AFTER FIFTY YEARS 



Arctic regions. Special artists also make paintings and 

 sketches. The results should and doubtless will be invalu- 

 able. 



Again, we had no means whatever of conveying news 

 back to civilization, but the Baldwin expedition is gener- 

 ously supplied with such appliances. They have forty bal- 

 loons, which will be inflated with hydrogen gas, and over 

 six hundred buoys, which will be set adrift at intervals, 

 with news of the condition and progress of the party. 

 Such methods of communication were not thought of in 

 our time, and if they had been suggested to us we should 

 have considered them impossible of achievement. The 

 expeditions of Peary, who is now in the far north, have 

 also been admirably equipped, the funds for the purpose 

 having been raised by the personal exertions of this indom- 

 itable explorer, with very little outside assistance. 



Enormous advance has also been made in ice-breaking 

 ships, built especially to force their way through the floes. 

 The "Advance ", Kane's ship, could not do that. Offen- 

 sive tactics are now being used instead of defensive ones, 

 and this will doubtless prove of great benefit. In this con- 

 nection, Admiral Makaroff, of the Russian Imperial Navy, 

 who in the ship " Ermack " has already penetrated far to 

 the north, through the polar ice, says: 



'' I believe that the discovery of the Poles will depend 

 mainly upon the use of powerful ice-breaking vessels. 

 Dr. Nansen proved the utility of building a ship strong 

 enough to resist the ice, and of permitting it to be carried 

 along by the drifting ice current. Instead of a ship which 

 can only withstand the ice, I would attack the Polar waste 

 with a vessel strong enough to cut her way through any 

 ice in existence." 



These ice crushers may be of immense advantage in 

 present and future expeditions. The idea of balloons, too, 

 is coming more and more into prominence, especially 

 through Andree's expedition, ill-fated though it may have 

 been. If an improvement comes in the construction of 

 balloons, as it undoubtedly will in the course of time, they 

 will in all probability, be productive of great results. 



Xow to revert to my personal experiences with the fam- 

 ous expedition of Dr. Elisha Kent Kane, of which I was 



