348 
A VOYAGE TO SPITZBEBGEN. 
the purposes of identification, which are now in the 
hands of Oswald Heer, of Zurich, the famous botanical 
palaeontologist. On the 17th of August the party 
embarked, and for two whole days they sailed along 
the coast, and met with no obstacle from ice or other 
impediment. 
Is it then likely that there remains nothing more 
for the explorer in these regions to reward him for his 
inquiry ? Surely we have in this account fresh evi¬ 
dence, if such were wanting, that the northern seas 
deserve attention. These seas are not so devoid of 
interest as the shrewd practical man might at first 
suppose. The presence of rare and profitable resources 
to be derived from the enormous abundance of animal 
life in the Arctic circle is a temptation which alone 
would justify further exploration. The trifling risk 
attending the present clumsy appliances of the whaler 
can be made less by a more intimate knowledge of 
the currents, and the causes that influence them in 
these high latitudes ought surely to induce the philan¬ 
thropist to assist in their solution. The existence of 
animal life in such abundance warrants us in believ¬ 
ing that man may live in some remote Arctic lands 
of whose existence we are still ignorant, and if in 
the course of time human beings have disappeared 
from these scenes of their former occupancy, it will 
