THE FIRST ARCTIC NAVIGATOR. 43 



THE POLAR SEAS. 



The extreme columns of the known world are Mount Parry, 

 situated at eight degrees from the North Pole, and Mount Koss, 

 twelve degrees from the South Pole. Beyond these limits our maps 

 are mute ; a blank space marks each extremity of the terrestrial axis. 

 Will man ever succeed in passing these icy barriers ? Will he ever 

 justify the prediction of the poet Seneca, who tells us that " the time 

 will come in the distant future when Ocean will relax her hold on the 

 world, when the immense earth will be open, when Tethys will appear 

 amid new orbs, and where Thule (Iceland) shall no longer be the 

 extreme limit of the earth ?" 



" Venient annis 

 Ssecula seris quibus oceanus 

 Vincula rerum laxet et ingens 

 Pateat tellus, Tethysque novos 

 Detegat orbes, nee sit terris 

 Ultime Thule." Medea. 



No one can say. Every step we have taken in order to approach the 

 Pole has been dearly purchased ; and it is not without reason that 

 navigators have named the south point of Greenland, Cape Farewell. 

 Of the number of expeditions, for the most part English, which have 

 been fitted out, at the cost of nearly a million sterling, to explore the 

 Frozen Ocean, one-twentieth have had for their mission to ascertain 

 the fate of the lamented Sir John Franklin. 



The first navigator who penetrated to Arctic polar regions was 

 Sebastian Cabot, who in 1498 sought a north-west passage from 

 Europe to China and the Indies. Considering the date, and the state 

 of navigation at that period, this was perhaps the boldest attempt on 

 record. Scandinavian traditions attribute similar undertakings to 

 the son of the King Kodian, who lived in the seventh century ; to 

 Osher, the Norwegian, in 873; and to the Princes Harold and 

 Magnus, in 1150. 



Sebastian Cabot reached as high as Hudson's Bay, but a mutiny of 

 his sailors forced him to retrace his steps. In 1500, Gaspard de 

 Cortereal discovered Labrador ; in 1553, Sir Hugh Willoughby Nova 

 Zembla ; and Chancellor the White Sea, about the same time. Davis 

 visited in 1585 the west coast of Greenland, and two years later he 

 discovered the strait which bears his name. In 1596 Barentz dis- 



