Nov. 12, 1874J 



NA TURE 



39 



It is by way of Smith Sound, however, that navigation has 

 hitherto been pushed furthest, and here an English expedition, so 

 lone projected, may well operate. At the same tune the east 

 coast of Greenland seems still worthy of attention. The second 

 German expedition did not proceed far to the north, it is true, 

 but it was easy enough to reach the coast, and Lieut. Payer told 

 me this was merely something like a " cab drive. ' Capt. Gray, 

 of Peterhead, a most experienced arctic navigator, wrote already 

 in 186S thus :— " Having for many years pursued the whale hsh- 

 eryon the east coast of Greenland, and obs erved the sides, the 

 set of currents, and the state of the ice in that locality at various 

 seasons of the year, I think that little if any difficulty would 

 be experienced in carrying a vessel in a single season to a very 

 high latitude, if not to the pole itself, by taking the ice at about 

 the latitude of 75°, where generally exists a deep bight, some- 

 times running in a north-west direction upwards of 100 miles 

 towards Shannon Island, from thence following the continent ot 

 Greenland as long as it was found to sound in the desired direc- 

 tion and afterwards pushing northwards through the loose 

 fields of ice which I shall show may be expected to be found in 

 that locality. The following are the reasons on which that 

 opinion is founded :-In prosecuting the whale fishery in the 

 vicinity ot Shannon Island there are generally found loose helds 

 of ice with a considerable amount of open water, and a dark 

 water' sky along the land to the northward ; the land water 

 sometimes extending for at least fifty miles to the eastward ; 

 and in seasons when south-west winds prevail, the ice opens up 

 very fast from the land in that latitude. The ice on the east 

 coas' of Greenland is what is termed field or floe ice, the extent 

 of which varies with the nature of the season ; but it is always in 

 motion, even in winter, as is proved by the fact that ships beset 

 as far north as 78" have driven down during the autumn and 

 winter as far south as Cape Farewell. Thus there is always the 

 means of pushing to the northward J>y keeping to the land ice, 

 and watching favourable openings. '"" , ■ r i • 



And quite recently, in communicating the result ot his expe- 

 rience the present year, he writes :-" During the past season I 

 had too many opportunities of observing the drift of he ice. 

 In May, June, Tuly, and August, its average drift was fully four- 

 teen miles a da"y ; in March an 1 April it must have been driving 

 double that rate. I calculate that nearly the whole of the ice 

 was driven out of the arctic basin last summer. I went nortli to 

 70= \< in August, and found the ice all broken up, whereas 

 down in 77° the floes were lying whole in the sea, clearly showing 

 that the ice in So" must have been broken up by a swell from 

 the north, beyond the pack to the north, which I could see over ; 

 there was a dark water sky reaching north until lost in the dis- 

 tance, without a particle of ice to be seen in it. I was convinced 

 at the time, and so was my brother, that we could have gone up 

 the pole, or at any rate far beyond where anyone had ever been 

 before I bitterly repent that I did not sacrifice my chance of 

 finding whale and make the attempt, although my coals and pro- 

 visions were wearing down. Although I have never advocated 

 an attempt being made to reach the pole by Spitzbergen, knowing 

 well the difficulties that would have to be encountered, my ideas 

 are now changed from what I saw last voyage. I am now con- 

 vinced that a great advance towards the pole could occasionally be 

 made without much trouble or risk by Spitzbergen, and some ot 

 our amateur navigators will be sure to do it and pluck the honour 

 from the Royal Navy. I do not know if the i?,V/>6- will he sent 

 to the Greenland whale fishery next year ; if I go I shall be able 

 to satisfy myself more thoroughly as to the clearing out of the ice 

 this year, because it wiU necessarily be of a much lighter charac- 

 ter than usual. " + , . , , »i. »i. 



If this important information should be considered worthy the 

 attention of the British geographers and the Admiralty, there 

 would, perhaps, be two steamers sent out to make success duubly 

 certain, one to proceed up the west coast of Greenland by way 

 of Smith Sound, the other up the east coast of Greenland. 



But whatever may be decided on, I trust that the Lntish 

 Government will no longer hold back to grant what all geogra- 

 phers and all scientific corporations of England have been lieg- 

 ging for these ten long years, and afford the means for a new 

 eff-ective expedition to crown these, our modest endeavours, of 

 which I have given an outline. We in Germany and Austria 

 have done our duty, and I am happy to have lived to see that 

 our humble endeavours, the work of our arctic explorers, have 



t Leu4rof Capt'. David Gray to Mr. Leigh Smith, dated Peterhead, 

 Sept. 21, 1874. 



gained your approbation — that of the Royal Geogr.iphical 

 Society of Great Britain. We have done all we could in the 

 private mannner we had to do it ; for, as a nation, we Germans 

 are only now beginning to turn our attention to nautical matters. 

 We have had no vessels, no means, and our Government has 

 had to fight three great wars these ten years. But, n vertheless, 

 we have had in 'this interval German, Austrian, American, 

 Swedish, Norwegian, Russian polar expeditions, of which even 

 an Italian officer took part at the instance of the Italian Govern- 

 ment. And England, formerly always taking the lead in these 

 matters, is almost the only maritime power that has kept aloof. 

 When, nearly thirty years ago, one man of science proposed that 

 niagnetical observations should be extended, it was at once 

 answered by the Government then by sending out to the antarctic 

 regions an expedition of two vessels, the Erebus and Terror, 

 under that great navigator. Sir James Clarke Ross, which 

 has never yet been eclipsed as to the importance of its results 

 and the lustre it shed on the British Navy. I do not know the 

 views held in England now, but I know that to us outsiders the 

 achievements and work of a man like Sir James Clarke Ross or 

 Livingstone has done more for the prestige of Great Britain than 

 a march to Coomassie, that cost nine millions of pounds sterling. 

 That great explorer, Livingstone, is no more ; his work is going 

 to be continued and finished by German and American explorers ; 

 we shall also certainly not let the arctic work rest till it is fully 

 accomplished, but it surely behoves Great Britain now to step in 

 and once more to take the lead. Augustus Petermann, 



Hon. Cor. Member and Gold Medallist, 

 Gotha, Nov. 7, 1874 Royal Geographical Society. 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES 

 London 

 Chemical Society, Nov. 4. — Dr. Odiing, president, in the 

 chair.— The following papers were read :— On methyl-hexyl- 

 carbinol, by Dr. C. Schorlemmer ; On the action of organic 

 acids and their anhydrides on the natural alkaloids. Part I., by 

 Dr. C. R. A. Wright ; On the action of bromine in the presence 

 of water on bromopyrogallol and on bromopyrocatechin, by Dr. 

 J. Srenhouse ; The action of baryta on oil of cloves, by Prof. 

 A. H. Church ; Observations on the use of permanganate of 

 potash in volumetric analysis, and on the estimation of iron in 

 iron ores, by Mr. E. A. Parnell ; Further researches on bilirubin 

 and its compounds, by Dr. J. L. W. Thudichum. 



Zoological Society, Nov. 3.— Dr. A. Giinther, F.R.S., 

 vice-president, in the chair. — The secretary read a report on the 

 additions that had been made in the Society's menagerie during 

 the months of June, July, August, and September, 1874. — Mr. 

 Sclater gave an account of some visits he had recently ma^e to 

 several zoological gardens and museums in France and Italy, 

 and made remarks upon some of the principal objects noticed 

 therein. — Mr. G. Dawson Rowley exhibited and made remarks 

 upon some rare birds from New Zealand, amongst whicli were 

 fine examples of Apteryx haasti, and a living pair of SceIoi;laux 

 albifacies.—yir. A. R. Wallace exhibited some rhinoceros horns 

 obtained in Borneo by Mr. Everett, proving that this animal was 

 still found living in that island.— Mr. J. Gould exhibited a 

 new parrot, of the genus Aprosmictus, recently obtained on the 

 Darling Downs, in Queensland. Mr. Gould proposed to call 

 \\ai\i\xi. Ap! osmidus insipiissimus. — A let'er from Mr. Swinhoe 

 was read respecting some bats obtained by him at Ningpo.— A 

 communication was read from M. L. Taczanowski, con^ervator 

 of the museum at Warsaw, in which he gave a list of the birds 

 collected by M. Constantine Jelski in the central part of Western 

 Peru. Amongst these were eighteen species described as new 

 to science. — A communication was read from Mr. Frederick 

 Moore, giving descriptions of some new Asiatic Lepidoptera. — 

 A communication was read from Mr. George Gulliver, containing 

 measurements of the red corpuscles of the blood of Hippopo- 

 tamus amphibius, Otana jiibata, and Trichecus rosmatus.— 

 Mr. R. Bowdler Sharpe read a paper entitled "Contributions to 

 a history of the Accipitres, or birds of prey." The first of| this 

 series contained notes on the females of the common and South 

 African kestrels. — A communication was read from Mr. Henry 

 Adams, giving the descriptions of some new species of shells from 

 various localities, also of a new genus ol Bivalves from Mauritius 

 —Mr. A. H. Garrod read a paper on points in the anatomy of the 

 parrots which bear on the classification of the sub-order. This 



