Page:Polar Exploration - Bruce - 1911.djvu/243

Rh comfort. It also means making another step into the forever unfathomable unknown, and it is the duty of the scientific explorer as a pioneer to investigate a definite area of the unknown with a staff of competent specialists.

Modern Polar exploration must be conducted in this manner. Having decided whether one's energies are to be applied to the Arctic or Antarctic Regions, the explorer has to make up his mind whether it be land or sea that he is about to explore, and, having determined that, and being well acquainted with the literature of his subject, and having had previous practical training in the work he is about to undertake, he chooses his definite area. It may be a large or a small area. It may be one that has been previously traversed and of which a hazy idea may be had. It may be over lands untrodden by the foot of man or seas as yet unfathomed. Suppose it is a detailed investigation of the North Polar Basin. The explorer must first have a good ship, built somewhat on the lines of the Scotia or Fram, for resisting and evading ice pressure, and, following the idea of Nansen's drift, he will sail for the Behring Straits, making his base of departure British Columbia or Japan. Then working northward as far as possible through the pack ice, the ship will eventually be beset firmly in the autumn or even earlier, and, if she be of the right build, with safety.