AERIAL EXPLORATION OF THE ARCTIC REGIONS. 211 



I have considered the subject carefully, and discussed it with many 

 people ; the result of such reflection and conversation is a conviction 

 that the prevalent popular estimate of the dangers of Commander 

 Cheyne's project extravagantly exaggerates them on almost all con- 

 tingencies. I do not affirm that there is no risk, or that the attempt 

 should be made with only our present practical knowledge of the 

 subject, but I do venture to maintain that, after making proper pre- 

 liminary practical investigations at home, a judiciously conducted 

 aerostatic dash for the Pole will be far less dangerous than the Afri- 

 can explorations of Livingstone, Stanley, and others that have been 

 accomplished and are proposed. And further, that a long balloon 

 journey starting in summer time from Smith's Sound, or other suita- 

 ble Arctic station, would be less dangerous than a corresponding one 

 started from London ; that it would involve less risk than was in- 

 curred by Messrs. Holland, Mason, and Green, when they travelled 

 from Vauxhall Gardens to Xassau. 



The three principal dangers attending such a balloon journey are : 

 1st. The variability of the wind. 2d. The risk of being blown out 

 upon the open ocean beyond the reach of land. 3d. The utter help- 

 lessness of the aeronaut during all the hours of darkness. I will con- 

 sider these seriatim in reference to Arctic ballooning versus Vauxhall 

 or Crystal Palace ballooning. 



As regards the first danger, Vauxhall and Sydenham are in a posi- 

 tion of special disadvantage, and all the ideas we Englishmen may 

 derive from our home ballooning experience must tend to exaggerate 

 our common estimate of this danger, inasmuch as we are in the 

 midst of the region of variable winds, and have a notoriously uncer- 

 tain climate, due to this local exaggeration of the variability of 

 atmospheric movements. If instead of lying between the latitudes of 

 50 and 60, where the N. E. Polar winds just come in collision with 

 the S. W. tropical currents, and thereby effect our national atmos- 

 pheric stir-about, we were located bet\veen 10 and 30 (where the 

 Canary Islands are, for example), our notions on the subject of bal- 

 loon travelling would be curiously different. The steadily blowing 

 trade-wind would long ere this have led us to establish balloon mails 

 to Central and South America, and balloon passenger expresses for 

 the benefit of fast-going people or luxurious victims of sea-sickness. 

 To cross the Atlantic three thousand miles in forty-eight hours, 

 would be attended with no other difficulty than the cost of the gas, 

 and that of the return carriage of the empty balloon. 



It is our exceptional meteorological position that has generated the 

 popular expression " as uncertain as the wind." "We are in the very 

 centre of the region of meteorological uncertainties, and cannot go 

 far, either northward or southward, without entering a zone of 

 greater atmospheric regularity, where the direction of the wind at a 

 given season may be predicted with more reliability than at home. 

 The atmospheric movements in the Arctic regions appear to be re- 

 markably regular and gentle during the summer and winter months, 

 and irregular and boisterous in spring and autumn. A warm upper 

 current flows from the tropics toward the Pole, and a cold lower one 

 from the Arctic circle toward the equator. Commander Cheyne, who 

 has practical experience of these Arctic expeditions, and has kept an 

 elaborate log of the wind, etc., which he has shown me, believes that, 

 by the aid of pilot balloons to indicate the currents at various 



