( 75 ) 



II. 



ON THE BEST MEANS OF REACHING THE POLE. 



By Admiral Baron vcm Wrangkl. 1 



The vast accumulation of ice — which covers the northern seas in 

 immense fields, high hills, and small islands — subjects the navi- 

 gator in these waters to incessant danger and anxiety : to struggle 

 with the elements, to overcome obstacles, to be familiarised with 

 dangers — all this is so habitual to the seaman, that he is some- 

 times even dull without it. The continual, uniform, and quiet 

 navigation in the regions of the trade-winds excites in the sailor a 

 desire for change : he encounters a squall with joy, welcomes even 

 a storm in the seas beyond the tropics not without a certain 

 pleasure ; and, confident in his skill, in the activity and indefati- 

 gable energy and experience of his crew, in the strength of his 

 vessel and soundness of all her parts, he does not fear the terrible 

 powers which so often put to the trial all his patience and all his 

 coolness. Such being the ordinary feeling of the seamen, it is not 

 astonishing that the Frozen Ocean has long attracted the naviga- 

 tors of all nations, but in particular those of England — that country 

 which has an indisputable right to be regarded as the first of all 

 maritime nations. Without taking into consideration the great 

 number of whalers, who have carried on their trade among the 

 mountains of ice in the most remote latitudes of the Atlantic, 

 England has sent out fifty-eight distinct expeditions to discover a 

 shorter passage to the Pacific, either by the north-west or north- 

 east channel, from the time of John Cabot (1497) to George Back 

 (1836) : not one of these has been crowned with complete success. 



In all those enterprises, however, one common aim, not specified 

 in the instructions, has ever been kept in view ; and this aim 

 has been more or loss attained by every successive attempt — the 

 maintenance of the spirit of cntorpriso and tho support of a laud- 



1 From the 'Journal of the Royal Geographical Society,' vol. xviii, 



