GEOGRAPHICAL PKoi.KKSS AND DISCOVERY. 



301 



diil showing of elk, deer of 4 varieties, including 

 the European stag, the fallow deer, and Angora 

 . with a few buffalo. 



In most, if not all, of these animal preserves as 

 much attention has been given to the introduction of 

 game birds as to that of quadrupeds. The English 

 pheasant, the Mongolian pheasant, the black cock, 

 ami that giant of the grouse order, the capercailzie, 

 have been in some ca^cs successfully bred, though 

 the work lias been discouraging on account of the 

 destruction wrought by owls, foxes, pine martens, 

 and fishers among the young of the newly intro- 

 duced species. An even more interesting experi- 

 ment than that of establishing prosperous colonies 

 of these foreign birds is the attempt to reintroduce 

 in the Xo rt hern and Eastern States the wild turkey 

 and the pinnated grouse or prairie chicken. Both 

 tlie>e noble game birds were once indigenous to the 

 whole Atlantic coast section, and there seems to be 

 no reason why with patient and intelligent effort 

 the regions once stocked by Nature should not be 

 again stocked by art. Enough has been achieved 

 in this line to give certainty to the future, and we 

 may look forward to the time when the forests of 

 the Northern and Eastern States will furnish a 

 much richer variety of fine game birds through the 

 efforts of wealthy owners of game preserves. Xo 

 private preserve can ever save more than a moiety 

 of the birds for the proprietor, unless all their wings 

 are clipped. 



The game parks which have been specially men- 

 tioned are only a few amid a great number of 

 smaller ones. Long Island, northern Xew York, 

 the mountainous part of Xew Jersey, and northern 

 Pennsylvania have scores of parks from 200 to 2,000 

 acres where the art of game preserving and propa- 

 gation is pursued with science and patience. The 

 revelation of possibilities given by the Corbin pre- 

 serve in Xew Hampshire has been of great value 

 in awakening public and private interest and in 

 spurring rivalry. It is now beyond question that 

 the ravages of wasteful shooting which a score of 

 years ago threatened to depopulate the country of 

 some of its noblest game fauna will be obviated. 

 Experience has shown what can be done in restor- 

 ing affluence of animal life, and to do it has be- 

 come an enthusiastic fad among rich men. "What 

 can be easily effected has been shown in Vermont. 

 Ten years ago there were no deer in the State. A 

 few were imported from the Adirondacks and from 

 Maine, and a law was passed forbidding their shoot- 

 ing till 1900. Xow the deer swarm so thickly in the 

 mountain sections that they herd with the cows, de- 

 stroy the crops, and compel the farmers to clamor 

 for an immediate repeal of the "close" law. 



GEOGRAPHICAL PROGRESS AM) DIS- 

 COVERY. The Arctic Regions. The great 

 event of the year was the successful termination of 

 Dr. Fridtjof Xansen's arctic expedition, begun in 

 !"".:! (see "Annual Cyclopaedia "for 1893, page 335). 

 His theory of arctic currents and the course that 

 should be taken to carry a ship directly across the 

 pole, founded in part on the finding of the much- 

 talked-of "Jeannette" relics on the western coast 

 of Greenland as well as on the peculiar construc- 

 tion of his ship, are explained in the "Annual Cy- 

 clopaedia " for 1890, page 361. 



It was announced in February that Dr. Xansen 

 had discovered the north pole and was on his way 

 back to Europe. The news came from Siberia and 

 was understood to have been sent by Peter Kouch- 

 nareff. who lives near the mouth of the Lena river 

 and had charge of the dog supplies for the expe- 

 dition. The correctness of the information was 

 doubted, though some of the explorers who were 

 interviewed saw nothing improbable in the story ; 

 but there had been other reports (one published in 



Paris in April, 1895) that Dr. Xansen had found 

 the north pole, thai it was ,-ituated mi a chain of 

 mountains, and that he had planted the Norwegian 

 Hag there. Another, received in September, li-ii."). 

 in London, from the trading station of Angm; 



FRIDTJOF NANSEN. 



lik, on the east coast of Greenland, said that a ship, 

 supposed to be Dr. Xansen's " Pram," had been 

 sighted at the end of July, stuck fast in an ice 

 drift. 



A conjecture that gained some credence was that 

 the explorer seen by the Xew Siberian islanders and 

 supposed to be Dr. Xansen might be John M. Ver- 

 hoeff, who was lostr in Greenland from the Peary 

 party in 1892, and was believed by some of the 

 party to have been alive when they left Greenland 

 and to have had the design of living among the 

 Eskimos and making independent explorations. 



But the most serious doubt arose from a story 

 that was published in regard to the supposed rel- 

 ics of the " Jeannette." the finding of which at 

 Julianehaab, on the western coast of Greenland, led 

 Dr. Xansen to believe that they had been carried 

 from the ocean north of Siberia across the pole ; 

 that therefore there must be a current taking that 

 course, and that a ship constructed so that it could 

 not be wedged in the ice might enter the current 

 and be carried over the same course that the relics 

 had traveled. After the report of his return it was 

 made public that the genuineness of these relics 

 was open to question. The story was as follows : 



In 1883, the year before the discovery of the rel- 

 ics by the Danish governor of Julianehaab. the 

 United States steamer "Yantic" went to Green- 

 land as part of the unfortunate Greely relief expe- 

 dition of that year. The "Yantic" went as far 

 north as Littleton island, near which her consort, 

 the "Proteus," was crushed in the ice at the mouth 

 of Smith Sound. Under rigid examination by offi- 

 cers of the Smithsonian Institution, her sailors 

 united in the statement that some of the younger 

 officers of the ship, the midshipmen or ensigns, had 

 made up a lot of alleged relics and put them on an 

 ice floe near the ship to fool some of their superior 

 officers. It was simply intended as a naval-acad- 

 emy prank, a boyish joke. The floe drifted off. the 

 "Yantic's" officers did not find the relics, but, as 

 subsequently appeared, they fell into the hands of 

 the Eskimos, and passed thence to the Danish gov- 

 ernor. After the juke had miscarried, its serious- 

 liecame apparent to the perpetrators, and for 

 their own safety and to avoid probable court-mar- 



