Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 126.djvu/44

 which other sceptical souls have long ceased to plice any faith in? Perhaps not. Still there is no use denying that "there is a great deal to be said" in favour of "the open Polar Sea."

Dr. Hooker's classical paper on the Arctic flora has so fully explained the peculiar condition of the vegetation of Greenland that, if even my space permitted, any explanation of the phytogeography of that country is unnecessary.

The vegetation — meagre as in all probability it must be — of the far North must be extremely interesting. Already Smith's Sound has yielded additions to the Greenland phanerogamous plants. There are many puzzling varieties of Arctic plants, epilobiums, drabas, dryas, &c., which it would be well to investigate; and the whole flora should be studied, not from the mere dried-hay point of view, but with reference to its origin and nature, as so lucidly and philosophically explained in the treatise of the president of the Royal Society just mentioned. The cryptogams will yield many novelties; lichens, mosses, algæ, &c., will all be found in abundance. We know little of the Arctic algæ. Disco Bay yielded to the present writer almost as many species as had been previously known from the whole Arctic regions. Botany, however, will not be the branch of natural history which will be most advanced by this expedition. Geology or zoölogy will be the greatest winners.

I have only taken up these three sciences as specimens of what maybe done. Even then I have only touched upon one or two points. Had I more space at my disposal, I could have pointed out a score of other questions still requiring solution, and which this expedition can assist in solving, if not solve altogether.

The other branches of science I have purposely avoided, as being foreign to my studies, and my opinion on them can therefore be of little value. Mr. Markham has given an outline of what additions to our knowledge in these departments we may look for from researches in these fields of knowledge, and to his work I refer the reader. For instance, a series of pendulum-observations at or near the Pole would be of service in determining the true figure of the earth. The nearest point to the Pole at which the pendulum has been swung for geodetical purposes is six hundred miles from that point, and yet Sir Edward Sabine's observations are those which we chiefly rely upon for our knowledge of the earth's figure towards its northern termination. Terrestrial magnetism, and the study of the aurora by spectrum analysis, will yield good results — perhaps entirely new. The meteorology, the temperature of the sea at different depths, the nature of the currents, are all important subjects, and may be advanced by the researches of the officers of this expedition.

Finally, additions to our knowledge of the ethnology of the far North may be advanced by a study of the few remnants of the Eskimo now living in Smith's Sound, by an investigation of their kjokkenmöddings, or refuse heaps and grave-mounds, their wanderings, &c. It may be found, though this is not probable, that detached tribes may be found still higher north than we yet know, and I think it is not improbable that the Eskimo of the east coast of Greenland doubled with the lemming and the musk of the northern extremity of the continent, and then spread to the south. In this case it would be interesting to compare the remains, implements, &c., of Smith's Sound with those of the east coast, brought home by the German expedition, or contained in the Ethnological Museum in Copenhagen.

Elaborate instructions will no doubt be supplied to the naturalists regarding all of these questions. It is to be hoped that they, like the commander, will not be hampered by too many instructions prepared by naturalists, who, however eminent, may be unaware of the difficulties which a naturalist has to meet with in his researches in such a region. If they are qualified — as doubtless they are — for the duties, then they may be safely left to do what they can. If they are not qualified, then for the credit of English science they had better be left at home. No one, however, who knows the stuff out of which the expedition is composed, will ever hesitate in believing that — though such an expedition is to a great extent at the beck of the ice, and a hundred other circumstances which those who have never sailed the ice-choked seas of the North can have little 