524 Notices of Books. [0<5tober, 



liable to rot if left lying idle in dock or harbour, and the best of 

 sailors are subject to analogous corruption unless provided with 

 some kind of active occupation. A genuine sailor has a huge 

 contempt for useless inactivity and lubberly land-lounging, but in 

 these " piping times of peace " he has no small difficulty in 

 finding some plausible pretext for a cruise. Pirates are practi- 

 cally extinct ; there is nothing to be done in chasing them ; the 

 only approach to old-fashioned naval occupation now remaining 

 open to him is the weary blockading of the pestiferous mouths of 

 swampy African rivers for the meagre chance of occasionally 

 capturing a slaver. 



The Times newspaper has recently taken up the subject of 

 Arctic Exploration, and would have us give up all further attempts 

 to solve the polar problems, because the private and imperfectly- 

 organised expedition of the Polaris has compelled some sailors 

 and Esquimaux to suffer the hardship of wintering on a drifting 

 ice-floe. If sailors were helpless babes and the Times were the 

 national wet-nurse for marine infants, this tender solicitude 

 would be emphatically proper and dutiful, but, as it is, the 

 opinions of the quarter-deck and forecastle are far better guides 

 for outsiders, like ourselves, than those of Printing-House 

 Square. If responsible officers and sober men, who have already 

 had some practical experience of arctic hardships and dangers, 

 are willing and eager to incur them again, and if full-grown civilian 

 naturalists are equally urgent in their desire to share the sailor's 

 perils, it would be little short of insult if the nation at large were 

 to accept the conclusions of the Times, and refuse to enter upon 

 further arctic exploration merely on the pretext of maternal ten- 

 derness. If the whole truth could be told, we should probably 

 learn that the risks of physical suffering which our sailors en- 

 counter in the streets of Valetta, Naples, Genoa, Marseilles, and 

 other Mediterranean ports, while their ships are lying idly in 

 harbour, are quite as great as those to which they are exposed 

 when threading their way between Greenland icebergs. 



If any statesman desires to learn how the spare ships and men 

 of the British Navy should be occupied during times of peace, 

 let him send at once to Bedford Street for a copy of Dr. Thomp- 

 son's " Depths of the Sea ; " let him read it thoughtfully, and 

 compare it with the log-book of the ordinary ships of war which 

 we are compelled, at great expense, to maintain in sailing condi- 

 tion for mere preparation sake. He will see, by the continual 

 reference to the hearty co-operation and valuable aid of the naval 

 officers, how readily and aptly the sailor takes to scientific work; 

 and when he reflects on the fact that warfare is becoming more 

 and more a struggle of scientific engineering, the importance of 

 the prevalence of scientific habits of mind among naval officers 

 must be obvious. If he has any old-fashioned patriotism, the 

 perusal of this luxurious volume must stir up a healthy British 

 pride in the truly glorious conquests of the Porcupine and the 



