1877.] The Polar Colonization Plan. 229 
bers of the regular force should be competent to make meteoro- 
logical observations, and to communicate by telegraph and 
signals whenever such communication becomes necessary. 
To the expeditionary corps brought from the United States 
should be added a number of Esquimaux to serve as hunters, 
guides, etc., and who can be taken over with their families from 
Disco or Upernavik, in Greenland, and also an ample number of 
the Esquimaux dogs, so indispensable for sledging and so useful 
as food when their capacity for work is gone. 
The outfit of the expedition should include some two hundred 
miles or more of copper wire, to connect the colony at Lady Frank- 
lin Bay with the subsidiary depot at Cape Union, and thence 
northward as far as practicable. Copper wire is strong, light, flex- 
ible, and a good conductor, and can be worked while lying upon 
the dry snow or ice without support. The necessary battery, 
material, and instruments should be taken to equip the amount 
of line, and the battery could be kept permanently at the Bay 
station, where, fuel being abundant, it could be kept from freez- 
ing. A few sets of signal equipments, such as are used in the 
army signal service, would also form an indispensable part of the 
outfit, and all of the men should be instructed in their use and in 
the signal code. Thus provided with means of communication 
the sledging parties could move forward with confidence, as they 
would be able, when necessary, to call upon their comrades who 
remained behind for advice or assistance. Instead of discourag- 
ing further effort, the failure of Nares’s expedition from the causes 
named should stimulate fresh endeavors, and hold out a fair pros- 
pect of success. At any rate, the little colony on Lady Franklin 
Bay, during their three years’ residence, besides having the oppor- 
tunity of selecting an open season and becoming thoroughly hard- 
ened and acclimated, would have their work narrowed down to a 
common focus, — the pathway due north. The work of the Nares 
expedition clears the way for a direct movement upon the Pole. 
the explorations westward along the coast by Lieutnant Ald- 
rich, and eastward by Lieutenant Beaumont, obviate the neces- 
sity for similar work now. Upon landing and unloading, the 
Stores and provisions quarters should be erected, and the vessel, 
returning to the United States, would leave behind her a thor- 
oughly equipped, self-supporting, and self-reliant colony which 
would push, ever northward, the limits of discovery. 
The attempt to draw the loaded sledges by means of mere 
manual labor should not be made unless it should become in any 
