Page:Proposed Expedition to Explore Ellesmere Land - 1894.djvu/35

7 number at the primary station is never to exceed 15, which is less than the usual size of an Eskimo settlement. The number at each secondary station is not to exceed five.

(5) In Howgate's plan, exploration was to cease with the attainment of the Pole. The present plan contemplates a network of stations all over the unknown area, to be maintained for at least ten years, perhaps permanently.

When the line by way of Jones Sound is well established, it may with great advantage be supplemented by another, by way of Franz Josef Land, supplied by the Norwegian whalers, and by a third, by way of Point Barrow, supplied by the American whalers. Other possible lines will readily occur to the well-informed reader. If there was question merely of reaching the Pole, and if funds were ample and time short, the line by way of Franz Josef Land would undoubtedly be the best; but for inaugurating the safest and cheapest system of exploration and of scientific investigation of the whole unknown area, to be continued at leisure for many years, the Jones Sound line is incomparably superior to all others. (This statement is made with the full approval of Commodore Melville, the most decided advocate of the Franz Josef Land route for reaching the Pole.)

The west coast of Ellesmere Land, which is to be the first fruit of the proposed systematic exploration, cannot be said to be entirely unknown. Dr. Franz Boas, who spent a year among the Eskimos of Cumberland Sound, obtained from them information which enabled him to publish (in Science, 1855, vol. v, p. 171) a map of the west coast of Ellesmere Land, called by those natives Umingman Nuna, or Musk-ox Land. If this map is verified, it will lend additional interest to the expedition. In a subsequent article {Science, 1887, vol. x, p. 3), speaking of Polar exploration, Dr. Boas says:

"The problem which is of greatest importance is the exploration of the islands west of Smith Sound. There are two starting-points for such expeditions—Hayes Sound and Jones Sound. Eskimo reports lead us to suppose that Hayes Sound forms a