76 PARRY'S VIEWS. 



able national pride, in the attainment of the laurels of disinterested 

 exploits, for the advantage of science, trade, and navigation — the 

 true sources of power and glory to every maritime people. 



When, after nearly three centuries and a half, scientific men, 

 and even navigators, were persuaded of the improbability of the 

 existence of a north-west or north-east passage to the Pacific, 

 practicable for trade, the evident aim for new enterprises was 

 transferred to the invisible point of the earth — the North Pole. 

 The expedition of Captain Buchan, and the fourth voyage of the 

 indefagitable Parry, were undertaken expressly with that view. 



This question, supported by the celebrated Barrow, has been 

 again moved in England, and has resulted in the exchange of 

 opinions on this subject between navigators and scientific men. 



Captain Sir William Edward Parry, in a letter, dated the 25th 

 of November, 1845, to Sir John Barrow, proposes in a short out- 

 line a new plan for the expedition. Following the principles 

 there traced, a party would not, he thinks, meet with any of the 

 difficulties encountered by Parry himself in the latitude of 

 82° 45' N., or about 2° to the n. of the extreme point of Spitz- 

 bergen, which was the starting-point of the Polar Expedition. 

 Having unequivocally assigned as the chief causes of failure in 

 those attempts — to which, however, no others can be compared 

 with respect to the difficulties overcome — 1st., the broken, uneven, 

 and spongy state of the ice, covered with snow ; and 2ndly., tbo 

 drift of the whole mass of ice in a southerly direction — Captain 

 Parry proposes, in order to avoid these unfavourable circumstances, 

 that the ship employed in the projected expedition should winter 

 at the northern point of Spitzbergen, and the party particularly 

 designed for the attainment of the Pole should leave the vessel in 

 April. About 100 miles north of this point there should be pre- 

 viously prepared a store of provisions, so that the party, at the 

 commencement of its journey, should not be too heavily laden ; 

 and about the time of its return, according to the reckoning of 

 Parry, in the course of May, there should be sent out another 

 detachment with provisions to meet it about 100 miles further 

 from the place where the ship is wintered. Captain Parry founds 

 his hopes of success on the supposition that, in April and May, 

 the party would proceed about 30 miles a-day along the ice, which 

 would then offer an immovable, solid, and unbroken surface. He 

 also thinks it advisable to provide the expedition with reindeer. 



Finding it difficult to make these ideas of Captain Parry accord 

 with those which I entertain respecting the state of the ice and 

 the circumstances indispensable to success in travelling along its 



