GEOGRAPHICAL riln \ND DISCOVERY. 



885 



showing an increase of more than 2,000 in the 



past twenty years; 6,216 atlrti'lants who have 

 nut \e| reached the stage of membership ; and 

 nearly luo recorded ministers, U-sides some 

 hundreds who were not yet rccogni/.ed. The 

 report from Scotland showod a marked increase 

 in Ayrshire, and many earnest inquirers were 

 mentioned in Glasgow. In tin- discussion upon 

 the stale of the society, the chief interest settled 

 upon the tendencies toward agnosticism and to- 

 ward what was called ultra-evangelicalism. The 

 process of the trial of an appeal from a member 

 against (lie action of his meeting, which had dis- 

 owned him. and of the quarterly meeting, which 

 had confirmed its decision, illustrates one of the 

 peculiarities of Friends' discipline. A court 



was constituted of one monitor from each quar- 

 terly meeting, except the one aptwaled against, 

 hefore which both parties were heard; at the 

 close of the hearing, each party signed a state- 

 ment that he had been fully and fairly heard ; 

 the court then gave its decision, which the 

 Yearly Meet ing always accepts as final. In mat- 

 ter- of faith and doctrine the whole Yearly 

 Meeting is constituted a court of appeal. The 

 judgment of the Yearly Meeting was exp' 

 against certain methods adopted by the Home 

 Mission Committee, which had been objected to 

 by many Friends as inconsistent and un-Quak- 

 erly ; and it was decided that a mission commit- 

 tee should be appointed by popular elections in 

 the various quarterly meetings. 



PROGRESS AND DIS- 

 COVERY. But little of note occurred during 

 the year to extend our knowledge of the surface 

 of the globe. Wide fields for exploration still 

 remain, not only in the polar regions, but in 

 South America, Australia, New Guinea, and the 

 interior of Africa, while great areas in Asia, in- 

 cluding the northern half of the Tibetan plateau, 

 much of the Kuen-Lun range, the valleys in the 

 Sulimani range, and the sources of the great 

 rivers, together with very extensive tracts in Ara- 

 bia, are yet unknown. Perhaps one fourth of 

 the land surface of the globe is still unexplored. 

 The arctic expeditions of Dr. Nansen and Lieut. 

 Peary have been followed with interest, but their 

 outcome is still in the future. Some expeditions 

 for discovery have been made in Asia and Africa, 

 Init the interest in those continents has centered 

 in the French operations in Siam and the fight- 

 ing in Mataheleland. 



What will perhaps hardly be regarded as prog- 

 ress in this direction is the news from the 

 Royal Geographical Society at London. A vote 

 taken in August on the question of admitting 

 women as fellows of the society on the same 

 footing as men, was decided against the policy 

 by a vote of 172 to 158. It was, however, shown 

 by a plebiscite of the members of the society 

 that but 500 were against the admission of 

 women, while 1,200 were in favor of it. 



Polar Regions. The second expedition of 

 Lieut. Peary sailed north in the summer. Its 

 object is understood to be exploration of the 

 archipelago lying north of Greenland, and a sur- 

 vey of the unknown parts of the northern and 

 northeastern coasts of the island. 



Dr. Nansen sailed for Bering Sea in the sum- 

 mer with his vessel, which is so built that pres- 

 sure in the ice will raise it instead of crushing 

 it. His study of the arctic currents has led him 

 to believe that within three years the ship will 

 be carried very near the pole. Starting from 

 the point, near the New Siberian islands, where 

 the " Jeannette " was wrecked, Dr. Nansen hopes 

 to make progress by drifting with the ice diago- 

 nally across the region of the north pole into 

 the East Greenland Sea between Spitsbergen ami 

 Greenland, and that in this way he will pass by 

 or near the pole, and so pass to that point, on 

 the coast of Greenland, where articles from the 



"Jeannette" were found, indicating the direc- 

 tion of the currents. 



An arctic exploring party is partly made up 

 for an expedition in trie summer of 1894. It 

 will be led by Robert Stein, of the United States 

 Geological Survey, and will have for its main 

 object scientific study of Ellesmere Land and 

 the mapping of its western part. The eastern 

 shore is fairly well known. 



At the same time search will be made for 

 traces of the Norwegian students J. A. Bjorling 

 and E. Kalstinius and their three assistants, who 

 disappeared somewhere near the mouth of Smith 

 Sound, having gone there in 1892 to make natu- 

 ral-history collections for the University of 

 Christiania. They were poorly equipped with 

 supplies, and made the journey from Newfound- 

 land in an old schooner, the " Ripple." This was 

 found wrecked on one of the Cary islands in 

 June, 1893. Near it was a grave containing the 

 body of a man supposed to be one of the New- 

 foundlanders taken as assistants by the young 

 men, and some documents, from which it was 

 learned that they had found a cache of supplies 

 left there in 187*5 by the Nares expedition, and 

 had gone in a whaleboat to Foulke Fjord, ex- 

 pecting to winter among the natives, as Dr. 

 Hayes did, apparently ignorant of the fact that 

 the Eskimos have not lived so far north for many 

 years. They went as far north as Northumber- 

 land island, where they were within easy reach 

 of Peary's house. Red Cliff : but. not knowing 

 this, they returned to the Cary islands, and then 

 set out for Cape Clarence or Cape Faraday in 

 Ellesmere Land, to winter among the Eskimos. 

 There were Eskimos there at the time of N 

 expedition, but it is believed that Ellesmere Land 

 is now deserted. Nothing has been heard of the 

 young men since. 



From accounts during the past two years it 

 seems that exploration will soon be renewed 

 in antarctic regions. The International Geo- 

 graphic; Congress at Bern, in 1891. warmly ad- 

 vwated the renewal of south polar research. 

 An Australian-Swedish expedition is promised. 

 and interest is aroused in England, which may 

 lead to some results. The winter of lN!r>-'<>:{ 

 was marked by an enormous fleet of icelnTgs 

 from antarctic seas. They were seen nearly as 

 far north as the Cape of Good Hope, towering to 



