THE ARCTIC EXPEDITION: ITS SCIENTIFIC AIMS. 
155 
least important of all those which await the labours of these 
gentlemen. Altogether he would be a carping critic who 
would cavil at the arrangements of this expedition, or 
its personnel . By the end of May it is believed that it will 
be ready to sail. In a fortnight or so after it will be sighting 
the coast of Greenland. It will now enter Davis’ Strait, and 
after touching one or two of the little Danish posts on that 
dreary coast, it will sail into Baffin’s Bay, and then into Smith’s 
Sound, the u threshold of the unknown region.” The explora- 
tion of this Sound has been advanced by the expeditions of 
Kane, Hayes, and Hall ; and the chief aim of this expedition, 
geographically, will be to reach and explore a latitude beyond 
that attained by the last-named and ill-fated commander. How 
this is best to be accomplished may be safely left to the judgment 
of Captain Hares himself. Speaking broadly, the plan at pre- 
sent proposed is for the two ships to push north up Smith’s 
Sound, or its continuation, to a point as far as the season, or the 
ice, will permit. One of the ships will remain in this locality, 
while the other will push still further on if possible, and 
explore, by boats or sledges, as circumstances may show to be 
best, the sea and lands lying beyond. In case of disaster the 
depot vessel will afford the adventurers a home to fall back upon. 
It is, however, unnecessary to say that the details of such plans 
must be altered indefinitely, and that it would be most unwise to 
strangle the skill of a commander, who has already shown him- 
self so worthy of trust, by the bonds of red tape, which cut-and- 
dry “ instructions ” would assuredly be. 
What, then, are the objects of this expedition? In the first 
place, it is the only expedition — since the unfortunate one of Sir 
John Franklin in the Erebus and Terror — which the English 
Government has despatched to the Arctic seas for exploration alone. 
Since 1845 numerous ships flying the pennant have been within 
the Arctic circle, and have greatly enlarged our knowledge of the 
circumpolar regions. But they were in search of the expedition 
of Franklin ; discovery was not one of their objects ; and though 
they might have incidentally advanced science, provision was 
not made for research ; and, indeed, so long as the mission 
they were sent on was unfulfilled, no man dared to think of 
science or of geographical exploration, brilliant though some of 
the discoveries made, no doubt, were. Need I remind the 
reader that on one of these expeditions the North-west Passage 
was discovered ? 
But the adventurers in the Alert and Discovery will have no 
thought to divert their minds from exploration in the widest sense 
of the term. Every provision has been made for it consistent 
with that economy of space which the storage of such a large 
quantity of fuel and provisions demand. Unlike the case of the 
