SPITZBERGEN ROUTE. 
339 
the importance of Arctic enterprise, and there is no 
knowing where the waste of public money will end. 
The country has hardly recovered from the impression 
made upon the exchequer for defraying the former 
Arctic explorations, and that department of the State 
will care little to enter again on a like career of lavish 
expenditure. 
On the other hand, the Spitzbergen route, having 
numerous places of call for refreshment and assist¬ 
ance, whenever refreshment and assistance may be 
required, is a most inexpensive one; the cost of 
the ship is the main item; this outlay can always 
be regained by her ready sale when done with for 
this particular purpose of scientific investigation; the 
expense of the men and officers for the voyage, at 
so much a month, is easily calculated, and cannot 
much swell the bill. The outfit is not a heavy item, 
and the necessity of supplies in case of a mishap 
which would involve a winter on the Islands (always 
to be taken into consideration and to be duly pro¬ 
vided for), is but an item of expense which is after all 
a contingency. It cannot be used as an argument for 
the use of the. Smith Sound route that more facts in 
scientific inquiry can be gleaned along the northern 
shores of Greenland; for, all the scientific men we 
have consulted have declared that the north shores of 
