The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1876-11-04 00:00:00

THE ARCTIC EXPEDITION.

It is utterly impossible to reach the North
Pole ! That is the sum and substance of the
intelligence which has been brought home by
Captain Nares and the gallant fellows who
accompanied him in his expedition to the
gloomy North. The huge ice barrier which
guards the secrets of the Pole is held to be in-
surmountable, and the 400 miles of bleak and
barren desolation lying between the mysterious
centre and the highest latitue ever attained by
man, mock all the efforts of science. Nature
has, in fact, set up a grim gateway there which
is absolutely impassable. The Pole lies, isolated
and unapproachable, in the midst of a solitary
and frozen sea; and this body of water, accord-
ing to Captain Nares, is never navigable, the
ordinary ice averaging eighty feat in thickness.
The explorers attempted sledge-travelling over
this ice, but it was so rugged that they were
able to advance only at the rate of a mile
a day; and at that pace, even were it possible
to endure the labour aud exposure, the brief
Arctic summer would die out, and leave the
travellers to the cold and darkness of the Polar
winter before a third of the distance had been
accomplished. Whether the ice was exception-
ally bad this spring, or whether it must always
prove equally impracticable, it is clear that the
ships were perfectly justified in returning. To
have remained longer would have been to incur
a needless and useless risk of losing valuable
lives, and there was literally nothing to do but
to come back. _ _ _ _

I - Se, to human vision, ends a dream which has
long existed in the imaginations of geographers
and men of science. We have been told that
far beyond there vast mountains of ice and the
long months of darkness lay an open Polar Sea,
where the sun, liberated from the grasp of the
icy Arctic winter, shone upon a warm water
way, genial as the Gulf Stream, eternally bath-
ing the basis of the Pole. Morton believed
that he saw such a sea when he looked north-
ward from a mountain in June, 1851. But the
probabilities are that this body of water was
either a temporary rent in the ice-bed, or a com-
plete optical illusion. Again, the American
explorers who went up in the Polaris imagined
that they saw a mountainous mass lying far
north of their position, and named it President's
Land before they had set foot upon it. But
they must have mistaken ice hills of the Frozen
Sea for the shore. There is no Polar Sea;
there is no President's Laud. The expedition
has reached nearer the Pole than any human
foot ever trod before, and it has found from
actual investigation that there is neither land
nor sea, but only a huge, unbroken, and im-
passable rampart of ice.
Although the officers and men of the two
ships have not succeeded in the main object of
their enterprise, the nation wills not the less
appreciate their efforts. For fifteen months
they were engaged in a continuous struggle
with winter in its native home. Not far to the
west of the point at which they wintered lies
the land of greatest cold. The sea itself is
chilled by the downward flow of Arctic waters,
and last winter appears to have been intensely
cold in these bleak and desolate regions. In
the histories of former explorations we have
read of the wonderful life of the Arctic regions,
where in the brief summer the sea and land
swarm with innumerable birds, filling the air
with the sweetness of their songs, and remind-
ing the few wayfarers in these latitudes of the
more pleasant land which they had left at home.
But the present expedition found that all
animal life and the migration of birds stopped
short of the most remote point of the American
Confluent. Even the traces of .Esquitnaux
cease, and the solitude of ice seems to be un-
broken by any souna of living nature. The
bare fact of having wintered in such a place
for 142 days, is like undergoing martyrdom in
the cause of knowledge, and entitles the men
who underwent the labour to the honourable
esteem of the nation they served.
The question naturally arises whether the
failure to attain the principal object of the
Expedition will prevent such attempts in future.
If it does not it is only natural to suppose
that a different course will next time
be taken. Instead of choosing the Channel
down which comes the cold outflow of the Polar
Ocean, the travellers will probably select one
up which the warmer water of the temparate
sea flows to the great cooling reservoir of the
Pole. Perhaps attention will now be turned to
the Spitzbergen route, or to the channel west
of the American Continent up which the Gulf
Stream of the Pacific moves towards the Pole.
It has not been the custom of the Anglo-Saxon
race to be baffled by difficulties, and renewed
efforts will doubtless yet be made to penetrate
the secrets of that great lone land which has
claimed the lives of so many gallant fellows
who have endeavoured to penetrate its mys-
teries. The Expedition led by Captain Na-res
has not returned without leaving four of its
number bleaching amid those eternal solitudes-
they lie, indeed, beneath no grassy mound, nor
under the shadows of waving trees, but amid
that everlasting silence which an inscrutable
Providence has cast round about the Pole, and
for which man has hitherto paid a heavy penalty
whenever he has attempted to break it.

THE IRON TRADE.

WOLVERHAMPTON, WEDNESDAY.

The iron and coal trades of the district do
not present any very cheerful signs of a
revival from the languishing condition in which
they now are. On the contrary, the reports
brought upon 'Change this afternoon, both by
buyers and sellers, showed a state of things
even less bright than last week. The mills and
forges in the district are not making so many
" turns " per week as at the date of our last
report, and fewer entries are being placed upon
ordcr books than ever. But it is makers of
pig-iron who feel the existing depression more
particularly. When they have sold their pro-
duct at a price which leaves the very narrowest
margin of profit, their quotations are still some
slAillings higher than those of foreign makers,
who take every advantage of their ability to
turn out tolerably good pig-iron at remarkably
low rates, to send into this district large
quan:it:es of their product. Makers of native
pigs say, however, that they are saved the
accumulation of stocks by the demand for their
make being just sufficient to ekhaust their
supply. Prices of all descriptions of iron have
not quotably changed. The " spurt" in the
coal trade which was experienced a few weeks
ago was only of temporary duration, and the
industry would not be much more active at this
moment than it was in the summer months
were it not for the cold weather which has existed
Fir the past few days, Prices remain un-
changed. The colliers continue their agitation
for increased wages, consequent on the higher
price of coal, and several meetings have been
held for the furtherance of their object. At
present, however, their agitation does not appea::
to have had any practical result. They will
have to wait a little longer, when the winter
demand will become more pronounced before
there is much likelihood of their achieving
success.

BIRMINGHAII, THURSDAY.

Twas
attendance
on 'Changevas of those who came
here wast
to
a. d somewhat
m butew h
it t
terest seemed to centre in the turn the Eastern
a
to seek rather than to give out orders.
,All in-
complications were taking, and general satis-
faction seemed to be felt at the signing of the
artnistio news of which was telegraphed to the
Exchange during the meeting. If it had been
made known earlier it would doubtless have had
much more effect upon the market, but even as
it was there is no douht.it tended much to in-
crease confidence. Negotiations which had for
some time been hanging over were concluded,
and though there was no alteration in prices the
new sales effected gave an improved tone to the
market, there being evidently a better prospect
we fotblul
as
be
eei business.
now
oe
w Iy
p y co
Thetor
egftotorgtee
n forges,
o tilni:eorreewasfretehloy7 be-
causegh
will be no
, advance in the price of coal, and contracts for
I the spring trade will now be given out. Manu-
facturers of finished iron have a fair number of
orders still in hand, and there contiuues to he a
fairly steady demand, though there is perhaps
a so continuous a pressure as merchants were