GEOGRAPHICAL PROGRESS IN 1890. 



361 



huatl at 16,960; Nevada de Toluca, heretofore 

 placed at 15,000 feet, he makes 14,954. The city 

 of Mexico is found by the surveys for railroad 

 purposes to be 123 feet lower than the old esti- 

 mate of 7,470 feet, used as a basis for trigono- 

 metrical measurement. 



The Peruvian Government sent out an expedi- 

 tion to the Javary, the first object of which was 

 to punish the Indians for murders ; but, as it is 

 accompanied by Richard Payer and four other 

 scientists, it will probably have some scientific as 

 well as military results. Payer reported that 

 the Tyrol colony of Pozuzo seems to be pros- 

 pering at last ; through the efforts of the former 

 French consul at Lima, French capital has been 

 secured for an enterprise having for its object 

 the buying up of all the cocoa in the colony and 

 the extracting of the raw cocaine for shipping to 

 European markets. 



Captain John Page's expedition up the Pilco-" 

 mayo, an account of which was given in the 

 ' Annual Cyclopaedia " for 1889, has met with 

 disaster. . The object was to find whether the 

 Pilcomayo and Vermejo would serve as water 

 ways between the centers of population on the 

 Plata and in Bolivia. After ascending the river 

 for some distance and overcoming the great ob- 

 stacles to navigation, they ran out of provisions, 

 and had to support themselves by hunting and 

 fishing while suffering attacks by Indians. The 

 military guard returned, worn out with hunger 

 and fatigue ; the rest of the party pressed for- 

 ward and reached the swamp Patino in south 

 latitude 22. Supplies were sent for from the 

 mouth of the river, but before they arrived Capt. 

 Page was dead. 



Arctic Regions. Dr. Nansen, the explorer 

 of Greenland, has in hand a plan for another ex- 

 pedition, the objective point of which is the 

 north pole. He designs to take his route through 

 Behring strait, and direct his course toward the 

 New Siberian isles, whence he will be guided by 

 the current, which he believes will take him to 

 the open Polar Sea. He will have a ship of pe- 

 culiar construction, which can not be pressed to 

 pieces by the ice, but will be raised by the press- 

 ure. The voyage will not begin till" the spring 

 of 1892. The Norwegian Storthing have voted 

 200,000 kroner, ($55,000) toward the expenses. 

 The grounds for his choice of the route through 

 Behring strait are very clearly given in an arti- 

 cle by J. Asmussen in Petermann's "Mitteilun- 

 gen," from which we translate the following : 



As is known, three routes have been tried by which 

 to reach the pole : First, that northward along the 

 western coast of Greenland, taken by the English ex- 

 pedition under Nares and Stephenson, by which, on 

 May 12, 1876, they reached on a sledge journey 83 

 20', the highest till Greely's me-n reached 83 24' in 

 1882. They became convinced that it would be pos- 

 sible to penetrate farther north only under the most 

 favorable conditions and impossible to reach the pole. 

 The second route is east of Greenland and then north- 

 ward from Spitzbergen, by which route Parry arrived 

 at 82 45' in July, 1827, but where of recent years the 

 ice conditions have been so unfavorable as 'to make 

 this route impracticable. The third is from Novaya 

 Zemlya to Franz Josef Land, discovered by the Payer- 

 Weyprecht expedition, and thence northVard. The 

 highest point by this route was reached April 2, 1874, 

 at 82 5', but the condition of the ice here also is un- 

 favorable to further progress. Nansen believes that 

 none of these three routes will lead to the pole. 



In view of these facts it has been believed that the 

 expectation of reaching the pole by water must be 

 abandoned and a route sought overland by means of 

 sledges with, dogs or reindeer. Nansen' s Greenland 

 journey has demonstrated the feasibility of land travel 

 when sufficient provision is made for food and cloth- 

 ing ; but he himself has no confidence in the possibil- 

 ity of a land journey. He docs not believe that the 

 continent or a large island, as Greenland, extends as 

 far as the pole. The sledge boats which could be used 

 on land would not answer for a voyage through the 

 sea, neither could the draught animals be taken into 

 them. Therefore, if the expedition should reach the 

 open sea, it would meet the alternative either to turn 

 back or to leave the animals behind, thus cutting it- 

 self off from return, with the danger of falling a prey 

 to starvation. Moreover, a considerable caravan would 

 be required to carry a sufficient quantity of provisions 

 and other necessities, especially if caches are to be 

 provided to which the expedition may return. Still 

 another objection to a land expedition is that it would 

 be difficult to find in case anxiety is aroused in regard 

 to it. It is impossible to foresee what route it might 

 be forced to take by the condition of the ice. This, to 

 be sure, would be to some extent the case with a jour- 

 ney by water- but the currents of the sea and the 

 conditions of the ice are better known than the obsta- 

 cles that might be met with on land. 



Since, therefore, it seems best to Dr. Nansen to at- 

 tempt the journey by sea, it becomes a question which 

 route will most surely lead to the goal. It is known 

 that to the eastward from Greenland a strong polar 

 stream sets toward the south. Westward from Green- 

 land a warm current, a branch of the Gulf Stream, 

 passes northward along the coast, and a cold current' 

 running southward washes the coast as far as 75 

 north latitude, and can be traced even south of New 

 York. Finally, a not inconsiderable current, likewise 

 of polar origin and directed southward, has been dis- 

 covered between Spitzbergen and Franz Josef Land. 

 Thus we see that the vessels have a polar current to 

 contend with whichever of the above routes they may 

 take, and this seems to Nansen the chief reason why 

 the pole has not been reached at any of the attempts 

 hitherto made." The currents bring icebergs and the 

 like with them, causing danger to the ships. Finally, 

 it is easier to sail with than against the currents, and 

 a way should be sought to turn them to account rather 

 than fight against them. 



The question is, Is there a current leading to the 

 pole? The main arm of the Gulf Stream ends be- 

 tween Spitzbergen and Novaya Zemlya and Franz 

 Josef Land, and the one on the west coast of Green- 

 land ends before Baffin Bay narrows into Smith 

 Sound. Nevertheless, Nansen believes that such a 

 current exists. 



When Nordenskiold made the voyage by way of 

 Europe and Asia and was gone so long that anxiety 

 began to be felt about him, Gordon Bennett sent out 

 the ' Jeannette," July 8, 1879, to seek him and un- 

 dertake independent researches in the Arctic Ocean, 

 and, if possible, reach the pole by some as yet un- 

 tried route. This expedition, led by De Long, was 

 unsuccessful. The ship had but just passed through 

 Behring strait when it was inclosed by ice eastward of 

 Wrangel Island. It was driven about for two years 

 without being extricated, and sank in latitude 77 15', 

 not far from the New Siberian isles, only a part of 

 the crew escaping with their lives. 



Although this expedition thus totally failed, ac- 

 complishing scarcely anything for science, still Nan- 

 sen believes that it was on the right track, for, in the 

 year 1884, there came on land at Julianehaab, on the 

 western coast of Greenland, a cake of ice on which 

 was frozen a pair of oiled trousers marked with 

 the name of one of the sailors of the " Jeannette." 

 There are three ways in which it might have 

 come there either a current may have driven it 

 westward around Cape Cheljuskm, between No- 

 vaya Zemlya and Franz Josef Land, between Nor- 

 wa'y and Spitzbergen, between Iceland and Greenland 



