DISCOVERY 



191 



When it was finished, hunting provided meals for the 

 future. This method frees the explorer from the necessity 

 of keeping in touch with his base of supplies, ensures 

 light loads and gives him unrestricted liberty oi movement. 

 To a great extent Mr. Stefansson has proved the success 

 of these methods, yet lack of seals did force him to retreat 

 to Banks Land in his long march over the ice of the Beaufort 

 Sea, and in another journey two men succumbed in crossing 

 Banks Land alone, possibly, but not with certaintv, through 

 starvation. Again, it must not be forgotten that Mr. 

 Stefansson was exploring in a region free from glaciers, 

 with abundant vegetation in summer to support musk- 

 oxen and reindeer. In Banks Land he found a " beautiful 

 country of valleys everywhere gold and white with fiowers 

 or green with grass . . . sparkling brooks flowing over 

 gravel bottoms. Heather was most abundant and so 

 were bull caribou." Such a land may well be called 

 friendly compared with the glaciated regions farther east. 

 The general conception of Arctic travel, indeed of all 

 polar exploration, is undoubtedly erroneous, and dates 

 ven,- largely from the conditions obtaining in the British 

 e-xpaditions during the first tliree-quarters of the nine- 

 teenth century, not to forget the terrible story of the 

 American expedition under Greely. Man-hauled sledges, 

 heavy loads, clumsy fur clothing, intense cold, tinned 

 foods, scurvy^ weakness, savage bears, and above all 

 heroic endeavour — these are the stock-in-trade of the 

 story books of polar adventure. Winter was a time to 

 dread, a time of inactivity and depression if not of actual 

 illness. Monotony, largely the outcome of too little to 

 do, had to be fought with such expedients as lantern lec- 

 tures and magazine production. In reality this sort of 

 thing is largely out of date. The wonder is that it per- 

 sisted so long, for there is abundant game in most 

 non-glaciated Arctic lands and seals are numerous in the 

 sea. These and birds of any sort make better eating than 

 tinned foods. Dogs are far superior to men for hauling 

 sledges long distances, and experience has shown that the 

 mtensest cold need not be feared by men in good condition. 

 Scur\y no longer stalks the polar explorer ; he knows well 

 how to avoid it, and the old-time monotony of winter- 

 quarters is easily dispelled by the amount of scientific 

 work that has to be done. Light windproof clothing is a 

 far more effective protection than heavy furs and does not 

 impede free movement. Of course, in Antarctic regions 

 conditions are rather more severe, but Mr. Stefansson 

 is not generalising for aU polar travel. He speaks only 

 of the Arctic, although some of his methods are not 

 inapplicable, and have been adopted, in the south. In 

 one respect, however, many polar travellers will disagree 

 with him. The reduction in weight of the sledges involved 

 carrj'ing no tobacco. It was his " custom to require tobacco 

 users to stop it." Some of us would ba loth to call 

 the Arctic friendly under these conditions. The idea that 

 Arctic regions are silent is contended by Mr. Stefansson. 

 We agree that the silence may be often broken by the 

 cr\-ing of birds, the booming of grinding ice floes, and the 

 whistUng of the wind, even if the buzz of mosquitoes and 

 hum of bluebottle flies are restricted to certain areas. 

 But even so, the Arctic has a silence compared with 



the urban life which most men live. We compare the 

 silence of the Arctic with the noise of civilisation 

 and closely packed human beings, not with the silence 

 of the deserts. Mr. Stefansson will need to concede 

 this point. Lastly, he maintains rightly that the Eskimo 

 are neither to be pitied for their so-called hard lot nor 

 to be considered as having solved all the problem? of 

 existence in Arctic lands. The Eskimo told him that 

 certain regions were uninhabited because no game 

 existed, but believing them wrong, he put his theory to 

 the test and found the game he anticipated. As he says, 

 the spirit of adventure is a development of high civilisa- 

 tion : the Eskimo ventures nothing if the risk is great 

 and there is no hope of material gain. 



The book has not a dull page from cover to cover and 

 is well illustrated with photographs and maps. 



R. N. RuDMOSE Browx. 



THE TEJIPLE COINS OF OLYMPIA 



The Temple Coins of Olympia. Reprinted from A''omism:J. 

 VIII, IX, XL By Ch.\rles T. Seltman. With a 

 Foreword by Sir Willi.^m Ridgeway. (Cambridge : 

 Bowes and Bowes.) 



Jlr. Seltman has accomplished an admirable piece of 

 research ; his results are of no little interest and his work 

 provides a model of sound archaeological method. 



Whether the earliest Greek coins were minted first 

 by cities or by individual msrchants and capitalists 

 is a matter of dispute, but from the sixth century B.C. 

 civic coinages were the rule. Certain great religious 

 centres, however, minted money of their own, no doubt 

 in order to provide for the needs of visitors to a place of 

 pilgrimage. Of such centres Olympia in Elis was second 

 only to Delphi, for here ever}- fourth year the Greek world 

 met to celebrate in common the Olympic Games. Some 

 numismatists had already suggested that the coins called 

 Elean were in reality struck at Olyrnpia, and a cogent 

 argument in favour of this view was the fact that there 

 was strong reason upon stylistic grounds for dating the 

 earliest of such coins before joo b.c. while the city of Elis 

 did not come into existence before 471 B.C. By a com- 

 plete survey of the extant Elean coins Mr. Saltman has 

 proved that they were minted at Olj^mpia, and a careful 

 study of the dies employed has enabled him to arrange 

 them in a continuous chronological series of self-contained 

 groups. 



A definite date is provided by the coins struck by the 

 people of Pisa, who seized the sanctuary in 365 B.C., 

 and from this fixed point the chronology must be recon- 

 structed backwards and forwards. Mr. Seltman appears 

 to repudiate the generally-accepted view that the alliance 

 of Elis and Argos in 420 B.C. is reflected in the issue of 

 Olympian coins with the head of Hera. He accepts the 

 date, but upon other grounds, viz. that for the Olympic 

 festival of 420 B.C. an increased coinage was necessary 

 because Athens and Sparta had made peace and visitors 

 from Athens and her dependencies, who had been prevented 

 during ten years of war from visiting Olympia, might be 

 expected in large numbers. It does not seem, however. 



