The Sun.
London, England, 1865-04-12 00:00:00

THE MIN, LONDON, WEDNESDAY EVENIMI, APRIL 12, 1865.

Art. 9 of the said convention, invited the Government
of her Britannic Majesty to accede thereto.

_ -
The undersigned, her Britannic Majesty's princi-
pal Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, duly au-
thorised for that purpose, hereby declares that the
Government of her Britannic Majesty fully accedes
to the convention aforesaid.

In witness whereof he has signed the present act
of accession, and has affixed thereto the seal of his
arms.

Done at London, the 18th day of February, in
the year of Our Lord 1865. (L.S.) RUSSELL.

Royal Geographical Society.

.. - -.-.

The tenth meeting of the present session of this
society was held on Monday evening, the 10th inst.,
at Burlington House, Sir R.I. Murchison, president,
in the chair, when the question of North Polar ex-
ploration was again discussed.
The first paper, by Mr. W. E. HICKSON, was on
" The Climate of the North Pole." The object of
the author was to prove, by the known direction of
isothermal lines of the globe and the favourable
position of the polar areas with regard to the sun,
owing to the inclination of the earth's axis and the
diurnal motion, that the prevalent notion of a maxi-
mum of cold at the poles was quite erroneous. Dis-
tance from the equator wasnot an accurate measure
for cold, as the equator itself was not a parallel of
maximum heat. Sir David Brewster pointed out as
long ago as 1821 the probability of the thermometer
being found to range ten degrees higher at the pole
than in some other parts of the Arctic circle, and
this opinion had not been invalidated by any facts
subsequently discovered. The summer climate must
there be far more equable than that of the north
temperate zone, and although the Polar winter might
be correspondingly equable in its severity, it
would be rather a prolonged evening than a six
months' night, owing to the moon when at the full
never setting, and the skies being irradiated by the
aurora borealis. The paper concluded by a stirring
appeal for the resumption of Arctic enterprise on
the route attempted by Parry in his Spitzbergen
voyage, showing how with the advantages of steam
power and accumulated experience the attainment of
the pole was not a matter of great difficulty even by
the gunboats of her Majesty's navy, two or three of
which might annually be sent to cruise about on the
edge of the pack, with orders to run in for the Polar
Sea should an opening in the ring of pack ice oppor-
tunely present itself.
A second paper was " On the best route for North
Polar Exploration," by Mr. C. R. Markham. The
author stated that the plan for a Polar expedition via
Smith Sound was conceived and deliberately weighed
by himself and Captain Sherard Osborn in the month
of October last, the opportunity appearing to Capt.
Osborn favourable for the resumption of Arctic en-
terprise. It had now devolved upon him, since the
departure of Captain Osborn for India, to meet and
answer the various objections which were made to
the Smith Sound route. The chief of these was the
preliminary difficulty of reaching the base of opera-
tions, on account of the pack ice in Baffin's Bay, it
having been urged in favour of giving the Spitzber-
gen base the preference that this difficulty did not
there exist, as there was open sea all the way every
summer. The author contended that the Baffin's Bay
obstacle had been much exaggerated, and he enume-
rated no less than 38 exploring ships which had suc-
cessfully passed to pack ice, there had been only two
failures, and these arose from the impatience of their
commanders, who quitted the secure route along the
land floe to penetrate the pack. The great advan-
tage of the route from Smith Sound to the Pole over
that from Spitzbergen was that by sledging along
and surveying the shores of Greenland we were sure
of making great geographical and scientific dis-
coveries, even if we failed in the main object.
Whereas if an expedition failed via Spitzbergen, the
ships would have simply scored a track through a
few miles of frozen sea and come back again.
The PRESIDENT, in reviewing the advantages of
the two projects which had now been brought before
the society, said that he wished to adduce a few
considerations which had occurred to him in the
North Pole. 1. The fact had been well ascertained
by Scoresby and others that every portion of the
floating pack ice north of Spitzbergen was made up
of frozen sea water only, without a trace of terrestrial
icebergs like those which float down Baffin's Bay, or
those which, carrying blocks of stone and debris, float
northwards from the land around the South Pole.

2. The northern shores of Siberia told the same tale,
for in their vast expanse the absence of icebergs or
erratic blocks, or anything which could have been
derived from great or lofty masses of land to the
north, had been well ascertained. 3. As a geologist
he would point out that this absence of erratic blocks
in Northern Siberia had existed from that remote
glacial period when much larger tracts of Northern
Europe were occupied by glaciers than at the pre-
sent day. He had himself followed the northern
erratic blocks (originally transported in icebergs from
Scandinavia) in Norhern Germany and Russia, which
blocks no longer appeared on the east of the Ural
Mountains. 4. The traveller Middendorf found the
extreme northern promontory of Siberia, Taimyr, clad
with fir trees, while the immense tract of country to
the south of it was destitute of arboreal vegetation,
showing a milder climate at the point of Siberia nearest
the polo. It now remained to decide upon the best
plan for reaching the Polynia of this induction.
There could be no doubt that great additions to va-
rious branches of physical science would more cer-
tainly accrue from the adoption of the Smith Sound
route, as it would lead along the shores of Green-
land, than from the purely maritime expedition to
the north of Spitzbergen ; but they were not called
upon to express their opinion in favour of one or
the other plan. It would be for the council of the
society, aided by the advice of the councils of other
scientific societies, so as to put the case before the
Admiralty and her Majesty's Government as to
secure the fulfilment of a great geographical object
by those means which our rulers might deem to be
the most efficacious, after consultation with the offi-
cers appointed to lead the expedition, and after a
due consideration of the evidences which had been
elicited in the progress of these discussions. He I
believed it unnecessary to combat the feeble argu-
ments of those who opposed the expedition on the
score of danger. Surely the British navy had not
come to that condition, that with their present
great means and appliances they could not emulate
the efforts of Hudson and the Elizabethan voyagers
in their little cockboats.

The PRESIDENT then read portions of a letter
which he had just received from Lady Franklin,
dated Madrid, April 6. Her ladyship expressed her
earnest wishes for the promotion of the expedition.
It was due to England and those who had gone be-
fore that no other country should have the honour
of being the first to make such a discovery. There
was no better time than the present, while we had
with us, still in the prime of life, officerslike M'Clin-
tock and a host of hardy seamen trained to Arctic
voyages. It would be unreasonable, and much to
be deplored, if the fate of her husband and his com-
panions were to be made an efficient objection
to all future Arctic exploration. They met with
the unhappy end which often befell the pioneers in
tentative enterprises ; but they rested alone in their
awful calamity. With the increased knowledge and
better appliances now at our command, no repeti-
tion of such a catastrophe need be dreamt of.
Capt. INGIAFIELD, although quite agreeing in the
practicability of reaching the North Pole by way of
Smith Sound, believed that the safest and shortest
route was that to the north of Spitzbergen. The dis-
tance from London to the pole by Smith Sound was
4,000 miles; but by way of Spitzbergen only 2,500.
He had himself three times passed through the pack
ice in Baffin'sßay, but it was an enterprise of great
difficulty, and in going northwards from Smith
Sound he believed all our previous knowledge jus-
tified us in believing that an open sea would be met
with, which would put an end to sledge travelling.
He firmly believed that a stout steam vessel would
be able to force its way through the pack ice north
of Spitzbergen into the Polar Sea. As to the cost,
Parry's voyage cost only £9,975, and the expedition
sent out by Lady Franklin—a screw steamer sup-
plied with every necessary for two years and a half
—cost only £10,412. •
Commander J. E. DAVIS,
R.N., gave a graphic
description of the icefields of the Antarctic, which