is not by drifting about in pack-ice at a distance from land, but by carefully examining hundreds of miles of coast-line, that useful work is to be done in the unknown region.

The Spitzbergen route stands condemned by the experience of the highest Arctic authorities, because it is impracticable; because partial success would place an expedition in a position of extreme danger; and because few of the results of Polar exploration are attainable in that direction. We are convinced that it would be far better to delay the despatch of an expedition until the Government is willing to fit one out on an efficient scale, and to send it in the right direction, than to rest satisfied with a steamer being despatched to the Spitzbergen Seas, and to see the subject shelved for the next twenty years, after her

return.

Hitherto our attention has been engaged by the fruitless endeavours of many successive voyagers, during two centuries, to penetrate the mighty Polar pack between Greenland and Nova Zembla. It will now be a more pleasant task to examine the voyages up Baffin's Bay, where a less formidable pack has been annually encountered, battled with, and overcome; and where this annual victory over the ice leads to the achievement of a position whence a system of North Polar exploration can be organised by the only thorough and efficient means-namely, modern Arctic travelling. Soon after the return of Buchan's expedition, it occurred to those two most eminent of our Arctic worthies, Sir John Franklin and Sir Edward Parry, that the true way of effecting North Polar exploration was by means of travelling with sledges over the ice. A plan of this kind was originally proposed by Franklin soon after his return in the 'Trent,' and it was carried into execution by Parry, in 1827. That great discoverer was wrong, as it turned out, in the route he took, and in the time of year he selected for his journey; but he laid the foundation for the thorough system of Arctic investigation by means of sledges, which has since borne such rich fruit, and which has been brought to perfection by the genius of Sir Leopold M'Clintock. The idea of Franklin and Parry was to start from the most northern land; and had the discoveries of Kane and Hayes been known to them, they would of course have selected Smith Sound as their starting-point. To Admiral von Wrangell, the explorer of Arctic Siberia, belongs the credit of having first suggested Smith Sound as the best route for North Polar exploration; and the labours of two American expeditions have since demonstrated the correctness of his views. Exploration by sledge travelling is now advocated by the Arctic officers of greatest

experience.

experience. Among them we may mention Sir George Back and Admiral Bird, the friends and companions of Franklin, Parry, and Ross; Admiral Collinson, who passed three winters in the ice; Sir Leopold M'Clintock, the discoverer of the fate of Franklin, the inventor of Arctic travelling, who has passed six winters and ten summers in the Arctic regions, and whose experience is greater than that of any other living authority; Sherard Osborn, the steady, unswerving advocate of the Franklin search, and the reviver of public interest in Polar enterprise; Vesey Hamilton, the persevering and intrepid explorer of the northern extreme of Melville Island; M'Dougall, the expert surveyor, who served in two Arctic expeditions. Nor can we thus enumerate the names of Arctic travellers without dwelling for a few moments on the work of one of their brightest ornaments. George Frederick Mecham was the beau ideal of an Arctic traveller. Never was an officer more beloved by his messmates and by his men. Genial and warm-hearted, he was the life and soul of the winter amusements, and, when the season for work arrived, it was Mecham who performed the most wonderful feat of Arctic travelling on record. An accurate and painstaking observer, full of resource, and endowed with indomitable resolution, he was at the same time most careful of the comforts of his men. When the subject of Polar exploration is discussed, the first feeling of those who served in the search for Franklin will be one of deep regret that the great ability, the high resolve, the numerous qualities for command, which were united in the character of the lamented Mecham, are lost to us for ever.

There are still many officers of ability and experience who would worthily second M'Clintock in the glorious enterprise of North Polar exploration by way of Smith Sound; and dense will be the crowd of volunteers when it is known that the well-known name is Gazetted for the command. Two 60-horse power gunboats, well strengthened, and provisioned for three years, with picked crews of young officers and men, would secure all the results that have already been enumerated, under the guidance of such leaders as M'Clintock, Osborn, Hamilton, Richards, or Allen Young, and complete the greatest geographical discovery that remains to be accomplished.

The navigation of Baffin's Bay is impeded by the 'middle pack; and it is necessary to say a few words on the passage of this obstacle, because it has been made the ground of a futile objection to the route by Smith Sound. The drift of vast masses of ice into the Atlantic invariably causes the existence of a wide open sheet of water in the upper end of Baffin's Bay, and for

some

some distance within Lancaster and Smith Sound, during the summer and early autumn, which is known as the North Water.' But there is a mass of drifting ice between the North Water' and Davis Strait, averaging from 170 to 200 miles in width, and blocking up the centre of Baffin's Bay, called by the whalers the 'Middle Pack.' The ice here is hardly a fourth part of the thickness of that in the Spitzbergen Seas, the former being from five to eight feet thick, and the latter from twenty to thirty. Old Baffin gallantly led the way to the North Water' in 1616, and no man ever followed in his wake until two whalers, the 'Larkins' of Leith, and Elizabeth' of Aberdeen, successfully passed the barrier in 1817. From that time the fleet of whalers annually entered the ice, and pushed for the North Water.' The only safe passage through the Middle Pack' is called by the whalers the North-about passage, and it may always be successfully performed, if not in June, then in July-if not in July, then in August. On the coast of Greenland, between the parallels of 73° and 76°, there is a wide indentation open to the south, called Melville Bay. The ice formed in it, owing to the configuration of the land, is not exposed to the general drift down Baffin's Bay, and remains firmly fixed to the coast, often extending from it to a distance of thirty to fifty miles. The prevailing winds in the early part of the season are from the north, in which case the drifting pack is blown off shore, and leaves a lane of open water along the land-floe of Melville Bay. When the wind is from the south, the pack drifts into Melville Bay, but in that case the land-floe is a source of protection, for, as the drifting ice presses against it, the land-ice, being oldest, almost invariably proves the strongest of the two. A dock is then cut in the land-ice, and a ship may ride in safety until the pressure eases off. Thus, by sticking to the land-floe of Melville Bay, a vessel is never at the mercy of a drifting pack; and though there may frequently be detention, no ground is ever lost, and final success is the reward of perseverance.

The earliest passage into the North Water' was accomplished on June 12, 1849, and the average passages of the whalers during twenty-three years have been effected before July 13. There is not a single year from 1817 to 1849 in which no whaler had got through; and in the years 1825, 1828, 1832, 1833, and 1834, the whole fleet reached the North Water' before the middle of June. It so happens that unless the whalers get through so as to reach Pond's Bay in July, it is not worth while to persevere, and they give up the attempt. The navigable season, however, continues until the end of August, so that dis

6

covery

covery ships may always count upon effecting the passage at some period between May and September. Discovery ships have been sent up Baffin's Bay thirty-eight times since 1818, and only on two occasions have they failed to reach the North Water' during the navigable season. One of these failures was experienced by the North Star,' in 1849, but she did not arrive at the edge of the ice until the end of July, and if she had been earlier in the field she would have succeeded. This is certain; for in the very same year the 'St. Andrew,' of Aberdeen, reached the North Water' on June 12th. The other instance of want of success was in the case of the 'Fox,' in 1857; but she was still later in the season, not arriving in Melville Bay until the middle of August. Had she been earlier she would have succeeded; and when M'Clintock, with that indomitable perseverance which has been his characteristic ever since he commenced Arctic exploration, again charged the barrier, on the 18th of June in the following year, he was in the North Water' by the 27th.

Whalers, it is true, are often destroyed by the ice; but discovery ships, being strongly fortified, are not exposed to the same risk, and not one has ever been destroyed in Baffin's Bay. A good nip merely causes a little pleasurable excitement. The beauty of the scenery, the wonderful effects of refraction round the horizon, the cutting of docks and charging and blasting of ice, all combine to render the Melville Bay detention a most enjoyable and exhilarating time. Here may be seen the stupendous icebergs, which are among the most sublime of nature's works, with their brilliant emerald and sapphire tints. Here the majestic movements of mighty floes may be watched, and that still grander sight when a nip causes the rapid formation of a long ridge of ice-hummocks, and when huge blocks are reared one upon the other with a loud grinding moan. The passage of Melville Bay may be a time of anxiety; but he must be dead to all sense of the beautiful in nature who does not derive an equal amount of pleasure from scenes of such unsurpassed grandeur and interest. Skill and judgment in watching the ice and selecting leads are required in this navigation; but an early arrival in Melville Bay ensures the certainty of reaching the North Water' during the navigable season. The average detention for steamers in Melville Bay has been twenty-two days, and it has sometimes taken place under exceptionally unfavourable circumstances; and curiously enough this is exactly the time that it took brave old Baffin to cross Melville Bay in 1616, in a little craft of 55 tons. It will be hard, indeed, if powerful steamers cannot do as well as this 55-ton fly-boat. We may count upon a successful passage of the 'Middle Pack' from a consideration of the nature of the ice and

the

the physical causes which influence its movements, from the fact that whalers have almost annually reached the North Water' since 1817; and from an examination of all former voyages of discovery, in thirty-six of which out of thirty-eight the ice-obstructions in Melville Bay were overcome.

Once in the North Water,' all obstacles to an exploration, more or less extensive, of the unknown region are at an end. From Cape York there is invariably a navigable sea to Smith Sound in the summer months.

It was on the 6th of July, 1616, that Baffin made the chief discovery of his voyage, namely, the entrance of the 'greatest and largest sound in all this bay.' It is the portal leading north into the vast unknown region, and the only point in the whole circuit of the 80th parallel, where lines of coast stretch away towards the Pole. Baffin gave it a very common name; but the worshipful person from whom Smith Sound derives its name was no common man. Sir Thomas Smith was the first Governor of the East India Company: he fostered the early efforts of that mighty Company which afterwards founded an empire, he superintended the early voyages to India, and patronised those of Hudson and Baffin. In 1818 Ross saw the entrance to Smith Sound from a great distance, and named the two capes on either side after his ships-Isabella and Alexander. Whalers may have sighted and even entered Smith Sound since the voyage of Ross, and in 1852 Captain Inglefield went just inside the Capes, but did not land. From this position, on August 26, 1852, he saw an open sea stretching through seven points of the horizon, apparently unencumbered with ice, though bounded on the east and west by two distinct headlands. Baffin had discovered Smith Sound in 1616; but no civilised man explored it or landed on its shores until the year 1853, when Dr. Kane, in the little schooner Advance' of 120 tons, undertook to lead an American expedition to the far northern regions. Like Baffin's little Discovery,' the Advance' only had a crew of seventeen men, and she was but poorly provided for an Arctic winter. In latitude 78° 45′ N., Kane found the ice extending in a drifting mass across the channel of Smith Sound in August, and the coast on either side rose in precipitous cliffs to a height of 800 or 1200 feet. At their base there was a belt of ice, about 18 feet thick, resting on the beach-a sort of permanent frozen ridge, to which Kane gave the name of ice-foot. The pack was drifting south, and many icebergs were moving up and down with the tide. After a gallant but ineffectual attempt to force his way through the pack to the northward, the new ice began to form, and on September 10th the Advance' was frozen in, on the west side of Smith Sound, in latitude 78° 37' N.

Here