Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 27.djvu/93

Rh Land. There can be no doubt that such a plan will be expensive, and not so apt to produce stirring results as any other; however, it is not the purpose of the outgoing explorers to become sufferers and enduring heroes, but to bring home results which are important for their science. The meteorological stations which were established in 1882-'83 were the first step to the organization of an enterprise like that we demand, and their results will show the utility of well-founded plans.

Hitherto I have only referred to the exploration of the unknown region never visited by men. There is more work left, however, which has to be included in a comprehensive plan of research. The southern parts of the Arctic regions—for example, the east shore of Greenland, many of the immense fjords of its west shore, Baffin Land, and the central parts of the north shore of America—are barely delineated. If we look at the charts, we might be induced to believe that most of these lands are sufficiently known, while, indeed, every new journey discloses the deficiency of our knowledge. These countries, which may be reached without serious difficulties, are the proper place for investigations of great importance, and the exploration of these parts of the Arctic is even more urgent than that of the far north, as the study of the numerous tribes which live on the shore of the Arctic Ocean has to be accomplished very soon; else the rapid diminution of those peoples and the influence of European civilization will deprive the ethnographer of anything to study but their moldering remains.

It is easily understood why, after the northwest passage was found, no new researches in this part of the world were made. Many of the explorers, or those who planned the expeditions, were often more anxious to find sensational results than to further science. Polar exploration is now mostly considered merely the ambitious struggle of expeditions to get a few miles farther north than all the former explorers. We have tried to prove, in our remarks, that its aim is much nobler, and worth all the sacrifices which are brought to it.



N my introductory paper I said, "The fact that we use the digestive and nutrient apparatus of sheep, oxen, etc., for the preparation of our food is merely a transitory barbarism, to be ultimately superseded when my present subject is sufficiently understood and applied to enable us to prepare the constituents of the vegetable kingdom to be 