Trof. Nordemliiold — Eajj)ecUUon to Greenland. 293 



the starting-point for such expeditions, whether the object be to 

 attain the Pole on board ship, or in a boat, or by dogs, or any other 

 method of conveyance. 



3rd. Tlie way through Behring's-strait, proposed by Gustave Lam- 

 bert. The waters north of Behring's-strait are one of the least known 

 parts of the Arctic Ocean ; it is, however, known that the sailor is 

 there met by impassable ice-masses in a latitude where to the north 

 of Europe scarcely any signs of ice are met with, even in the midst 

 of winter, and that only a most unusual occurrence made it once 

 possible for a whaler in these parts to reach 73^ 30' N.L. To 

 choose this course for an expedition towards the Pole would therefore 

 be contrary to all reason ; and when the proposer of this plan, in a 

 public lecture, stated that it might be confidently expected in 

 Prance that the Tricolour would be waving at the North Pole of the 

 Earth by the time the news of the expedition's arrival at the Sand- 

 wich Isles should reach Paris, it showed but a sorry acquaintance 

 with the state of the Polar Seas — unless, indeed, we are to consider 

 the words as a mere rhetorical phrase. Nevertheless, it may be 

 adduced as one among various reasons that might be given for an 

 Arctic (not Polar) expedition to these parts, that here, in the narrow 

 strait between the old and new worlds, so many circumstances are as 

 yet unexplored in natural history, geology, ethnography, and geo- 

 graphy, that such an expedition, even if imable to proceed to the 

 80th degree, would probably furnish important scientific results, and 

 greatly extend our knowledge of the wonderful kingdom of nature than 

 a polar expedition following any other of the possible routes (over 

 Spitzbergen or Smith's Sound), even if that expedition were crowned 

 with perfect success. But if an expedition to Behring's Straits is to 

 be of any value, it is an indispensable condition that it be manned, 

 not with curious and adventurous tourists, but v/ith men fully com- 

 petent for scientific research. 



4th. The way over Spitzbergen, and 



5th, that over SnnitVs Sound. — These routes have been recom- 

 mended by English, American, and Swedish polar voyagers, and as, 

 in my opinion, it is only by choosing, one or other of them as a start- 

 ing-point that any prospect of attaining the proposed end can be 

 entertained, and as moreover the advantages they each offer are in 

 general of the same kind, I shall accompany this reference to them 

 by a few short remarks on them in common. 



The name " Polynia," imported from Siberia, has unfortunately 

 produced a very considerable confusion of ideas in geographical 

 science. In the first place. Polynia has been erroneously interpreted 

 as a sea free from ice and accessible to ships, whereas, on the con- 

 trary, that word signifies sometimes a sea covered with broken ice 

 (but not on that account navigable), sometimes a greater or smaller 

 opening in an ice-field produced by accidental circmnstances. Again, 

 contrary to all real experience, the whole polar basin has been 

 declared navigable simply because the famous Russian polar ex- 

 plorer, Wrangel, found a Polynia some miles north of the northern 

 coast of Siberia, in about the latitude of North Cape, and Stewart, 



