ARCTIC SLEDGE-TRAVELLING. 303 
ment of the expedition of 1875, and it is further intended that dogs 
and snow-huts should be used to a considerable extent. 
As on former ozcasions, so now also, upon the persistency of their 
efforts in sledging will mainly depend the amount of their success. 
To sledging we are indebted for almost all our modern Arctic 
achievements. 
To it we confidently look, as a means of escape where neither 
ships nor boats would avail. And here, permit me to quote from a 
paper which I wrote some years ago :— 
“Jt ‘is now a comparatively easy matter to start with six or eight 
men, and six or seven weeks’ provisions, and to travel some 600 miles 
across snowy wastes and frozen seas, from which no sustenance can 
be obtained. There is now no known position, however remote, that 
a well-equipped crew could not effect their escape from, by their own 
unaided efforts.” : 
I had the great satisfaction of learning from Lieutenant Payer, 
when he recently visited this country, that these words of mine 
afforded very great encouragement to him and his companions, when 
their ship became inextricably beset, and when she was finally 
abandoned in the 80th parallel of latitude. 
To sledging we owe many thousand miles of coast-line discovered 
and explored, and finally, the recovery of the sad, but glorious, 
record of the heroic deeds of Franklin’s Expedition. And to sledg- 
ing we shall owe the principal share of whatever work may be 
accomplished by the brave men who have now gone out. 
What their measure of success may be, none dare predict. 
The public mind, perhaps unaware of the formidable difficulties 
which surround it, points to the crowning glory of reaching the North 
Pole—that goal of so much ambition and endeavour. 
This consummation is possible, and may the high distinction be 
theirs. But it is only fair to state, that so little practical improve- 
ment could be effected in the equipment of travelling parties, that 
we cannot reasonably expect that the sledging exploits of 1853 and 
1854 will be eclipsed by those of 1875. 
However, what has been done will be done again, if the state 
of the ice is at all similar; but of this we are of course uncertain. 
This is a grave uncertainty. We know that an open sea has been 
found at no great distance off the Siberian coast; and that it rendered 
nugatory all Wrangell’s attempts to sledge northwards. Yet it is 
worthy of remark that Wrangell was one of the first, if not the 
very first person, to suggest an attempt to reach the Pole from 
Smith Sound. 
