The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1872-07-02


| This interesting subject, so refreshing in the
present hot weather, has been greatly illumi-
mated by recent Arctic researches. The Hydro
graphic Office at Washington will shortly
publish the fullest and latest information
furnished by the German explorers, and
translated from their reports by Mr.. E. R.
Knorn, which serves to correct the prevailing
notions of geographers, who until now have
blindly followed the authority of Scoresby and
the oldest navigators. The discoveries of Payer
and Weyprecht of an open and navigable sea
east of Spitzbergen, have completely over
thrown the idea so commonly entertained of
what had been called "an icy bulwark built
for eternity" and believed to form Gordon
around the Pole, as low as the latitude of
seventy-fve and O half degrees north.
Scoresby, in his account of the climate
of Spitzbergen, in 1920. represented it as
"more disagreeable to human feeling than
that of any country yet discovered. Whether
the experience of this commander was pecu-
liarly and abnormally severe it does not ap-
pear from his narrative. But it is not in har-
mony with that of the English navigator,
Buchan, who surveyed Magdalena Bay in
Spitzbergen in 1918, and represents it quite
differently. While on its shores Buchan OBJ
served millions of the feathery tribe in August
and estimated the number of birds seen at one
time on the wing at over four millions. He
was greatly surprised at the meteorological con-
ditions of this region, and was particularly
''struck with the brilliancy of the atmosphere,
the peaceful novelty of the scene and the
grandeur of the various objects with which
nature had stored these unfrequented ATTITUDES.
The late Swedish expedition very strongly
confirms the latter view, and boldly
declares that there exists emo healthier
spot on the globe, and, to the
human body, more beneficial summer climate
than that of Spitzbergen." They assert that
throughout the three summers which they
spent in the vicinity not single case of
catarrh, diarrhoea, fever or any sickness what
ever occurred on the ships of the expedition,
and they assert their conviction that physi-
clans will send their sick to the high north to
recuperate health and strength. The report of
the charming voyage of Lord Dufferin, in the
creasingly frequent cruises for sport and pleas
ure of the English to Spitzbergen, during the
trying summers of hot European ATTITUDES,
suggested to the Swedes the multiplication of
steamer excursions to that region and the
building of o summer hotel, similar to that on
the summit of the Alps, upon the land of
the midnight sum-" 1t might be bold
experiment in medical meteorology, but one
worth making, for our physicians to send some
of their patients inclined to pulmonary
disease to a climate in which the breathing is
far more free and unrestrained than in Central
and Southern Sweden, and where, by the tes-
timony Of those explorers, there are no COM
plants of the chest, and their crew experienced
not one case of cold or of cough.
It appears from the admirable paper trans
lated and published by the photographic Office
that the journals Of not less than thirteen
cruisers of last year to the high north corrob-
crate the conclusion here given Of mild Arctic
summer climate. DR.. Petermann argues that
if Parry, in 1927, could, even in the very
throat Of the Polar Stream, penetrate nearly
to the eighty-third parallel, the steam ves-
sells lately dispatched will be able to advance
much further in the direction Of the eastern
and northern extension Of the Gulf Stream.
The entire subject of polar research is ably
and fully treated in the official publication of
the photographic Office (s'The Easterly and
Northerly Extension of the Gulf Stream'')
accessible to all.