July i, 1887.] 



SCIENCE. 



thread. The State gives bounties to agricultural societies. The 

 practice is e.xtending of bringing all places of resort and amuse- 

 ment under the control of the State. In 1885 an act was passed, 

 permitting municipalities to control skating-rinks, in order that the 

 attendance might be regulated irrespective of sex and age. A re- 

 cent law prohibits minors under the age of eighteen from working 

 more than sixty hours a week in mercantile estabHshments. A 

 weekly-payment law was passed in 1886. 



Dr. Davis R. Dewey of the Massachusetts Institute of Technol- 

 ogy finds that " the tendency of the statutes toward State interfer- 

 ence is not so marked in Massachusetts as in Minnesota." From 

 1866 on, each year has seen an extension of legislation in the direc- 

 tion of control over employers. 



Dr. E. W. Bemis of Springfield writes that " there has been a 

 steady increase of State action during the past ten years in Massa- 

 chusetts. This increase has been chiefly in matters of monopoly 

 regulation, sanitation, education, and labor legislation. There has 

 been no marked interference with the ordinary business or domestic 

 life of the people, but the State has been called upon to control for 

 the public good, large and otherwise irresponsible corporate bodies, 

 and to protect the weak and ignorant." Dr. Bemis relates a case in 

 which the New Haven and Northampton Railroad objected to the 

 advice of the railroad commission to establish a depot in the town 

 of Whately, Mass., through which the road ran. The commission 

 thereupon ordered the depot built, and said, " The mistake of the 

 railroad-managers in such cases is in supposing that the interests of 

 the stockholders are paramount, and that the earning of dividends 

 is the sole object to be sought in operating a road. Our supreme 

 court has said mor<e than once that a railroad-corporation is erected 

 mainly for the public benefit, and only incidentally for its own profit. 

 And because directors are liable to take a wrong view of their 

 duties, the State reserves full control, and delegates to its agents 

 the power of supervising the operation of these corporations." The 

 State has a savings-bank commission with similar poweS"S and 

 duties. In 1885 a gas commission was organized, the function of 

 which is, upon the complaint of the mayor of a city or the selectmen 

 of a town in which a gas company is located, or of twenty custom- 

 ers of such a company, relative to the quality or price of the gas, to 

 give a public hearing, and order such reduction in price or improve- 

 ment in quality as seems best. And in Worcester this provision 

 has been applied, and a reduction in price from two dollars and a 

 quarter to a dollar and a half a thousand cubic feet was ordered by 

 the commission. Thus, at one blow, the gas company's income 

 was reduced by more than fifty-six thousand dollars per year. Dr. 

 Bemis further states that more than four-fifths of the area, and 

 probably two-thirds of the population, of the State, are under local 

 prohibition. 



Dr. Bemis sees no occasion for alarm in the progress of this 

 tendency, because it has only passed into practice in " such cases as 

 the condition of the times seems to demand." 



[ To be continued.'^ 



THE EXPLORATION OF ARCTIC AMERICA. 



The map accompanying the present number of Science shows 

 the present state of our knowledge of north-eastern Arctic America. 

 During the last ten years very little has been added to our knowl- 

 edge of this vast territory as compared to the period from 1845 to 

 1870. It was during that time that the search for Franklin re- 

 sulted in the thorough exploration of the Arctic American Archi- 

 pelago, in the discovery of the waters north of Smith Sound, and 

 the discovery of the unknown parts of the coast of the continent. 

 Though English expeditions did the greatest part of this work, we 

 Americans may boast of names and discoveries not inferior to 

 theirs : de Haven, Kane. Hayes, Hall, are names that will always 

 be remembered in the history of arctic exploration. The names of 

 American patrons of science, such as Grinnell's, are justly given to 

 lands and seas discovered by the expeditions they had sent out. 



After the period of lively activity in the Arctic regions, a re- 

 lapse ensued, and the noteworthy expeditions since 1870 are very 

 few. The German expedition to East Greenland explored part of 

 north-eastern Greenland, and discovered the large fiords of that 

 coast. It is only since last year that the important results of 



Holm's expedition in 1884-85, on the east coast of Greenland, are 

 known. He discovered the ragged coast of Christian IX. Land. 

 Danish explorers are continually adding to our knowledge of West 

 Greenland. Nordenskiold's remarkable journey into the interior of 

 Greenland was made in 1883. However, it is in the Smith Sound 

 region that the most important additions to our knowledge have 

 been made. Every new expedition pushed the limit of the un- 

 known area farther north. Bessels' tide-observations made on 

 the ' Polaris ' expedition first established the insularity of Greenland 

 by showing that the Atlantic tide enters Robeson Channel from the 

 north. The important explorations of the expeditions of Nares and 

 Greely need hardly be mentioned. The explorations in the other parts 

 of Arctic America are of no great importance. Hall's observations 

 from 186410 1869, which were published only lately, gave corrections 

 for several parts of the American coast ; Schwatka's bold march to 

 King William Land added a few details to that part of the map. A few 

 scattered surveys by whalers, principally those of the enterprising 

 Captain Spicer of New London in Fox Basin and Hudson Strait, 

 are embodied in our map. Last we have to mention the German 

 surveys on the east coast of Baffin Land. 



How little is this as compared to the results of former years ! 

 And how much is still to be done ! On looking at our map, it might 

 seem as though the coasts and part of the interior were well known, 

 but all maps are deceptive in this respect. In many instances we 

 do not know the sources from which the information contained in 

 the map was derived, and consequently are unable to test their ac- 

 curacy ; but wherever this was done, the maps proved to be utterly 

 unreliable. A few weeks ago we mentioned the journey of Mission- 

 ary Peck from Richmond Gulf on the west coast of Labrador, to 

 Ungava Bay, by way of Seal Lake and Freshwater Lake. He re- 

 ported that no such rivers and lakes exist as shown on our maps ; 

 yet we have to do the best we can, and reproduce what former 

 maps contain, as it comes nearest to the real configuration of the 

 land. , Colonel Gilder informs us that the coast near Chesterfield 

 Inlet is not at all similar to the map, but we have no means of cor- 

 recting it. Is it necessary to point out a few other inaccuracies of 

 the map ? We do not know the configuration of Ungava Bay and 

 the north-western half of Labrador; Wager River, on the west 

 coast of Hudson Bay, and the north coast of Hudson Strait, are 

 practically unknown ; Eclipse Sound, on the west coast of Baffin 

 Bay, is drawn from a rough sketch, without any actual survey, and 

 so is Admiralty Inlet ; and the vast territories in the interior of the 

 islands and continent have not yet been visited by any scientific 

 man. In short, there is not a square inch on this map on which 

 important discoveries might not be made. 



However, those are ' polar regions ; ' and it seems that, after the 

 sad experiences of de Long's and Greely's expeditions, the mere 

 word ' polar ' is sufficient to suppress all interest in such explora- 

 tions. The ideas conveyed by the word are of ships crushed by ice, 

 and a party starving on an ice-field or devoured by ferocious polar 

 bears. But this is a gross misconception of what polar exploration 

 is and ought to be. Its object is the thorough exploration of the 

 Arctic region and of all its phenomena. In order to attain this ob- 

 ject, it is not necessary to organize adventurous expeditions the sole 

 object of which is to push north and gain a few miles upon prede- 

 cessors. The exploration of the polar regions is not a work for the 

 bold and daring adventurer : it is the task of the careful scientist, 

 who knows thoroughly what science will profit by every mile gained 

 and by the study of all the phenomena of regions often passed by 

 ships or never visited by man. 



We will draw attention to some geographical problems which 

 offer themselves in the vast area shown in our map, and which can 

 be solved without incurring great expense or great danger. The 

 problem which is of greatest importance is the exploration of the 

 islands west of Smith Sound. There are two starting-points for 

 such expeditions, — Hayes Sound and Jones Sound. Eskimo re- 

 ports lead us to suppose that Hayes Sound forms a strait leading 

 to the western ocean ; but, even if this be not the case, Greely's 

 expedition across the isthmus between Archer Fiord and Greely 

 Fiord shows that it would not be difficult to reach the west coast. 

 Jones Sound is easier of access. It has only been visited twice, — 

 by Belcher and Inglefield on a short trip, — and no serious attempt 

 has been made to explore its western continuation. From Eskimo 



