a 
O74 NOTES. 
my companions of this idea. . . . If the principal object be the 
nearest possible approach to the Pole, I am quite of Osborn’s 
far as the 82nd parallel. Along this coast one would have to work 
one’s way in spring with dog-sledges. I consider it a wild under- 
taking to penetrate towards the Pole by ship between Spitzbergen 
and Nova Zembla.” No one could undo the effect of evidence so 
honest and conclusive as this. The Duke of Somerset rested his 
decision to delay action on the importance of first being furnished 
with the results of the Swedish Expedition then on its way to 
Spitzbergen. The Swedes during the last seven or eight years had. 
sent no less than four expeditions to the verge of the Polar region ; 
and the conclusion of their scientific leader, Von Nordenskiold, 
is that in summer it is not possible to penetrate by ship through 
the pack, and that an open Polar Sea is a mere hypothesis desti- 
tute of foundation. The Swedish authorities farther state that 
of o i 
then, are the results for which the First Lord of the Admiralty in 
1865 desired to wait. After a review of the voyage of the Aus- 
trian Lieutenants Payer and Weyprecht last summer, in which they 
found open sea a little to the north and west of Nova Zembla, 
and which discovery is to be followed up by a second expl 
in the present summer, Capt. Osborn concluded by an eloquen 
appeal to the English people not to allow the final laurels of Polar 
discovery to be wrung from them by the sailors or explorers of any 
other nation. In the discussion which followed, Dr. J. D. er 
spoke of the important questions in the science of botany whic 
North Polar Expedition alone could elucidate ; such as the a 
sion nearer the Pole of fossil plants like those of Disco m cna ‘ 
land, which indicate a former temperate climate in 70 north. VT 
t 
stated that he entirely approved of the Smith Soun 
one best to be adopted for a North Polar Expedition. Richards 
pold M’Clintock also spoke to similar effect. Admiral ir 
` explained the interest attaching to the completion of the ge? 
phy of Greenland, which ought to be achieved by the 
ini a Government expedition, 
