through the ice fields of the Arctic Ocean. And the subsequent renewal of polar exploration, therefore, proves that the controlling motive was not that of commercial expediency.

BAFFIN'S DISCOVERY OF THE "NORTH WATER." Passing over the semi-commercial voyages made, under the auspices of the Muscovy Company, by Captain Poole in 1611, and by Captain Joseph in 1613, we reach the remarkable voyages of Fotherby along the western coast of Spitzbergen in 1613. But these were followed up in 1616 by the memorable Arctic expedition in which the old navigator, William Baffin, figures so conspicuously. This last was the most successful Arctic voyage of the seventeenth century. "The Discovery, a bark of thirty-five tons, under Sir Thomas Smith, Sir Dudley Digges, John Wolstenholme and others, was fitted out, and placed under the master, Robert Bylot, with Baffin as pilot. Leaving Gravesend in March, the Discovery by July 1 reached the "North Water" of Baffin's Bay, eventually circumnavigating that vast expanse of water to which Baffin's name is given, and attaining the then high latitude of 78 degrees north at the entrance of Smith sound. "It was exactly 200 years," Markham observes, "before any other vessel pursuing the Discovery's track reached the 'North Water.'" The tardiness of explorers to follow Baffin was probably owing to his representations that Smith's, Jones' and Lancaster sounds were enclosed gulfs, precluding any extensive advance to the northwestward.

DUTCH EXPEDITIONS IN THE ICE.

Before the close of the sixteenth century Holland entered the frozen fields of the north in earnest emulation of England. At the instigation of the renowned cosmographer, Peter Plaucius-the original exponent of the "open polar sea" theory-the merchants of Amsterdam in 1594 fitted up a small vessel, the Mercurius, of 100 tons, and despatched her under command of William Barentz. Barentz left the Texel on June 14, and on July 4 sighted Nova Zembla, rounding Cape Nassau and reaching the edge of the ice, and subsequently on August 11, in latitude 70 degrees 45 minutes, "found upon a headland a cross erected, and in the neighborhood of it three wooden buildings, the hull of a Russian vessel and several sacks of meal." But this was a poor beginning toward finding a route to "the land of silks and perfumes," so ardently desired by the Dutch merchants, under whose auspices he was operating. In a second voyage Barentz got as far as the entrance of the Kara Sea-"North Tartaric Ocean," as the Dutch seafarers called it, and returned home in the vain confidence that the long agitated problem of "a route through the ice" to China was completely solved. pelled though this dream quickly was, the brave Barentz in 1596 made a third and most important voyage, in which he discovered Spitzbergen and examined its whole western and part of its northern coast. He was the first European to winter in the Arctic area, where he was detained by his vessel having been hemmed in, and where the next year, just after leaving his winter hut to return home, he expired.

RELICS OF BARENTZ.

Dis

This hut was discovered by the Norwegian Captain Carlsen in 1869, its interior containing all the old explorer had left in it. "There stood," says Markham, "the cookingpans over the fireplace, the old clock against the wall, the arms, the tools, the drinking-vessels, the instruments, and the books that had beguiled the weary hours of that long night 273 years ago." Sixteen men had left Holland with Barentz, of whom twelve only returned. They brought home the first information as to the physical conditions of the high northern regions during the oppressive reign of

the polar night. But the sorrowful issue of all her endeavors to find a northeastern commercial route to China and Japan deterred Holland from further attempts. The necessity for such a route also soon passed away; for as Nordenskiöld in his new book observes, "Houtman returned with the first Dutch fleet from the East Indies the same year that Barentz's companions returned from their wintering," and on April 25, 1607, the Dutch fleet defeated the Spanish at Gibralter, thus securing unmolested navigation of the ocean highways to the East.

ARCTIC MUNCHAUSENS.

From 1612 to 1676 numerous minor expeditions from Western Europe were sent to the northeast, but with no results of a very tangible nature. The Danish expedition of 1653 under De La Martinière-"the Münchausen of the northeast voyages," as he has been well called-probably got so far as the north coast of Norway, and that of Wood and Flawes, sent out from England by Charles II, in 1676, was absolutely without result. Nothing surely could have been expected from this last undertaking, prompted by and planned in accordance with three famous publications in England, gravely representing, on authority of alleged voyages, that the Kara Sea is a fresh water inland lake, that at some distance from the Arctic shores "it never freezes, even at the Pole, except occasionally," and that the pilot of a Greenland ship reported he "had sailed two degrees beyond the Pole," and "found no land or islands about the Pole," and when asked what weather his ship had at the Pole, replied, "fine warm weather, such as was at Amsterdam in the summer time, and as hot!"

RUSSIAN NORTHEAST VOYAGES.

Near the close of the seventeenth century (1690) a Russian seaman named Rodi van Ivanov, with two vessels, penetrated the Kara Sea, among the lofty ice fields of which he suffered shipwreck and wintered there, with the loss, by scurvy, of eleven out of his crew of fifteen. Not until 1757 did any well authenticated Russian expedition follow Ivanov's, when Juschkov, the mate of a hunting vessel, visited Nova Zembla in quest of precious metals, which he never brought home. Three years after Savva Loschkin, according to Baron Nordenskiöld reached Nova Zembla on a hunting expedition, and proved for the first time by journeying around it that it was an island.

ROSSMUISLOV.

In 1768-9, Lieutenant Rossmuislov in a leaky ship-a veritable "floating coffin"-reached and wintered in the vicinity of the Kara Sea. Says the author of "Voyage of the Vega": "Rossmuislov appears to have been a very skilful man in his profession. Without meeting with any obstacle from ice, but at all events with difficulty enough in consequence of the unsuitableness of the vessel, he arrived at Matotschkin Sound, which he carefully surveyed and took soundings in. From a high mountain at its eastern mouth he saw, on the 10th of September, Kara Sea completely free of ice, and the way to the Yenisei thus open; but his vessel was useless for further sailing. He therefore determined to winter at a bay named Tjulanaja Guba, near the eastern entrance to Matotschkin Sound. * 營 * The crew remained during the winter whole days, indeed whole weeks in succession, in their confined dwellings, carefully made tight, without taking any regular exercise in the open air. We can easily understand from this that they could not escape scurvy, by which most of them appear to have been attacked, and of which seven died, among them Tschirakin. It is surprising that any one of them could survive with such a mode of life during the dark polar night. The brewing of quass, the daily baking of bread, and perhaps even the vapor baths, mainly contributed to this."

LUDLOW, LUTKE, PACHTUSSOV. Fifty years elapsed before Rossmuislov's track was followed (in 1807) by the miner Ludlow, sent out to investigate the mineral riches of Nova Zembla, who returned with the first accounts of its geological formation, but with no precious ore. But in the summers of 1821, 1822, 1823, and 1824 Captain (afterward Admiral Count) Lütke made important scientific surveys and investigations in this island, which guards the western entrance to the famed Northeast Passage. He was followed in 1832 by Pachtussov, of whom Nordenskiöld says: "Pachtussov could not penetrate into the Kara Sea, but wintered the first time on South Nova Zembla, in 70 degrees 36 minutes north latitude and 59 degrees 32 minutes east longitude (Greenwich), in an old house which he found there, and which, according to an inscription on a cross in its neighborhood, had been built in 1759. This ruinous house was repaired with drift-wood, which was found in great abundance in that region. A separate bath house was built, and was connected with the dwelling house by a passage formed of empty barrels and covered with canvas. Eleven days were spent in putting the old house in such repair that it could be occupied. It was afterward kept so warm that the inmates could stay there in their shirt sleeves without freezing. The commander, clear-headed and specially fitted for his post as he was, did not permit his crew to fall into habits of idleness, dirt and laziness, but kept them to regular work, bathing and change of linen twice a week. Every second hour meteorological observations were taken. During the whole winter the crew remained in good health, but in spring (March) scurvy broke out, notwithstanding the precautions that were taken, and two men died of it in May."

No very fruitful and important Russian expedition to Nova Zembla is to be noted after this till Paul von Krusentern's in 1862, which, though it met with disaster, gave the world the first complete sketch of a passage from west to east over the Kara Sea, so long mare incognitum. The Norwegians who first visited the Nova Zembla seas were Elling Carlsen in 1868, Edward Johannseen in 1869, Mack in 1871, Tobiesen in 1872, all of whom made valuable contributions to our knowledge of these seas, which have been recorded by Petermann and other writers, and which made the way clearer for the Swedish expedition in 1878, when it successfully solved the problem of a Northeast Passage.

THE POLE FIRST SCIENTIFICALLY ATTEMPTED.

Returning to England's geographical work, we find that the first scientific polar expedition was sent out at the suggestion of the Royal Society in 1773, under Captain Phipps and Lutwidge (in the two ships Racehorse and Carcass), who reached Spitzbergen June 28 and attained the latitude | of 80 degrees 48 minutes north-only twenty-five miles further north than Hudson got in his "cockboat" 166 years previously. In 1778 the famous Captain Cook, on his third voyage with the Resolution and Discovery, passed up the northwest coast of North America, determined the westernmost coast of this continent, surveyed Behring Strait, and on August 17 was arrested by the ice in 70 degrees 41 minutes, near Icy Cape. But little was done after this by the English until 1818, when Sir John Barrow, discarding the idea of finding polar commercial routes, proposed Arctic explorations avowedly designed for the acquisition of useful knowledge and obtaining scientific data within the north polar circle. At his instance two expeditions were started-one under Sir John Ross, which circumnavigated Baffin's Bay; the other under Buchan pierced the pack north of Spitzbergen. As respects reaching high latitudes within the glacial zone these voyages fell short of Captain Scoresby's of 1806, when the last named and illustrious navigator penetrated to 81 degrees, 30 minutes north,

within 511 miles of the Pole, then the extremest northern point ever reached. But in 1819 Parry began his memorable voyages in the Hecla and Griper, spending two winterson the coast of Melville Peninsula, and four years later Clavering penetrated the massive ice of the East Greenland Sea to enable General Sabine to take pendulum observations on its upper coast. On his return from his third Arctic voyage, in 1827, the indomitable Parry made his celebrated attempt to reach the Pole from Spitzbergen, in boats fitted on runners. But the ice fields on which he traveled north drifted southward faster than his party could advance. Nevertheless he attained the extraordinary latitude of 82 degrees 45 minutes! This was the highest point reached by man until, in 1875, the Nares expedition exceeded it, reaching, by sledge journeying over the "Sea of Ancient Ice," which, it seems, hermetically closes the northern outlet of Smith Sound, to 83 degrees 20 minutes 26 seconds. Not without some show of reason does Hartwig say: "He who laments over the degeneracy of the human race may perhaps come to a different opinion when reading of Parry and his companions."

DISCOVERY OF THE MAGNETIC POLE.

It was only four years after Parry's wonderful journey on an ice floe that his young countryman, James Ross, attending his uncle, Sir John Ross, on his second Arctic cruise (in the Victory), made the important discovery of the North Magnetic Pole and planted the British flag on its site in Boothia, latitude 78 degrees north, longitude 97 degrees west —a discovery of the greatest interest to the science of terrestrial magnetism and the cause of navigation in every quarter of the ocean.

The journeys of the English explorers-Mackenzie, Sir John Richardson, Franklin, Simpson, Dease, Back, and Rae-over the dreary regions of Arctic America and along the shores of the American polar seas, carried out mostly between 1832 and 1846, fill many chapters replete with meteorological, geographical and ethnographical discoveries in the annais of northern research. Although these overland journeys were not prosecuted to very high latitudes, their scientific results were such as to demonstrate that the value of Arctic explorations is by no means determined by the latitude in which they are conducted, and that often the largest benefits of such investigations can be secured without going beyond the seventy-fifth parallel.,

SIR JOHN FRANKLIN.

Following on the heels of these continental journeys was the last expedition of Sir John Franklin, the most memorable of all voyages to the polar ocean. Franklin's ships, the Erebus and Terror, of Antarctie fame, sailed from England May 26, 1845, to make a new and grand attempt to trace the Northwest Passage from the Atlantic, round North America, through Behring Strait, into the Pacific Ocean. Franklin, then in his sixtieth year, commanded the Erebus, and Captain Crozier the Terror. For two years the expedition was not heard from; but, incited by the devoted wife of the commander, several ships were sent in search of it. The great search was pushed energetically up to 1850, when the Investigator, under Captain McClure, gallantly forced her way through the Behring Strait channel and up Prince of Wales Strait within sight of Melville Sound. As Sir John Richardson said, "Captain McClure, by this perilous voyage, found a strait connecting the continental channel with Melville Sound, and thus discovered the Northwest Passage." But no trace of Franklin was found, and not until 1854, when Dr. Rae was informed by the Esquimaux that a party of his countrymen had perished by starvation about 1850 on King William's Land, was any clear clew to their fate obtained. The following year Mr. Anderson, of the Hudson Bay Company, crossed overland to the mouth of the Great Fish River,

and in 1857 Captain (afterward Sir) Leopold McClintock started in the Fox to examine the whole scene of Franklin's disaster. The facts brought to light show that in the summer of 1845 Sir John reached his highest latitude--77 degrees north-in Wellington Channel (the same parallel at which the Jeannette, in the polar ocean north of the New Siberian Islands, was moving last June when she was crushed in the ice). In 1846 Franklin's ships were finally beset near King William's Land in 70 degrees 5 minutes north, and 98 degrees 33 minutes west, where, on June 11, 1847, the great explorer died. Though the crews of both his ships perished to the last man, Franklin had actually discovered the Northwest Passage, and, as an able geographer, J. Francon Williams, and others have shown, "ninety miles more of open water would have enabled Franklin to carry his ships into the open Arctic Sea."

In the great search for Franklin a host of explorers joined, prominent among whom were MacClure in the Investigator (1850-1854), Collinson in the Enterprise (1850-1855), Austin in the Resolute (1850-1851), Ommany in the Assistance (1850-1851), Penny in the Lady Franklin (1850-1851), Forsyth in the Prince Albert (1850), Lieutenant De Haven, of the United States Navy, in the Advance (1850-1851), S. P. Griffin, United States Navy, in the Rescue, fitted out at the expense of Mr. Henry Grinnell, of this city (1850-1851); besides Sherard Osborn in the Pioneer, McClintock in the Intrepid, Pullen in the North Star, Inglefield in the Isabel, and Kellett in the Resolute, during the years 1852-1854.

AMERICAN EXPEDITION-KANE AND HAYES.

To the American expeditions just noted, under Penny and Griffin, must be added that of Dr. Kane in the Advance (1853), which is known as the American-Grinnell Expedition. Though it failed in its chief object of finding Franklin's relics, its results are thus well summed up by Guernsey: "1. The survey and delineation of the north coast of Greenland to its apparent termination by the great glacier.

"2. The survey of this glacier ("Humboldt" glacier) and its extension northward.

"3. The discovery and delineation of a large tract of land forming the northward extension of the American continent.

"4. The discovery of a large channel to the northwest, free of ice and apparently leading to an open sea.

"5. The completed survey of the coast as far south and west as Cape Sabine in Smith's Strait, connecting with the previous surveys of Captain Inglefield and completing the circuit of the straits and bays opening from Davis Strait an leading into the Polar Sea."

The late Dr. Hayes in 1860 carried forward Kane's brilliant work in the ship United States up Smith's Sound, attaining by boat and sledge expedition the remarkable latitude of 81 degrees 35 minutes, within seventy miles of Parry's "furthest north," and, with this exception, nearer the Pole than any previous Aretic traveler had gone.

HALL.

After two minor journeys to Arctic lands the American explorer, Charles Francis Hall, sailed from New York in the ill-fated Polaris June 19, 1871. Entering Smith's Sound, Hall pushed across Kane Sea and Kennedy Channel up to the high latitude of 82 degrees 16 minutes, on August 30 of the same year, thus making higher northing by ship than had ever before been made within the frigid zone.

SCHWATKA'S SEARCH.

The details of the Schwatka expedition made in 1878-80, with the design of clearing up more fully the mystery of Franklin's fate, of finding his records and of conducting geographical research in Arctic America, are too fresh in

the public memory to require extended notice in this paper. Suffice it to say that Lieutenant Schwatka accomplished, in the opinion of veteran Arctic explorers, one of the most extraordinary journeys, with small resources and amid very great difficulties in the wilds of the frozen area, on record. As the London Times said, "Lieutenant Schwatka has now resolved the last doubts which could have been felt; he has gathered the relics by which friends and relatives may identify their dead, and he has carried home with him the material evidence to complete the annals of Arctic exploration."

"NORTHEAST PASSAGE" EXPEDITION.

The full accounts of the American Arctic expedition in the Jeannette not having been yet received, it would be premature in this resume of the leading expeditions of Arctic history to attempt a description of its movements or to estimate the value of the results which it has achieved in a part of the Polar Ocean never before traversed.

The Jeannette expedition, which we know bent its course northwest from Behring Strait, falls into that long category of northern enterprises which are ranked by geographers as having been conducted in the Eastern or Asiatic Polar Sea, and hence as the "Northeast Passage" expeditions. Some of these have been already noted above, but in tracing the history of the "Northwest Passage" expeditions we have for the moment lost sight of others. With the failure of the British expedition under Sir George Nares in 1875 to find the Smith's Sound route to the Pole open, and their discovery that to the immediate north of the eighty-second parallel this long-reputed polar gateway is blocked and barricaded by the "Palæocrystic Sea" of ancient ice, answering in solid reality to

Those wastes of frozen billows that were hurled By everlasting snow storms round the Pole, -the last reasonable hope of finding a way to the coveted goal of northern voyagers in that direction died. Sir George's brief telegraphic summary was: "Pole impracticable," "No land to northward," and some of the ablest physicists, as Professor Houghton, have recently expressed their conviction that the "Northwest Passage" will never be made, as it never has been, by ship. Otherwise, since the Vega's voyage, we know it is as respects the "Northeast Passage," and hence at this time public attention and interest is most centred on voyages tending to throw light on the latter route.

EXPEDITIONS NORTH OF ASIA.

Besides the northeastern expeditions we have named, there are others which essayed to reach and survey the Asiatic or Siberian Polar Sea both from the Atlantic and Pacific sides.

THE JEANNETTE.

When the details of the Jeannette's perilous voyage north of the "Northeast Passage" are in hand, geographers will then be in a better position than ever before to determine how far the "Northeast Passage" is likely to become in any large degree open to navigation, as well as to guage more accurately the gigantic ice forces which tend to close its gates to the navigator. Happily, though apparently without concert, the expeditions of Nordenskiöld and De Long dovetail into and supplement each other. Though the Jeannette returns not from the far off polar bourne to which, amid storm and darkness and the crash of colossal glacial masses, she advanced, it can not but be that the discoveries made by her gallant crew will not only fecundate science generally, but will also afford the most complete solution ever yet made of the grand geographic problem which from Cabot's day to the present has agitated northeastern ex| plorers.-New York Herald.

43. Q. How was traveling accomplished? A. On land, by mail coaches at seven or eight miles an hour. On sea, in little trading ships whose movements were grotesquely uncertain. Poor people ordinarily journeyed on foot.

44. Q. What is said of the manners of the times? A. A general coarseness of manners prevailed. Profane swearing was the constant practice of gentlemen, and ladies swore orally and in their letters.

45. Q. What was the educational condition of the English people? A. It was alarmingly defective. In 1818 it was found that more than one-half of the children were growing up without education.

46. Q. What method of settling disputes was familiarly practiced during the earlier years of the century? Dueling.

A.

47. Q. What produced undue mortality in the cities? A. The filth of the streets and of the dwellings of the poor.

48. Q. In the forty years from 1780 to 1820 how much did the average duration of human life lengthen? A. From one death in every forty of the population to only one in every fifty-seven.

49. Q. What is said of the political power of the people of England and Scotland at the opening of the century? A. The people of England had little influence, and no authority over their government. The people of Scotland were utterly excluded from any part in the representation.

50. Q. After many years of agitation, what great reform measure in the representative system was passed in 1832? A. The reform bill, inaugurating government of the people, by the people, and for the people.

51. Q. Within a few years previous to the passage of the reform bill what three measures had been passed in redress of existing wrongs? A. In 1824 combination of workingmen was legalized; in 1828 the test act, which excluded Roman Catholics from Parliament or any office of the crown, was repealed; in 1829 a bill was passed removing Catholic disabilities.

52. Q. In 1833, the year following the passage of the reform bill, what two measures were passed in redress of wrongs? A. The abolition of slavery in the West Indian possessions, and the prohibition of the employment of children under nine in factories, followed later by a reduction of the hours of labor to ten a day for all females, and males under eighteen.

53. Q. Within a few years following the reform bill mention three subjects that received the attention of parliamentary enactments in the way of reform. A. The education of the people, the privilege of self-government in local affairs, and the evils of pauperism.

54. Q. What heavy tax on the spread of intelligence was largely removed in 1836? A. The tax of four pence on each copy of the newspaper.

55. Q. What measure was adopted in 1839, the example of which has been gradually followed by every civilized state? A. The penny postage law.

56. Q. In 1843 what measure was passed in reference to the employment of women and children in mines? A. Henceforth women were forbidden to work in mines, and children were not suffered to be employed until they were ten years of age, and then with limitation of the hours of work.

57. Q. The two hundred and twenty-three capital offences at the opening of the century were reduced by 1837 to what number? A. Seven.

58. Q. What law was totally repealed in 1846, leading the way to British free trade? A. The corn law.

59. Q. How is the net expenditure of the British nation of seventy-five millions raised? A. Forty millions is levied on intoxicating drinks and tobacco; five millions on tea; the

balance is contributed by the wealthier class in the form of income tax, stamp duties, and otherwise.

60. Q. What are four important problems that the British people have yet failed to solve? A. The land question, the liquor question, the labor question, and the extravagant cost of government.

61. Q. In what way have large improvements been made in the condition of the English people during the present century? A. In the sanitary condition, and the duration of human life.

62. Q. What classes have been largely relieved from ancient disabilities of an irritating and insulting description? A. Dissenters from the Established Church of England, and Jews.

63. Q. What reform bill was passed' in 1837? A. One greatly extending the electoral franchise.

64. Q. What important measure was enacted into a law in 1870? A. A bill providing for national education, and giving powers to enforce compulsory attendance of children at school.

65. Q. In 1869, what law was passed in reference to the Irish Church? A. An enactment for the disendowment and disestablishment of the Irish Church.

66. Q. After the passage of the reform bill of 1832, in what document did the extreme members of the liberal party embody their demands? A. In a document which they termed the "People's Charter."

67. Q. What six points did this document embrace? A. Universal suffrage; annual parliaments; vote by ballot; abolition of property qualifications for a seat in the House of Commons; payment of members; equal electoral districts.

68. Q. How did the more numerous section of the Chartist party seek to attain their ends? A. By violence; but with the return of prosperity the agitation for the "People's Charter" soon passed into forgetfulness.

69. Q. What is said of Chartism now? A. Much of it is embodied in British law.

70. Q. For how many years during the eighteenth century was England engaged in war? A. For more than fifty years.

71. Q. Since the battle of Waterloo what is the most important war in which England has been engaged? A. The war of the Crimea, with Russia.

72. Q. Name six of the countries with which England has been engaged in petty wars during the past sixty years. A. Turkey, India, China, Persia, New Zealand, and Abyssinia. 73. Q. How have England and America given to the world the first great example of the peaceful settlement of differences? A. By reference to the judgment of impartial persons of the matter of the Alabama claims.

74. Q. What is said relative to differences between England and other countries? A. It is scarcely possible that a difference could arise between England and America, England and Germany, or England and France, in regard to which a peaceful solution is not attainable.

75. Q. How does England expend a net revenue of seventyone millions sterling? A. Twenty-eight millions in interest on debt incurred by the wars of the past, twenty-seven millions on her preparation for the wars of the future, and sixteen millions for her civil charges.

76. Q. What proportion of the goods imported from all the foreign countries of the world goes to England? A. Nearly one-half.

77. Q. How do the exports from England compare with those of all the rest of the world? A. They are equal to onethird of all of the rest of the world.

78. Q. How many of the seventy millions of spindles employed in the production of cotton fabrics belong to the people of the British Islands? A. Forty millions.