SCIENTIFIC ENQUIRY IN THE NORTH. 
337 
at that they should return home year after year 
from high latitudes without adding any new facts 
to our knowledge of Arctic geography. To the class 
of men we met with on the coast, a single hour 
devoted to scientific research would be simply loss of 
precious time ; and as the day arrives when they find 
it expedient to put their ships about for home, they 
go south again utterly indifferent to the interest 
that attaches at the present time to the question of 
circumpolar exploration, in spite of the admirable 
efforts of M. Mohn, of meteorological celebrity. It 
may be that in severe seasons these whalers have diffi¬ 
culties to contend with, and we do not seek to conceal 
the fact that there are difficulties of no ordinary kind, 
or no small degree, to be encountered ; but contrasting 
the very worst misadventures to which their boats are 
liable to be exposed in some exceptional years, we 
say that they are nothing when compared with any 
ordinary voyage to or returning from Smith's Sound. 
Are not the Arctic books, written by McClintock 
and others, full of records of heroic endurance and 
privations'? whose very recital fills the mind with 
admiration for the men who have borne the toil, while 
our heart recoils from willingly consenting again, for 
all the scientific gain that is to accrue to the student 
at home, that men should go on any expedition that 
