285 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



Mr. Jackson's Map of Fpanz Josef Land. 



I AM obliged to you for the promptness with which you have sent me the March 

 issue of Natural Science, and only regret that you should have thought fit, in 

 the course of editorial comments in two different places in that journal, to repeat 

 and freshly state certain erroneous statements which, in the absence of Mr. Jackson, 

 I am compelled to correct. My reply, however, shall be as brief as possible. 



(i) In the first place— to dismiss at once the personal attack on me — I regret 

 that you should not have imitated the invariable practice of editors of reputable 

 journals and accepted, in a purely personal explanation, my emphatic and absolute 

 denial of the motives you imputed to me. I clearly and strongly protested that 

 " nothing was or could be farther from my intention" than to minimise Nansen's 

 magnificent work, and proved this by quoting several extracts from my paper in the 

 Geographical Journal (Dec, 1896), which you are good enough to style "effusive 

 laudation." Yet, in spite of this emphatic repudiation, you persist in your attempt 

 to impute to me motives 1 never so much as dreamed of. Your last sentence in your 

 second editorial comment (Nat. Sci., March, 97, p. 216) runs thus: — "people will 

 infer, most unjustly of course, that he is trying to minimise the results of the 

 Austrian explorer rts zc'^// as those of the Norwegian.'" (The italics are mine). This 

 statement, I repeat, is capable of but one interpretation — and that one incompatible 

 with acceptance of my word in a purely personal matter. 



[We accepted and we accept Mr. Brice's personal explanation absolutely; 

 what we said and still say, is that his way of putting things did actually lead 

 people to read into his remarks motives which they regretted. We repeat, we are 

 glad to find that it was Mr. Brice's style and not his heart that was at fault, and we 

 hope that he will exercise greater care in future. — Ed. Nat. Sci.] 



(2) You repeat — and this time with an assurance which is amazing in one who 

 has never been to Franz Josef Land and apparently knows nothing accurate about 

 it — that " C. Mary Harmsworth is identical with C. Lofley." I can only add now 

 that in 1880 Mr. Benjamin Leigh Smith saw the land he called C. Lofley for the 

 first time. He was then at a distance of forty miles. (" The farthest point seen, being 

 over forty miles away, was named C. Lofley." Proc. R. G. S., March, iSSr, p. 135). 

 In 1881 he saw the cape again, and ths land connecting it with C. Ludlow. He was 

 then not nearer than thirty miles (see map and track of Mr. B. L. Smith's voyage, 

 Proc. R.G.S., April, 1883). No Arctic explorer would place undoubting reliance on 

 observations at this great distance. 



Now Messrs. Jackson and Armitage (with Mr. H. Fisher and others) actually 

 rounded all the capes discovered by Mr. B. L. Smith, and in several instances 

 ascended them and observed from them, for the first time. They also observed from 

 a point as far off the land as Mr. Smith was. I naturally prefer their map of the 

 capes in question to one laid down at a range of not less than 30 miles. And so, 

 too, would any sane cartographer. 



[We have never doubted the accuracy of Mr. Jackson's maps. Our criticism of 

 the names employed represents the view of people who have been to Franz Josef Land ; 

 if such a visit be necessary for forming a correct judgment, perhaps Mr. Brice will 

 say when he was in these parts. — Ed. Nat. Sci.] 



(3) You return to your assertion that Markham Sound is identical with the 

 British Channel. For after referring to a supposititious position of Markham 



