August, 1904.] 



KNOWLEDGE & SCIENTIFIC NEWS. 



igi 



men, who unwillingly rifle their brains and imagina- 

 tion for words, words, words. The presidential ad- 

 dress of 1902 occupied 48 pages of the familiar brick- 

 coloured volume. In the committees, certain presi- 

 dential discourses extended to J5, 19 (two cases), and 

 iS pages of closely printed matter. True, there were 

 compensations evident in a modest venture of 9 pages 

 in one instance, and of 8 pages in another. 



The one-year rule applicable to the occupancy of the 

 presidential chair is a golden fetter around the neck of 

 the Association. In all likelihood the distinguished 

 men who are at present compelled to retire annually 

 would be willing — nay, proud — to serve for a longer 

 term, at anv rate for a biennial period. Under such 

 conditions they might reasonably hope to be of real 

 service to the Association each in turn and according 

 to his opportunities, with corresponding lienelit to the 

 whole organisation. 



The Report of the .Association, containing addresses 

 and papers read in the sections, we take leave to say, 

 should be in the hands of members earlier in the year. 

 At the moment of writing, the volume for the South- 

 port meeting, held in 1903, has not vet appeared. 

 Perhaps it will be laid on the table at C.unbridge. 



Finally, may we not with advantage quote the ob- 

 jects of the British Association? They are: — To give 

 a stronger impulse and a more systematic direction to 

 scientific inquiry ; to promote the intercourse of those 

 who cultivate science in different parts of the British 

 Empire ; to obtain a more general attention to the ob- 

 jects of science , and a removal of any disadvantages 

 of a public kind which impede its progress. 



[A British Association Siipplctnent <»f "Knowledgi; \ Slientific Xkws*' wil' 

 be published during August, — Editok.J 



REVIEWS OF BOOKS. 



New Land. — One might well call Otto Sverdrup's history of 

 his four years' work on the north coast of Greenland (" New 

 Land : Four Years in the Arctic Regions." by Otto Sverdrup, 

 translated trom the Norwegian by Ethel Harriet Hearn ; 

 2 vols.; London: Longmans, Green, and Co. ; price 36s. net) 

 an Arctic Odyssey. There is something in this book which 

 has the space and largeness of purpose of an epic. It is a 

 large book. It is full of detail. But through it all runs a 

 singleness of purpose and a sense of vividness which removes 

 it far from an impression of travel, a record of exploration, a 

 summary of achievement, and places it before one as a human 

 document. The story of four years of the life of brave and 

 earnest men who were hemmed in by the harshest of Nature's 

 conditions — in journeyings often, in sickness often, in hunger 

 and thirst often, in perils often. It is on this aspect of the 

 volume that we would soonest enlarge. Their scientific value 

 as an addition to the knowledge of the Polar seas and land is 

 admitted and established ; and they occupy a place by right on 

 the bookshelves of the geographer, the naturalist, the geologist, 

 and the meteorologist. But, as Lord Kelvin said when some 

 years ago the question of an Antarctic expedition was first 

 mooted, the best ground on which to appeal for help for such 

 work is the ground of "exploration." That word has a magic 

 for people to whom scientific results are of little import ; 

 and " exploration " of that fascinating kind in which the ex- 

 plorers seem real people of like passions and weaknesses with 

 ourselves is to be foinul at its best in Captain Otto Sverdrup's 

 tale. Its introduction is characteristic. Says Captain Sver- 

 drup : " A few days after our return from the first Norwegian 

 Polar Expedition, we were lying in Lysaker i5ay unloading the 

 Fram, when Dr. Nansen came on board. ' Do you still wish 

 to go on another expedition to the North?' he asked me. 

 'Yes, certainly,' 1 answered, -if only I had the chance.' He 

 then told me that Consul Axel Heiberg and the firm of brewers 

 Messrs. Ringues Brothers were willing to equip a new scientific 

 expedition with him as leader. The Norwegian Government 



gave the Fram, and added ;f iioo to the cost of the enterprise. 

 As an exploratory expedition, the main object aimed at was the 

 investigation of the North Coast of Greenland by way of South 

 Sound and Robeson Channel, and the determination of the 

 island character of Greenland. The captain was to have a 

 free hand, and there was no (luestion of reaching tlie Pole. 

 They were to go for two or three years ; but after passing their 

 third winter at the head of Choose Fjord, they looked forward 

 to release ; in the sunuuer they still found themselves ice. 

 bound. In the sunuuer of iqoi they advanced a distance of 

 only nine miles, and five miles of an impenetrable l)arricr still 

 stretched between them and the freedom of the open sea. 

 It was not till .\ugust, 1902, that the Fiam, having broken the 

 bonds of her long imprisonment, reached Norway, and received 

 the welcome that the Norwegians and the whole world was 

 ready to give them. The expedition had been a great success, 

 and geographically it had added greatly to our knowledge of 

 the Peary .Archipelago; had established an outlet from Hayes 

 Bay; had dtMimited to the west Ellesmere Land,Grinnell L.uid, 

 Gr.'uit Land: and had l)rought b.iek many valuable geological, 

 botanical, zoological, and meteorological data all of which are 

 tabulated and sunmiarised in the capitally translated and 

 beautifully illustrated volumes that Messrs. Longmans have 

 published. 



But, as we have said, the charm of this work for the general 

 reader lies in the manner of Captain Sverdrup's telling. He 

 has the sailor's gift of telling a good yarn, (jiiite early in the 

 frozen solitudes of the north he encountered a fellow explorer 

 — a meeting of which we reahse .dike the strangeness and un- 

 expeeteduess. It was Lieut. Peary, whose ship had been ice- 

 boimd off Cape Hawkes. But he only stopped a few minutes 

 — for all the world as if tliey had met on a suburban station 

 platform with trains to catch. He would not even stay to take 

 coffee. " I took Peary down to the sledge, and watched him 

 disappearing at an even pace, driven by his Eskimo driver. 



We talked of nothing else, .and rejoiced at 



having shaken hands with the explorer, even though his visit 

 had been so short that we had hardly liad time to pull off our 

 mittens." The incident is briefly told, but it is wonderfully 

 vivid ; as vivid as that unconscious word-picture that Sverdrup 

 draws of his vessel in its ring of ice and silence : " There 

 lay the Fram stout and defiant like a little fairy house in 

 the midst of the Polar night." It is in this little fairy liouse 

 that the four years homely epic of travel takes place. It is here 

 the Doctor dies, and is buried with tears and prayer. It is 

 here that they have their merrymakings ; their procession with 

 banners on Constitution Days (May 17th) ; their newspaper, 

 " riu- Friciuily One," and their Christmas festivities. Do you 

 wish to learn how gay and natural a touch there is in this 

 book ; you will find it it in the pages that tell of Christmas 

 Day. "When the Christmas tree was brought in, everybody 

 was quite silent for a moment — and then the merriment broke 

 loose in earnest. .As it stood there, with its glittering gold and 

 silver tinsel, and its red and white candles, in the midst of our 

 darkness here, it seemed to be a greeting from home and from 

 above. It seemed as if we were being told that there was still 

 life, and that the light was not really gone. We thought that 

 we were sitting amid our dear ones, could take them by the 

 hand, could feel that they really lived ; it was as if happy 

 thoughts had been sent to us — and thus we li;id to shout for 

 joy and makt; a horrible noise, uuich worse than our four-footed 

 friends outside in the snow. And what was a sob within us 

 found expression in a terrible hubbub, especially when all the 

 Christmas presents were undone. They were chiefly children's 

 toys — for men who felt like children ! Drums, trumpets, fire- 

 works, dolls, Noah's arks, sneezingpowder, scratching powder, 

 marzipan pigs, and things of that kind. There was merriment 

 beyond compare, and practical jokes without end." 



It was not all simple gaiety among the travellers. The 

 death of the doctor, followed by another death, plunged them 

 presently Into depression, a depression deepened by their 

 comparative ignorance of medicine and the obsession for the 

 I " oncoming Pol.ar night." But when one of the crew dislocates 

 his shoulder, the accident, though serious, maintains in Sver- 

 drup's pages a cheerful view. There is a good deal of humour 

 in it. 



" What had we better do for Olsen's arm ? We found 

 some diagrams and vari )us directions as to how a dislocation 

 should be reduced, and after some consideration, chose the 

 way which seemed the easiest and most simple. The opera- 



