PARRY'S EXPEDITION (1827) 11 



" That the object is of still more difficult attainment 

 than was before supposed, even by those persons who 

 were the best qualified to judge of it, will, I believe, 

 appear evident from a perusal of the foregoing pages ; nor 

 can I, after much consideration and some experience of the 

 various difficulties which belong to it, recommend any 

 material improvement in the plan lately adopted. Among 

 the various schemes suggested for this purpose, it has been 

 proposed to set out from Spitzbergen, and to make a rapid 

 journey to the northward, with sledges, or sledge-boats, 

 drawn wholly by dogs or reindeer ; but, however feasible 

 this plan may at first sight appear, I cannot say that our 

 late experience of the nature of the ice which they would 

 probably have to encounter, has been at all favourable to 

 it. It would, of course, be a matter of extreme imprudence 

 to set out on this enterprise without the means of crossing 

 — not merely narrow pools and lanes — but more ex- 

 tensive spaces of open water, such as we met with between 

 the margin of the ice and the Spitzbergen shores ; and I 

 do not conceive that any boat sufficiently large to be 

 efficient and safe for this purpose, could possibly be 

 managed upon the ice, were the power employed to give 

 it motion dependent on dogs or reindeer. On the 

 contrary, it was a frequent subject of remark among 

 the officers, that reason was a qualification scarcely less 

 indispensable than strength and activity, in travelling 

 over such a road ; daily instances occurring of our having 

 to pass over difficult places, which no other animal than 

 man could have been easily prevailed upon to attempt. 

 Indeed, the constant necessity of launching and hauling 

 up the boats (which operations we had frequently to 

 perform eight or ten, and on one occasion, seventeen 

 times in the same day) would alone render it inexpedient, 

 in my opinion, to depend chiefly upon other animals ; for 

 it would certainly require more time and labour to get 



