prolonged summer of the northern hemisphere due to the eccentricity of the earth’s orbit).

This continuance of sunshine, in spite of the moderate altitude of the solar orb, may produce a very genial summer climate at the Pole. I say “may,” because mere latitude is only one of the elements of climate, especially in high latitudes. Very much depends upon surface configuration and the distribution of land and water. The region in which our Arctic expedition ships have been ice-bound combines all the most unfavorable conditions of Arctic summer climate. It is extremely improbable that those conditions are maintained all the way to the Pole. We know the configuration of Arctic Europe and Arctic Asia, that they are masses of land spreading out northward round the Arctic circle and narrowing southward to angular terminations. The southward configuration and northward outspreading of North America are the same, but we cannot follow the northern portion to its boundary as we may that of Europe and Asia, both of which terminate in an Arctic Ocean. Greenland is remarkably like Scandinavia; Davis’s Strait, Baffin’s Bay, and Smith’s Sound corresponding with the Baltic and the Gulf of Bothnia. The deep fjords of Greenland, like those of Scandinavia, are on its western side, and the present condition of Greenland corresponds to that of Norway during the milder period of the last glacial epoch. If the analogy is maintained a little further north than our explorers have yet reached we must come upon a Polar sea, just as we come upon the White Sea and the open Arctic Ocean if we simply travel between 400 and 500 miles due north from the head of the frozen Gulf of Bothnia.

Such a sea, if unencumbered with land ice, will supply the most favorable conditions for a genial arctic summer, especially if it be dotted with islands of moderate elevation, which the analogies of the known surroundings render so very probable. Such islands may be inhabited by people who cannot reach us on account of the barrier wall that has hitherto prevented us from discovering them. Some have even supposed that a Norwegian colony is there imprisoned. Certainly the early colonists of Greenland have disappeared, and their disappearance remains unexplained. They may have wandered northwards, mingled with the Esquimaux, and have left descendants in this unknown world. If any of Franklin’s crew crawled far enough they may still be with them, unable to return.

In reference to these possibilities it should be noted that a barrier fringe of mountainous land like that of Greenland and arctic America would act as a condensing ground upon the warm air flowing from the south, and would there accumulate the heavy snows and consequent glaciers, just as our western hills take so much of the rain from the vapor-laden winds of the Atlantic. The snowfall immediately round the Pole would thus be moderated, and the summer begin so much earlier.

I have already referred to the physical resemblances of Baffin’s Bay, Smith’s Sound, etc., to the Baltic, the Gulf of Bothnia, and Gulf of Finland. These are frozen every winter, but the Arctic Ocean due north of them is open all the winter, and every winter. The hardy Norse fishermen are gathering their chief harvest of cod fish in the open sea around and beyond the North Cape, Nordkyn, etc., at the very time when the Russian fleet is hopelessly frozen up in the Gulf of Finland. But how far due north of this frozen Baltic are these open-sea fishing banks? More than 14 degrees—more than double the distance that lies between the winter quarters of some of our ships in Smith’s Sound and the Pole itself. This proves how greatly physical configuration and oceanic communication may oppose the climatic influences of mere latitude. If the analogy between Baffin’s Bay and the Baltic is complete, a Polar sea will be found that is open in the summer at least.

On the other hand, it may be that ranges of mountains covered with perpetual snow, and valleys piled up with huge glacial accumulations, extend all the way to the Pole, and thus give to our globe an arctic ice-cap like that displayed on the planet Mars. This, however, is very improbable, for, if it were the case, we ought to find a circumpolar ice-wall like that of the antarctic regions; the Arctic Ocean beyond the North Cape should be crowded with icebergs instead of being open and iceless all the year round. With such a configuration the ice-wall should reach Spitzbergen and stretch across to Nova Zembla; but, instead of this, we have there such an open stretch of arctic water, that in the summer of 1876 Captain Kjelsen, of TromsÖ, sailed in a whaler to lat. 81° 30´ without sighting ice. He was then but 510 geographical miles from the Pole, with open sea right away to his north horizon, and nobody can say how much farther.

These problems may all be solved by the proposed expedition. The men are ready and willing; one volunteer has even promised 1000l. on condition that he shall be allowed to have a seat in one of the balloons. All that is wanted are the necessary funds, and the amount required is but a small fraction of what is annually expended at our racecourses upon villainous concoctions of carbonic acid and methylated cider bearing the name of “champagne.”

Arrangements are being made to start next May, but in the meantime many preliminary experiments are required. One of these, concerning which I have been boring Commander Cheyne and the committee, is a thorough and practical trial of the staying properties of hydrogen gas when confined in given silken or other fabrics saturated with given varnishes. We are still ignorant on this fundamental point. We know something about coal-gas, but little or nothing of the hydrogen, such as may be used in the foregoing expedition. Its exosmosis, as proved by Graham, depends upon its adhesion to the surface of the substance confining it. Every gas has its own speciality in this respect, and a membrane that confines a hydrocarbon like coal-gas may be very unsuitable for pure hydrogen, or vice versÂ. Hydrogen passes through hard steel, carbonic oxide through red-hot iron plates, and so on with other gases. They are guilty of most improbable proceedings in the matter of penetrating apparently impenetrable substances.

The safety of the aeronauts and the success of the aerial exploration primarily depends upon the length of time that the balloons can be kept afloat in the air.

A sort of humanitarian cry has been raised against this expedition, on the ground that unnaturally good people (of whom we now meet so many) should not be guilty of aiding and abetting a scheme that may cause the sacrifice of human life. These kind friends may be assured that, in spite of their scruples, the attempt will be made by men who share none of their fears, unless the preliminary experiments prove that a balloon cannot be kept up long enough. Therefore the best way to save their lives is to subscribe at once for the preliminary expense of making these trials, which will either discover means of traveling safely, or demonstrate the impossibility of such ballooning altogether. Such experiments will have considerable scientific value in themselves, and may solve other problems besides those of arctic exploration.

Why not apply balloons to African exploration or the crossing of Australia? The only reply to this is that we know too little of the practical possibilities of such a method of traveling when thus applied. Hitherto the balloon has only been a sensational toy. We know well enough that it cannot be steered in a predetermined line, i.e., from one point to another given point, but this is quite a different problem from sailing over a given surface of considerable area. This can be done to a certain extent, but we want to know definitely to what extent, and what are the limits of reliability and safety. With this knowledge, and its application by the brave and skillful men who are so eager to start, the solution of the Polar mystery assumes a new and far more hopeful phase than it has ever before presented.

The Anglo-American Arctic Expedition.

Commander Cheyne has gone to America to seek the modest equipment that his own countrymen are unable to supply. He proposes now that his expedition shall be “Anglo-American.” I have been asked to join an arctic council, to coÖperate on this side, and have refused on anti-patriotic grounds. As a member of the former arctic committee, I was so much disgusted with the parsimony of our millionaires and the anti-geographical conduct of the Savile Row Mutual Admiration Society, that I heartily wish that in this matter our American grandchildren may “lick the Britishers quite complete.” It will do us much good.

My views, expressed in the “Gentleman’s Magazine” of July 1880, and repeated above, remain unchanged, except in the direction of confirmation and development. I still believe that an enthusiastic, practically trained, sturdy arctic veteran, who has endured hardship both at home and abroad, whose craving eagerness to reach the Pole amounts to a positive monomania, who lives for this object alone, and is ready to die for it, who will work at it purely for the work’s sake—will be the right man in the right place when at the head of a modestly but efficiently equipped Polar expedition, especially if Lieutenant Schwatka is his second in command.

They will not require luxurious saloons, nor many cases of champagne; they will care but little for amateur theatricals; they will follow the naval traditions of the old British “sea-dogs” rather than those of our modern naval lap-dogs, and will not turn back after a first struggle with the cruel arctic ice, even though they should suppose it to be “paleocrystic.”

Mr. Walter Powell.

Scientific aerostation has lost its most promising expert by the untimely death of Walter Powell. He was not a mere sensational ballooner, nor one of those dreamers who imagine they can invent flying machines, or steer balloons against the wind by mysterious electrical devices or by mechanical paddles, fan-wheels, or rudders.

He perfectly understood that a balloon is at the mercy of atmospheric currents and must drift with them, but nevertheless he regarded it as a most promising instrument for geographical research. I had a long conference with him on the subject in August last, when he told me that the main objects of the ascents he had already made, and should be making for some little time forward, were the acquisition of practical skill, and of further knowledge of atmospheric currents; after which he should make a dash at the Atlantic with the intent of crossing to America. On my part, I repeated with further argument what I have already urged on page 113 of the “Gentleman’s Magazine” for July, 1880, viz., the primary necessity of systematic experimental investigation of the rate of exosmosis (oozing out) of the gas from balloons made of different materials and variously varnished.

Professor Graham demonstrated that this molecular permeation of gases and liquids through membranes mechanically air-tight, depends upon the adhesive affinities of particular solids for other particular fluids, and these affinities vary immensely, their variations depending on chemical differences rather than upon mechanical impermeability. My project to attach captive balloons of small size to the roof of the Polytechnic Institution, holding them by a steelyard that should indicate the pull due to their ascending power, and the rate of its decline according to the composition of the membrane, was heartily approved by Mr. Powell, and, had the Polytechnic survived, would have been carried out, as it would have served the double purpose of scientific investigation and of sensational advertisement for the outside public.

If the aeronaut were quite clear on this point—could calculate accurately how long his balloon would float—he might venture with deliberate calculation on journeys that without such knowledge are mere exploits of blind daring.

The varnishes at present used are all permeable by hydrogen gas and hydrocarbon coal-gas, as might be expected, À priori, from the fact that they are themselves solid hydrocarbons, soluble in other liquid or gaseous hydrocarbons. Nothing, as far as I can learn, has yet been done with silicic or boracic varnishes,22 which are theoretically impermeable by hydrogen and its carbon compounds; but whether they are practically so under ballooning conditions, and can be made sufficiently pliable and continuous, are questions only to be solved by practical experiments of the kind above named. Now that the best man for making these experiments is gone, somebody else should undertake them. Unfortunately, they must of necessity be rather expensive.