no Journal of Travel and Natural History 



out their " gold side to the shield," although we may have doubted 

 and disputed it. 



So sudden have been the changes in these islands that a few 

 months only seems to have converted a wilderness into a habitable 

 region. The west coast of the middle island, to which but a few 

 months back only one or two individuals had travelled from the 

 east, and the ship sent to survey the coast passed at such a dis- 

 tance from its unpromising and forbidding shores, as scarcely to do 

 more than trace its principal and most prominent features, now 

 teems with a population estimated at fifty or sixty thousand 

 Europeans. 



This sudden change is to be attributed to the discovery of gold, 

 which, while it enriches those who labour to attain it, is not of less 

 importance to the geographer and naturalist, as opening up a mine 

 of wealth for them. 



If we have dwelt longer in considering this portion of the habita- 

 ble globe, it is because the greatest physical and moral changes 

 have taken place, and are still taking place in it ; and from which 

 we hope to have to record, from time to time, important discoveries 

 in the branches of science of which we treat. 



Polar discovery is still a temptation to our nautical and Arctic 

 heroes; and the recent discussions in the Royal Geographical 

 Society, proves that we have still many, who, undeterred by 

 the fate of the gallant Franklin and his companions, are ready as 

 ever to spring forth and stem the dangers and hardships of the icy 

 North : and the hope is entertained that expeditions, Avhich add so 

 much to our knowledge of geography and natural history, have not 

 been given up, but may, for the time, be considered only dormant ; 

 and that opportunities may yet be offered for the daring enterprise 

 of our younger officers and men, before the old school of Arctic 

 men die out. 



The French, who have ever had an honourably jealous feeling 

 at our appropriation of all the honours to be reaped by Arctic 

 discovery, are even now, while we are writing, organizing an ex- 

 pedition to endeavour to attain that coveted goal of all Arctic 

 travellers — the Pole itself; and without one feeling of jealousy in 

 the cause of science, we wish them success. 



Nor are the South Polar regions free from a threatened invasion ; 

 and, doubtless, the Astronomer-Royal meditates much on the 

 probability and possibility of observing the transit of Venus across 

 the Sun's disc in 1882 : the only places from which it can be ob- 



