We have only to cast our eyes over the map of the world, and we shall at once see how small a portion is as yet thoroughly explored. On a recent occasion, when the discoveries of Mr. Taylor, in the region round the sources of the Tigris, were under discussion, Sir Henry Rawlinson truly remarked that, out of Europe, we really know little of the geography of the world, beyond the high roads of communication. Palestine itself, the common fatherland of all Christians, is not half known, and still awaits the operations of a modern exploration Society.
Central Asia is not more accessible than it was in the days of Marco Polo. The land routes from India and Burmah to China are closed to us. Corea and New Guinea are unknown lands. Africa is a vast continent teeming with unsolved geographical problems. In South America, thousands upon thousands of square miles have never been trodden by a civilized explorer. But it is in the extreme north and south that the widest extent of unknown region still offers a field for enterprise.
The North Polar region, that immense tract of hitherto impenetrated land and sea which surrounds one end of the axis of our earth, is one of the most interesting fields of discovery that remain. To 'the people of this country it should have a peculiar charm, for the record of maritime, and especially of Arctic enterprise, runs, like a bright silver thread, through the history of the English nation, lighting up its darkest and most discreditable periods, and ever giving cause for just pride at times when contemporary events would be sources only of shame and sorrow.
The undiscovered region is bounded, on the European side, by the 80th parallel of latitude, except where Scoresby, Parry, Kane, and a few others, have slightly broken into its outer circumference; but on the Asiatic side it extends fully to 75 and 74', and westward of Behring's Strait our knowledge is bounded by the 72nd degree. Thus, in some directions, it is more than 1500 miles across, and it covers" an area of upwards of 2,000,000 square miles. The parallel of 70 skirts the northern shores of the continents of Europe, Asia, and America; and between 70 and 80 there is an intervening belt separating the known from the unknown, which, in different directions, has been more or less explored by the intrepid seamen and travellers of various nations. Their successes and disasters, their daring exploits and wonderful adventures, form the record whence we must gather such information as is at present within our reach respecting the outer edge of the unknown Polar Region. This information will assist us in the necessary speculations, by means of which we must form an estimate of the uses and advantages that will be derived from a North Polar expedition.
Voyages of discovery, and the surveying expeditions which supplement them, are the most useful occupations of our navy in times of peace. Apart from their direct and positive results, such enterprises have an excellent effect on the naval service. They form a school for the exercise of those high qualities which combine to make the character of a Nelson or a Cochrane. Self-reliance, decision, indomitable determination, and fertility of resource, are produced in those officers who serve in the Arctic regions. The combined audacity and sound judgment displayed by Nelson at the Nile and at Trafalgar may be traced to the education of the Spitzbergen seas and the Polar pack. Another useful result of Arctic expeditions is the interest and sympathy they excite throughout the civilized world. Nothing tends more to strengthen the friendship between nations. If it can be shown that the scientific results to be obtained from a Polar expedition are important in themselves, and that no undue risk will be incurred by the explorers, there are assuredly the strongest reasons for undertaking such an expedition on grounds of public policy. We propose, therefore, in the first place, to examine the results of former Arctic expeditions, and the reasons which have been adduced for exploring the unknown Polar region.
In the earlier period of our naval history the voyages of discovery to the Arctic regions were undertaken with the view of opening shorter routes to the Indies, and of seeking fresh sources of commercial wealth. Their main object was not attainable, but the practical results of these voyages, taken collectively, were so important that they may be ranked among the most fruitful and successful enterprises in the commercial history of England.
The Muscovy Company despatched Sir Hugh Willoughby, in 1553,' to search and discover the northern part of the world, and to open a way and passage to our men, for travel to new and unknown kingdoms ;' and in the school of this ill-fated but illustrious father of English northern discovery were trained up such worthy disciples as Chancellor, Burrough, Pet, and Jackman. Their voyages opened a communication with Muscovy, and led to a rich and lucrative trade with Archangel. Fifty years later the expeditions of Hudson, Fotherby, and Poole into the Spitzbergen seas were the direct causes of the establishment of an important whale-fishery, which at one time gave employment to 255 sail, and added materially to the wealth of the country. The discoveries of Davis and Baffin led to a similar result. The voyages of Hudson, James, and Fox were the beginning of those efforts which ended in the formation of the Hudson's Bay Company.
The first voyage of Ross round Baffin's Bay, in 1818, opened up another prolific whale-fishery. Arctic discovery in Greenland has enabled the Danes to derive a large revenue from the graphite, cryolite, skins, and ivory of their northern possessions. In Arctic Siberia the Russians have long derived great wealth from their trade in fossil ivory. These are not the objects for the attainment of which any future expedition would be fitted out, because thinking men of the present age believe that there is solid advantage in the increase of knowledge as well as in the accumulation of wealth. Yet the commercial profit derived in former times from Arctic expeditions led Milton to say that these enterprises 'might have seemed almost heroic if any higher end than excessive love of gain and traffic had animated the design.'
North Polar exploration is now advocated by the leading scientific men of England, headed by Sir Roderick Murchison and the Geographical Society, on the ground that the results of such an enterprise will add largely to the sum of human knowledge, and enrich the stock of registered facts in almost every department of science. It is difficult to conceive a more thoroughly practical reason for undertaking an expedition. Our space will not permit us to enter fully upon a discussion of the numerous important results of Polar exploration ; but a statement of some of them will be sufficient to show that they supply an excellent reason for a renewal of our noble voyages of discovery.
In the first place, Polar discovery will solve many important questions in physical geography. The northern part of Greenland is still utterly unknown, and the extreme points to which our knowledge extends are separated from each other by sixty degrees of longitude. Hundreds of miles of coast-line, therefore, remain to be discovered in this direction, besides the land running north and south on the west side of Smith Sound, which is the most northern known land in the world, and which Dr. Hayes saw stretching away in the direction of the Pole, from his farthest point in 81 35' N. Then again, the extensive land to the northward of Siberia awaits discovery. One end of it was seen by Captain Kellett, and the existence of a large expanse of land in that direction will alone account for several phenomena on the Siberian and American coasts. The interesting and practically important questions connected with ocean currents will also be solved by discoveries in the unknown region; and pendulum or trigonometrical observations to ascertain the exact shape of the earth become more important as the Pole is approached. For the latter object alone it would be desirable to send out an expedition to the North.
But one of the most urgent reasons for exploring the unknown region is the necessity of sooner or later completing the series of observations on the variation, dip, and intensity of the magnetic needle. When the observations which have already been made by the different Arctic expeditions have been co-ordinated and placed before the public, we are told by General Sabine that the gain to terrestrial magnetism will be found to be very considerable. But much remains to be done, for there is a vast area within which no observations have been taken. We have the highest authority for saying that observations within the Arctic and Antarctic circles have a more than ordinary value in furthering our knowledge of terrestrial magnetism, and that the observations which would contribute in the highest degree to this end would be such as might be made by a magnetic survey, on a great circle connecting New Siberia with the discoveries of Dr. Kane up Smith Sound. The duty of the present generation, in connection with terrestrial magnetism, has been to accumulate accurate observations, in order that others may hereafter compare them, and complete and perfect a very abstruse but important theory. Let it be our care, then, that our work is not done inefficiently and negligently.
The unknown Polar region also offers a wide field for geological research. Ice, in the form of glaciers and sea-borne floes, is one of the most powerful agents in effecting those mighty changes which geologists have observed on all parts of the earth's crust. Hitherto no professed geologist has accompanied an Arctic expedition, and much important work may be done by a trained observer, whether he watches the phenomena connected with the mighty glacial system of Greenland, or with the tremendous ice-fields of the Polar ocean. An examination of the land within the unknown space will also throw light upon that remarkable feature of Arctic geology connected with the vast deposits of timber which are already known to exist from Cape Taimyr, in Siberia, to the Parry Islands. The existence of these deposits proves that, in a geological period which is comparatively recent, the now treeless and frozen wastes of the Arctic regions were clothed with verdure. The ' wooden hills' of Kotelnoi Island consist of enormous deposits, thirty fathoms high, composed of horizontal layers of sandstone with bituminous tree- stems. Similar tree-stems, on a smaller scale, were met with on Banks's and Prince Patrick's Islands, and in Northern Greenland the coal-beds prove that eternal glaciers now occupy the sites of primeval forests of the miocene tertiary age. It will be most important, in a geological point of view, to ascertain how far the mild climate extended in the direction of the Pole. We know that such a climate once enabled waving forests of oak and cypress to grow on the now frozen tundra of Arctic Siberia, and in the ravines of Northern Greenland, now choked up with glaciers. These and other interesting additions to geological knowledge may be expected from an examination of the coasts within the unknown area.
This is an extract from a longer paper read by Captain Sherard Osborn at a meeting of the Royal Geographical Society in 1865.
An American in Turkestan
Thibet (Tibet)
Pendjeh, Central Asia
Japanese priest crosses the desert
Introduction of the potato into New England
Devil worshippers
The lepers of Siberia
Vampires of Eastern Europe
