94 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. VII. , No. 156 



over 33 per cent. The Seaforth Highlanders were 

 a little better off, 169 of their bayonets and some 

 sergeants' swords being condemned. The Lan- 

 cashire regiment had 600 bayonets examined, of 

 which 223. or rather more than 37 per cent, were 

 found to be unfit for use. Altogether 2,000 

 bayonets were tested, out of which 611 had to 

 be condemned. This number, taken at random 

 from the regiments which happen at the moment 

 to garrison Aldershot, is sufficiently large to be 

 considered a fan- sample of the whole supply of 

 bayonets to the British army. 



The London Times reaches the very unpleasant 

 conclusion that three bayonets in every ten, or, to 

 be accurate, 3,055 bayonets in every 10,000, now 

 in the hands of the British army in all parts of 

 the world, will fail the English soldiers in the hour 

 of need. Or, to put it another way, England, 

 which spends such enormous sums upon its army, 

 may reckon that it has at this moment an entire 

 army corps supposed to be fit to go anywhere and 

 do any thing, equipped with weapons which will 

 double up like a pewter spoon under the impact 

 of a fanatical Arab. 



Nor is even this all. The public may be excused 

 for entertaining some suspicions as to the quality 

 of the bayonets which have passed the test. How 

 many of them, the Times asks, have just escaped 

 condemnation, and how many are in fact what 

 they are in theory, and what the English govern- 

 ment pays to make them. — the best article that 

 can be produced alike as to material and work- 

 manship? It would be decidedly curious were 

 there no intermediate grades to be found between 

 a first-class weapon and one visibly and unmis- 

 takably worthless. The probability is that there 

 are many ; and until there exist assurances to the 

 contrary, much more convincing than any yet 

 produced, men of business will be disposed to 

 doubt whether the percentage of unexceptionable 

 bayonets is as great as that of downright bad ones. 



FARTHEST NORTH. 



Taking all things into consideration, the Greely 

 expedition was the most unfortunate expedition 

 that ever entered the Arctic. Newfoundland was 

 scarcely lost to sight when the men began to 

 grumble about their food. Before the Proteus 

 left Lady Franklin Bay. tin- second in command 

 quarrelled with his chief. Unfortunately he failed 

 to catch the returning steamer, and remained to 

 add a gloom to the terrible gloom of the arctic 

 night, and to add one more to the useless Sacrifice 



Farthest north ; or. Tin- lift- and crplorat ions of James 

 Booth Lockwood, of the Greely arctic expedition. By 

 Charleh Lanman. New York, Appleton, 1*85. 16°. 



on Cape Sabine. He soon found a confederate in 

 the naturalist, and the two rarely spoke to Greely 

 and Lockwood, the other occupants of the officers' 

 quarters. Kislingbury and Pavy are both dead. 

 We hope that Major Greely will go to the bottom 

 of this matter, and tell us the true cause of so 

 much discontent. 



The next great misfortune which overtook the 

 expedition was the death by starvation of the 

 greater part of the force, owing either to the 

 criminal negligence, or no less criminal ignorance, 

 of those who had the relief in charge. The bodies 

 of the dead heroes were brought to this country ; 

 but, before they were laid at rest, a noisy celebra- 

 tion was held in honor of the survivors. All 

 honor to Brainerd, to Greely and the rest, but 

 surely they would have preferred to have had 

 better taste displayed in the matter. And now 

 one of the foremost men of that party, a man 

 whose name will forever rank with that of Payer 

 in the annals of arctic discovery, has been most 

 signally unfortunate in his biographer. No doubt, 

 Mr. Lanman. if he had taken the time and 

 care, and had possessed the requisite knowledge, 

 might have written a good book ; but the haste 

 with which the present volume has been stuck 

 together is apparent on every page. What is still 

 more to be regretted is the omission of facts and 

 descriptions which would have been interesting 

 and useful to those familiar with the story of 

 arctic exploration. Nevertheless, Mr. Lanman 

 has printed many passages from Lockwood's jour- 

 nal, and there is much in them worth reading and 

 thinking about. 



The most noticeable thing in the book is the 

 ease with which Lockwood, Brainerd, and the 

 Eskimo Fredericks accomplished a journey to do 

 a portion of which had cost Beaumont and his 

 Englishmen so much suffering and disease. AVhy 

 did the scurvy attack Beaumont's party, while 

 leaving Lockwood, and in fact the whole expedi- 

 tion, entirely free? Surely no one will ever ques- 

 tion Beaumont's energy and pluck. But why did 

 he fail where Lockwood succeeded ? It seems to 

 us that this would be a profitable subject for the 

 pens of Commander (now Captain) Markham, and 

 his cousin (not brother, as Mr. Lanman says), the 

 well-known secretary of the Royal geographic al 

 society, Clements R. Markham, — more profitable, 

 indeed, than the assertions that Lockwood did not 

 go farther north than Markham. and farther north 

 and east than Beaumont. Lockwood thought that 

 the weight of Beaumont's travelling equipment 

 was enough to have used up any men. For our 

 part, it seems probable that the cause lay deeper, 

 and should be looked for in the difference between 

 the winter quarters and diet of the two sets of men. 



