178 SCIENCE IN SHORT CHAPTERS. 



Iceland, and being blown out to sea, it might just save 

 them. 



As already stated, Commander Cheyne believes in the 

 possibility of returning to the ship, and bases his belief on 

 the experiments he made from winter quarters in Northum- 

 berland Sound, where he inflated four balloons, attached to 

 them proportionately different weights, and sent them up 

 simultaneously. They were borne by diverse currents of 

 air in 'four different directions according to the different atti- 

 tudes',. , N. W. , N. E. , S. E. , and S. W. , " thus proving that 

 in this case balloons could be sent in any required direction 

 by ascending to the requisite altitude. The war balloon 

 experiments at Woolwich afford a practical confirmation of 

 this important feature in aeorstation." Cheyne proposes that 

 one at least of the three balloons shall be a rover to cross 

 the unknown area, and has been called a madman for 

 suggesting this merely as an alternative or secondary route. 

 I am still more lunatic, for I strongly hold the opinion that 

 the easiest way for him to return to his ship will be to drift 

 rapidly across to the first available inhabited land, thence 

 come to England, and sail in another ship to rejoin his 

 messmates; carrying with him his bird's-eye chart, that will 

 demonstrate once for all the possibility or impossibility of 

 circumnavigating Greenland, or of sailing, or sledging, or 

 walking to the Pole. 



The worst dilemma would be that presented by a dead 

 calm, and it is not improbable that around the Pole there 

 may be a region of calms similar to that about the Equator. 

 Then the feather-paddle or other locomotive device worked 

 by man-power would be indispensable. Better data than 

 we at present possess are needed in order to tell accurately 

 what may thus be done. Putting various estimates one 

 against the other, it appears likely that five miles an hour 

 may be made. Taking turn and turn about, two or three 

 aeronauts could thus travel fully 100 miles per day, and 

 return from the Pole to the ship in less than five days. 



Or take the improbable case of a circular wind blowing 

 round the Pole, as some have imagined. This would simply 

 demand the working of the paddle always northwards in 

 going to the Pole, and always southwards in returning. The 



