GEOGRAPHY, ANTIQUITIES, ETC. 



GEOGRAPHICAL DISCOVERT AND INVESTIGATION IN 1861. 



The year 1861 opened with the most brilliant prospects for geo- 

 graphical discoveries. The scientific men, both of England and 

 America, expected that in its course some unknown parts of the 

 earth would be explored, and several important problems solved. 

 Two expeditions, one from Sweden and the other from the United 

 States, were fitted out to go in quest of the North Pole ; five different 

 parties, in as many different directions, were searching for the sources 

 of the Nile ; a bold project to traverse China and Thibet westward, 

 from the Yellow Sea to the Himalayas, seemed near its execution ; 

 and Australia was to be explored by two expeditions, following differ- 

 ent routes, from the southern to the northern coast. But all these 

 schemes have failed, more or less signally ; scientific travel has been 

 almost everywhere unfortunate ; an evil star seems to have reigned ; 

 and the year is to be remembered, not for its accomplishments, but 

 for its disappointments. 



Swedish Polar Expedition. A Polar expedition, under Prof. Tor- 

 ell, equipped on a magnificent scale, chiefly by the Swedish Govern- 

 ment, and composed of eminent Swedish and Danish naturalists, and 

 of students from Upsal and other universities, sailed from Tromsoe on 

 May 9, 1861, reached a bay on the north of Spitzbergen, lingered 

 there, and advanced no further. The ships were blocked up by the 

 ice, and an attempt to proceed by sledges soon brought them to an 

 open sea. There was ice enough to repulse the ships, and sea enough 

 to stop the dogs. The experience of Torell demonstrates that though 

 sledge excursions may be available on the American side of Green- 

 land, the only way to reach the Polar region east of Greenland is by 

 a steamer specially designed for the purpose. 



Hayes's Arctic Expedition. The Polar expedition, under Dr. Hayes 

 (the companion of Dr.. Kane), which left the United States early in 

 1860, with a hope of penetrating, through Smith's Straits and Ken- 

 nedy's Channel, to an open circumpolar sea, returned October, 1861, 

 after an absence of fifteen months. The expedition, so far as its main 

 object was concerned, namely, the determination of the question of 

 an open Polar Sea, was a failure. The ice prevented Dr. Hayes 

 from penetrating with his vessel as far north as he intended, and he 

 was obliged to make his winter quarters in a bight at the head of 

 Hartstein Bay, which he named Port Foulke. His explorations dur- 

 ing the winter were delayed by the loss of his dogs by disease, and 

 Mr. Sontag, the astronomer, was frozen to death while going south- 



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