The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1880-03-27 00:00:00

THE PIONEER OF THE NORTH-EAST

PASSAGE.

In anticipation of the visit of PROFESSOR NORDENSRJOLD
to England, The Times of Monday had the following inte-
resting leader :

The pioneer of the North-East passage is expected
to arrive among us to-day, and may count on a hearty
welcome. Admiratioft and honour have attended him
from the moment he had pierced the barrier of
ice which separates Europe and Asia in the north.
Englishmen will not be behindhand in contribut-
ing their quota of applause. Japan was the first
centre of civilization to receive Professor Nor-
denskj6ld from the regions of frost and night
which had engulfed him for a year. The Mikado
feasted and glorified the man who had brought
Japan thousands of miles nearer to the continent
which his people delights to imitate and study. Each
station that commerce and intelligence have planted
to bind together the extremities of the earth has
passed on with fresh enthusiasm the intrepid navi-
gator and philosopher who has contributed one of
the chief missing links. For the last six months
the Swedish Professor has been making an almost
royal progress homewards. The chorus of praise
of his great exploit has swelled from Egypt. It
was a marvellous geographical antithesis to have
penetrated into Asia by virtue of patience in
humouring the caprices of nature, and to follow up
the feat by taking advantage of the defiance a dif-
ferent phase of human ingenuity had addressed to
nature to sail through Africa. .At Naples the
countrymen of Christopher Columbus, of Marco
Polo of the Cabots, have acclaimed the discoverer
of the key to a problem they left unsolved. There
may be other stages in his journey homewards.
But Englishmen will hardly allow him to bear
away from any land pleasanter memories of admir-
ing sympathy than from this. Englishmen can
understand the patience and sagacity which have
been needed to. accomplish such a task. They will
not the less appreciate the forethought and wisdom
which have biought back the whole ship's company
strong and sound in bodily health that British sea-
manship has not alwAys been providently economic of
human strength. Certainly no people could be ex-
pected, were it only from selfish moties, to greet
more enthusiastically than Englishmen fellow-workers
in an enterprise which, whoewr may have begun it,
they know they will be called upon to complete. An
obstacle interposed by nature to human enterprise
cannot be removed, a secret of nature cannot be
guessed, without this country stepping in to demon-
strate 4ts uses, and probably to reap the giant's share of
the profit. The great French Minister Turgot
published abroad to the French navy that Cook,
"that famous navigator" had earned from the enemies
of England the impunity of a neutral for discoveries
"of general utility to all nations." Sweden is at
peace with all the world, and Professor NordenskjOld
requires nO such letters of protection. But his
brilliant deed of exploration has earned for him, as for
Cook, the gratitude, without respect of nationality,
due to the peaceful triumphs.which imply no defeat.
It has taken three centuries and more to accomplish
that which Professor Nordenskjold has done.
Columbus's grand discovery was in some sort a
failure. The expedition was meant to find a short
way to India•and Cathay, and it revealed instead a
new world. Nations which were shut out by Spanish
jealousy from a share in the spoils of America re-
mained as eager as ever to cut the knot of a direct
course to Asia. The theory Of a North-West Passage
was as freely canvassed in the 16th and 17th centuries
by Englishmen and Dutchmen as now, and that of a
North-East Passage still more. Sir Hugh Willoughby
sought it in 1553, and paid forfeit with the lives of
himself and his crew. For two centuries onwards
mariners from this island and from Holland tried and
were foiled. . The Danish Behring seemed to have suc-
ceeded once for all when he found the strait which has
been christened after him. He endeavoured in vain,
however, to put the key into the lock. Thirteen years
after he had entered the channel between the Pacific
and the Arctic Sea he died, with his undertaking un-
finished, in sight, it might be said, of the promised
land. Another thirty-five years passed, and-England
resumed the work. In 1776 Cook in the Resolution, in
company with Clerke in the Discovery, sailed from
Plymouth on their memorable voyage. That expedi-
tion endowed Europe with Oceana, and balanced for
Great Britain the folly which was losing her at the
same moment an empire in North America. As, how-
ever, Columbus's discovery of a second hemisphere was
itself the result of a splendid blunder, so the myriad
islands Captain Cook made known to the western wolild
were in some way accidents of an enterprise commenced
with other objects. Cook set forth to probe the pas-
sage from Asia into Europe, and before his murder
had tasted the bitterness of defeat. His colleague
inherited Cook's designs, and fought his way far
into Behring's Sea. But fogs and winds and ice
strove against his ships, and Clerke died, like
Willoughby and Behring, a victim to the
toils and anxieties and privations of this
baffling channel. His successor in the command,
who chronicled the course of the expedition,
records the joy of himself and the crews when
the Captain on his deathbed gave the reluctant
order to turn back into the Pacific. Thenceforward
whatever attempts were made by water or by
sledge to thread Europe and Asia together by the
North-East Passage were left to Russian energy to
essay. British seamanship, despairing, perhaps,
of effecting what had assisted Cook, exhausted itself
in the parallel aim of disclosing the secrets of the
Arctic Circle on the North-West. Yet, of the two
undertakings, the North-East Passage must be acknow-
ledged to be both the shorter, the more feasible, and the
more practically useful. There is even a, somewhat
doubtful legend that a Russian navigator, Deshneff, had
surmounted the difficulty in the seventeeth century.
The survivors of Cook's expedition, worn out by three
years of constant labour, had rejoiced at the prospect
of home; they never denied that in another year the
same object might be effected which an exceptional
severity of season had put beyond their power.
Fashion, however, had ruled that English and
American explorers should devote themselves to
the North-West and neglect the North-East.
Swedish courage and science will have now,
perhaps, given a new turn to Arctic exploration.
Other explorers are certain to tread in Professor
Nordenskjold's steps. They need not fear that he
has so completely unravelled the mystery as to leave
nothing for future navigators to learn. His success
has been won at the cost of hardships and embarrass-
ments which commerce would never care to face.
Europe will be unable to utilize its fruits until multi-
plied efforts of skill and patience like his have brought
them within the reach of much more ordinary resolu-
tion and perseverance.

Professor Nordenskjold himself has never pretended
to predict the certain issue of important commercial
consequences from his demonstration that the North-
East Passage is, at any rate, not impracticable. If the
experiences of his voyage were necessarily to be re-
peated, it would appear that, to traverse that sea road,
times and seasons would have to be more nicely calcu-
lated and observed than is commonly possible in
trade. An accidental delay of a couple of days in
arriving off the country of the Tschutski lost the Vega
nine months. Few merchants and little merchandise
could afford to be dependent for the balance of 'profit
on the chance that in a voyage of several months two
days might not be wasted. Were the voyage simply
one of pleasure and improvement, it may be equally
questioned whether a yachtsman would choose to incur
the risk of spending the best part of a year in the
society of a race which the Swedish explorer found as
guilelessly unconscious of the merits of • water and
cleanliness as it seemed to the not very fastidious tem-
peraments of Captain Cook and his crews. On the
other hand, the Professor has intimated already an
opinion that, whatever the inconveniences, not more in..
superable dangers environ the voyager by the North-
East Passage than in any other seas. Icefields and
floes and glaciers follow their own inherent laws like
all natural phenomena. Closer observation of these
northern regions might furnish sailors frequenting
their recesses with a key to the language of
their atmospheric threats or warnings. Even
should the passage itself be found to be virtually
interdicted to mercantile intercourse between the two
continents, it might yet be possible to approach the
channel from each side. Ports might gradually grow
on either side of Cape Chelynsky which would serve
as e,ntre.p6ts • for the interchange of the 6ommodi-
tie; of Eiirope and Northern Asia. As soon
as it is recognised that the door which has shut
Europe out of Asia on the Arctic side is
ajar, trade may be- trusted to make its usual effort to
push it open. Japan on one side of the inlet watches
eagerly for pretexts to vindicate its title to rank with
Europe. The Japanese party of progress will use.
what influence it may possess to pave the nearest
road to the continent for its predilections. Northern
Europe will promote the same object for its own
interests, and England will never consent to be left out
of any new commercial opportunities. Trade in these
days cuts through continents to find the speediest
path to its customers. When it has the choice it
may even prefer browbeating nature to watching and
complying with her ways. But it would rather
take its chance of being nipped by an iceberg than
travel several superfluous thousands of miles.
Meteorologists are already . concerting their plans
for garrisoning the region Professor Nordenskjold has
explored with a series of meteorological sentries.
They desire to watch the winds where they are born.
Should the project be realized, we shall be much
surprised if each observatory do not quickly become a
centre for observations of the price of skins and sea-
horse oils as well as of north-east winds and frosts.