INTRODUCTION. XXXV 



Chief among them is the action of the winds and 

 tides to break up the decaying floes, but paramount 

 above all others is the necessity for sufficient outlets 

 for the escape of the ice so broken up throughout the 

 vast area of the Polar basin. These outlets we know do 

 not exist ; an insignificant point of land, moreover, will 

 act as a wedge, or the prevalence of an unfavourable 

 wind for a few days at the critical period will suffice to 

 decide the question whether such inlets so important 

 as Wellington Channel or Smith Sound will be closed 

 or open during a season. From a ship's mast-head 

 or a mountain-summit the visible horizon is limited 

 by the curvature . of the earth, and those who have 

 navigated in these regions will well remember how 

 one short hour has carried them from an apparently 

 open sea to a dead-lock with no streak of water in sight. 

 Water-skies are delusive ; an insignificant crack or lane 

 in the ice will produce them, and the only admissible 

 evidence of a Polynia or navigable Polar basin must 

 be the fact that a ship has sailed through it. 



The probability of the existence of a navigable 

 Polar Sea was therefore never entertained by those 

 whose duty it became to consider and advise on the 

 subject of renewed explorations ; but there did appear 

 strong reasons for believing that a high northern 

 latitude, or even the Pole itself, might be reached by 

 sledging parties. The Americans under Hall had 

 wintered in 81° 38' N. or within 500 miles of the 

 Pole, and their reports went far to induce the belief 

 that the land trended still away to the north, and so to 

 strengthen the hope of success in this direction. It 

 was under these circumstances that Smith Sound, 

 which had always seemed the route of greatest 

 promise, was finally and unanimously decided upon, 



