ARCTIC EXPLORATIONS. 275 



Wellington Channel; the exploration of either of these is likely to lead 

 to important and valuable results. Thirdly, there is the way by Spitz- 

 bergen. Fourthly, by Franz Josef Land, where at the present inomeut 

 the English Harmsworth expedition, under the command of Mr. Jack- 

 son, is prosecuting its researches. Then there is the route selected 

 and adopted by Hansen in the neighborhood of the New Siberia Islands. 

 And, lastly, there is the way by Bering Strait. 



I now propose discussing the merits of some of these approaches 

 with reference to their applicability to future polar research. 



We will commence with Spitzbergen, a group of islands easily 

 reached during the course of an ordinary summer cruise, and even in 

 vessels that are not specially constructed for ice navigation. This ease 

 of accessibility and comparative immunity from danger from the ice is 

 due to the warm water of the Gulf Stream, which, flowing northwards 

 as far as the eighty-first parallel of latitude, becomes eventually 

 absorbed in the north polar current; but before this absorption takes 

 place its influence has been felt along the entire west coast of Spitz- 

 bergen, thus rendering the navigation of those waters comparatively 

 easy and safe. 



Although, I think, it is an undoubted fact that Spitzbergen was 

 sighted by the Dutch navigator, William Barents (who, however, sup- 

 posed it to be a part of Greenland), the credit of its discovery has inva- 

 riably been awarded to that grand old sailor, Henry Hudson, whose 

 high latitude, reached nearly three hundred years ago, was unsurpassed 

 for more than two hundred years, until, in fact, that prince of Arctic 

 navigators, Sir Edward Parry, reached, with the aid of boats and 

 sledges, 82° 45' north, in 1827. 



There is a very marked difference between the nature and conditions 

 of the ice, as experienced by Sir Edward Parry and others, to the north 

 of Spitzbergen and the ice in other parts of the Arctic regions in simi- 

 lar or even in much lower latitudes. North of Spitzbergen the ice 

 fields are of great extent. The floes are comparatively level and smooth, 

 and consist apparently of ice of only one season's formation, whereas 

 the ice that has invariably been met north of Smith Sound and Bering- 

 Strait and in the vicinity of East Greenland and Franz Josef Land has 

 been of the same heavy, massive character as that to which Sir George 

 Nares very appropriately applied the term palaeocrystic, i. e., ice of 

 ancient date, probably the formation of centuries. This leads one to 

 the supposition that a very large extent of ice-covered sea exists to the 

 north of Spitzbergen; a sea, however, that receives the warm but grad- 

 ually cooling water of the Gulf Stream, and is, therefore, antagonistic 

 to the formation of heavy or perpetual ice. But these large ice fields 

 are in a measure dominated by the north polar current after, the dis- 

 ruption of the pack in the summer, and under the influence of this 

 stream they are drifted bodily to the southward. It was this constant 

 southerly drift that was the cause of Parry's failure to reach a higher 



