GEOGRAPHICAL PROGRESS AND DISCOVERY IN 1876. 



327 



days. Leaving the coast at Cape Jo- 

 seph Henry, latitude 82 40' north, they struck 

 out across the ice-pack, in hopes of reaching 

 the northern shore, which tho Polaris people 

 reported that they sighted in 1871. The way 

 li-il through a labyrinth of icebergs, and across 

 broad plains of snow; the best part of every 

 day was spent in making a path for the sledges 

 witli axes and picks, so that with ten or twelve 

 hours of labor they could only make one or 

 two miles a day. This severe toil soon ex- 

 hausted the strength of the men, and, to add 

 to their difficulties, the scurvy broke out among 

 them unexpectedly, and to their great conster- 

 nation. Nevertheless, they continued to pene- 

 trate onward, while the thermometer was 

 standing at 45 C. often, until finally, at the 

 distance of 600 miles from the ship, in latitude 

 88 20' 26", there being no sign of land yet 

 visible, Commander Markhara gave the word 

 to turn about, and they retraced their weary 

 road terribly oppressed by the frost. The 

 second party, under Lieutenant Aldrich, ex- 

 plored tho northern shore of Grant Land, 

 passing around Cape Columbia, latitude 83 7' 

 north, and surveying 120 miles of unexplored 

 coast-line. The third sledge-party, command- 

 ed by Lieutenant Beaumont, crossed Robeson 

 Channel, and explored the northern shore of 

 Greenland for seventy miles. The officers left 

 in charge of the depots explored the surround- 

 ing regions, keeping up communication with 

 the sledge-parties. Three men died of scurvy. 

 On September 9th, the vessel being clear of 

 ice, Sir G. Nares pulled up anchor and sailed 

 southward again, rejoining the Discovery on 

 the 20th. The return-passage of the vessels 

 was much less impeded by ice than their up- 

 ward course, and they soon regained the Dan- 

 ish settlement. 



Sir George Nares is firm in the belief that 

 it is impossible to navigate the Atlantic en- 

 trance higher than he has done, and that the 

 pole is surrounded by a palroocrystic or ever- 

 frozen sea, at least on this side. At a meeting 

 of the Royal Geographical Society he gave 

 his views substantially as follows : We may 

 consider the polar basin as a locked-up bay 

 continuing out of the North Atlantic channel, 

 with two streams of water pouring into it a 

 warm current between Spitzbergen and Nor- 

 way, and icy-cold currents from both sides of 

 Greenland. On the side where the warm wa- 

 ter flows in is found little ice and an early sea- 

 son. Near the outlets from Behring Straits, 

 eastward to Banks Land, and thence to Ire- 

 land's Eye, is found tho heaviest ice ; bat, as 

 light ice has been observed along the coast of 

 the Parry Islands, it must be inferred that pro- 

 tecting land exists to tho northward. He does 

 not express any decided opinion as to whether 

 an open sea extends up to or across the pole, 

 although he inclines to the belief that a broad 

 opening north of Cape Columbia extends as 

 far as the pole. In winter the polar basin 

 beems to be filled with compact masses of ice, 



the thinner portions of which are melted in 

 the summer. In that season the separated 

 floes are swayed backward and forward by 

 the winds and currents, which tend mainly 

 toward the outlets, and small portions ere 

 driven out through tho channels. About the 

 end of September the lanes and pools bct\\ < n 

 the huge bulks of ice, which have been jostling 



POLAR BEAK. 



and crushing against each other all the summer, 

 begin to be closed up by the young ice, which 

 forms during the winter to the thickness of 

 about seven feet, cementing the moving moun- 

 tains together into a stationary pack. Sir 

 George Nares calculates that only an insignifi- 

 cant portion of the polar ice can escape through 

 the outlet channels, while the great masses of 

 ice locked in may have an age of centuries. Dr. 

 Petermann, in commenting on the expedition, 

 thinks that Nares has established the impossi- 

 bility of navigating the Smith Sound approach 

 beyond controversy, but believes that an open 

 sea surrounds the pole, which can be entered 

 by the Franz Josef Land route, or, better still, 

 by the East Greenland route. Throughout 

 the summer the coast of East Greenland is al- 

 most free from ice, and even in winter tlere 

 is a strong outward flow. The immense masses 

 of ice which escape through the broad opening 

 between East Greenland and Spitzbergen, and 

 by the other channel, must leave, he thiiik>, 

 an open space behind. Many others, among 

 them Dr. Hayes, of the Polaris Expedition, are 

 still confident that the inner Arctic Sea can he 

 entered in favorable seasons through Smith 

 Sound. 



PALESTINE. Lieutenant Conder thinks he 

 has found the site of Emmnus in a place called 

 Iiftamasa, a name which might be a corruption 

 of the Hebrew ffammath : it is an ancient place, 

 containing remains of Jewish rock-sepulchres. 

 The natives attach a certain sanctity to the 

 place ; it is also situated at the right distance 

 from Jerusalem ; there are here the ruins of an 

 ancient Christian church, and an old Roman 

 road runs through the place. He locates 

 Gomorrah at a spot near I ! in Feshkah, called 

 'Amriyeh, not far from JTwwiran, De Sanlcy's 

 conjectured site ; the name belongs both to a 



