THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 31 



found itself among substantial floes. They nosed carefully up to 

 one of them. On examination they were gratified to find that this 

 was "river ice from which they could get fresh water." 



At this point I asked Sir John how he knew it was river ice, 

 and was dumbfounded by his reply: "It was obvious," he said, "for 

 the water on top was nearly fresh and the ice itself, except on 

 the edges where the spray had been dashing on it, also tasted 

 fresh." In spite of being the greatest living oceanographer. Sir 

 John was unaware of the fact, which I then supposed to be well- 

 known to all polar explorers, that sea ice becomes fresh during the 

 period intervening between its formation and the end of the first 

 summer thereafter. 



Here we might digress again to comment on one of the differ- 

 ences between an art and a science. Among polar explorers are 

 some of the noblest names in the history of Britain since Elizabeth, 

 and so it is in the histories of many of the other seafaring countries. 

 Most of these explorers have been great sailors and gallant gentle- 

 men; some of them, such as Franklin and Peary, have scarcely 

 been sailors in the proper sense, though their careers have not been 

 for that reason any less honorable nor less honored. But few of 

 them have been scientists, and polar exploration has never been a 

 science. It has been rather something between an art and a sport. 

 It is the essence of the code of the scientist to publish at once 

 for the use of the world every secret, whether of fundamental 

 principle or of technique. But it is no violation of the ethics of a 

 craft or of a sport to keep secret and to employ exclusively for one's 

 self and one's immediate associates such knowledge as one has. 

 I once asked Peary why he had not published certain things that 

 we were talking about, and his reply was, "My dear boy, I am 

 not printing anything until I have got the Pole." It was only 

 after he had reached the Pole and after he had retired that he wrote 

 his book, "Secrets of Polar Travel." 



I have found, since the point first came to my attention, that 

 although some polar explorers knew that sea ice becomes fresh a 

 large number never discovered it. In view of this it is really not so 

 astonishing that Sir John Murray, although he had been a student of 

 the ocean all his life, had overlooked this fact; for, after all, his work 

 had been done mainly in tropical and temperate regions. There are 

 few things considered more certain than that the ocean is salt, and 

 there is no inference more logical (although no inference is ever 

 really logical) than that the ice of salt water must also be salt. 



Because of his position as leading authority on the subject 



