338 North Polar Exploration. 



cause of iceless seas during the summer, teeming with animal 

 life. It is surely a matter of deep interest to discover the 

 actual condition of this secluded ocean, which has never yet 

 been cut by keel of mortal ship. 



But although no vessel has ever entered those silent seas, 

 there is every reason to believe that scattered tribes of men 

 will be found on their shores, even up to the Pole itself, 

 wherever the current keeps lanes and water-holes open during 

 the winter. A study of the probable origin and migrations 

 of the Greenland Esquimaux enables us to trace hardy tribes 

 of wanderers from the northern shores of Siberia, where their 

 ruined yourts and stone fox-traps were seen by Wrangell, 

 along the whole length of the Parry Islands, which are strewn 

 with exactly the same traces ; and thus we follow their long 

 wanderings, until their descendants are found at the head of 

 Baffin's Bay. There the "Arctic Highlanders" at length 

 found a land suited for a permanent abode of human beings, 

 and thence parties may be supposed to have wandered south 

 along the coast of Greenland, and north into the unknown 

 Polar region, wherever there was land and open water. We 

 know that they must have travelled round the northern end of 

 Greenland, for Olavering found two families of Esquimaux on 

 the east coast, to the northward of Hudson's Hold- with- Hope. 

 Scoresby gives instances of stone darts, such as are used by 

 no known people on this earth, having been found imbedded 

 in the blubber of captured whales. These whales had escaped 

 from the mysterious hunters of the Pole, only to yield up 

 their stores of oil to the men of Hull and Aberdeen. The 

 supposed inhabitants of the Polar region must depend on 

 open lanes and water-holes, daring the winter, for their 

 existence, for without them there are no walrus, seals, or bears, 

 and therefore no fuel for melting ice. Unacquainted with the 

 use of metals, their implements must be exclusively of bone, 

 stone, or driftwood. Now the discoveries of geologists have 

 recently brought to light the existence of a race of people who 

 lived soon after the remote glacial epoch of Europe, and who 

 were also unacquainted with the use of metals. Their history 

 is that of the earliest family of man of which we yet have any 

 trace, while here, in the far north, there may be tribes living 

 under exactly similar conditions, in a glacial country and in a 

 stone age. A close and careful study of this race, and espe- 

 cially of any part of. it which may be met with in hitherto 

 unexplored regions, therefore assumes great importance, and 

 forms a field of research which is well worthy of the attention 

 of future Polar explorers. 



The grounds for supposing that human beings have 

 extended their wanderings towards the Pole also justify the 



