148 president's address. 



After pushing north for over 200 miles very severe weather 

 compelled him to return. The temperature at times was 40° to 60° 

 below zero. The sledges had to be abandoned, and only twenty- 

 six dogs out of the ninety taken with him returned alive. 

 Professor Chamberlin accompanied the expedition, and the 

 publication of his observations on Greenland glaciers is being 

 eagerly awaited by geologists in all parts of the world. 



Mr. Walter Wellman, a journalist of Washington, attempted 

 last year to attain a high northern latitude, north of Spitzbergen. 

 He took with him aluminium boats, made at Baltimore, weighing 

 about 450 lbs. each, 18 ft. long, 6 ft. wide and 2 ft. deep, capable 

 of carrying nineteen men. The aluminium plates were riveted 

 together Clinker fashion, being onl}^ one-tenth of an inch thick. 

 Ash runners were fitted on to the l)ottom of the boat, so that it 

 could be used as a sledge. Well man's expedition failed in its 

 attempt, so far as the attaining of a high northern latitude was 

 concerned. Four days after he had left his ship (the Ragnvald 

 Jarl) on his journe^^ across the snow, she was crushed by ice, and 

 only some of the stores were saved. Wellman and his party, after 

 making some interesting geographical explorations, returned to 

 Tromsoe on August 15th, 1894. 



An English expedition, known as the Jackson-Harmsworth 

 expedition, was fitted out last year at the private expense of Mr. 

 A. C. Harmsworth, for Arctic exploration. Mr. T. G. Jackfeon 

 sailed from the Thames on July 11th, 1894, in the Windivard, a 

 wooden steamship of 321 tons. She is barque-rigged, and 

 strongly fortified for ice-work. He has taken a whaling boat, 

 a copper boat with collapsible canvas gunwales altogether 

 weighing less than 200 lbs., a light boat of Norwegian pine and 

 an aluminium boat built in three sections, with a duplicate of the 

 middle section, and a birch bark canoe, together with sledges and 

 twenty-four pairs of ski in lieu of snow-shoes. He takes a 

 number of scientific instruments, travelling tents, sledges, four 

 ponies and thirty dogs. It is hoped that scurvy, the bane of 

 Arctic explorers, will ])e avoided by the frequent use of fresh 

 meat, of which large supplies have been taken. A series of 



