The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1872-05-06

1no NOW NOFIn k'Olar AIxpcuthO0s
The new North Polar expedition soon to
leave Bremerhaven win 60 forth ON it's perilous
mission under the happiest auspices, al
though the fruit of the earnest and indefati-
gable labors of the great German cosmographer,
Petermann, it's personnel and equipment, as
well as the means by which it is sustained, are
Austrian. It is we'll known that strong
jealousy exists between the rival explorers Of
Europe at this time as to the best route for
Polar research. For their differences no one
would care except that when such expeditions
set out the lives of many gallant men and men
of science are exposed 1t seems also impos-
sible to divert the current Of geographical in
terest from these inaccessible icefelds of the
extreme north, according to the sentiment
once quoted by Humboldt
Man, amid ceaseess changes,
Seeks the unchanglng Pole.
In the United States there seems to be an
effort to challenge the views Of the COM
manders, Lieutenants Payer and Weyprecht,
of the new Austrian expedition, because they
have selected what is known as the ether
mometric' route in the track Of the Gulf
Stream and in the meridians where last year
these explorers found an open Polar sea. The
attempt to call the opposition route west of
Greenland, through Smiths Sound, the
american route, -" because it was DR.. Kane's,
seems very misjudged and unfortunate 1t is
the part of scientific explorer to initiate the
mistakes of no man, and to be guided in his
Investigations by no mans authority, but to
be led by the gentle hand Of nature in her
unerring indications. If DR.. Kane's expert
ence taught anythingit taught the difficulty of
penetrating in ships that ice-clogged channel
of Smiths Strait and the seas west of
Greenland, which are the great food-ways, for
the Polar currents. The single drift of ice
which q. few years ago bore on its
Atlean shoulders the English ship Reso-
lutte, abandoned by Captain Kellett north
west Of Bafins Bay, and cast it twelve
hundred miles further south, was calcu-
lated to weigh over eighteen billion tons,
and gives fair proof of the torrent through
which Kane had to make his way. To argue
that the mariner should advance in the face Of
this, watching his opportunity to inch his way
around floating ice islands, is like directing
him to the path of perpetual danger and dis
aster. SO impressed was DR.. Kane himself
with this fact that when his attention was
called to the advantages Of the 'thermometric"
route between Nova Zembla and Spitzbergen
by it's originator, Captain Silas Bent, he took
the pains to recommend it to future Arctic
explorers, although he had made his last
voyage and could not test it for himself. The
route DR.. Petermann has selected for the new
expedition is that in which the great Equato-
rial currents of the Atlantic Ocean are pro-
longed into the circumpolar ocean, and where
they chafe against and probably dissolve the
great ice belt which it has always been be-
leved has thrown itself as q strong Gordon
around the Polar periphery.
The Austrians will spend three years in the
endea,nr to test this 'sthermometric" route,
and it is almost certain that they will give
this ntire problem of Arctic geography its
quietns.