Buchanan County bulletin. [volume] (Independence, Iowa) 1869-1891, 1873-01-10

our lovliest and our puresl one
She with her face so clear and bright
| We deem her some stray child Of light
| Ifshe with those soft eyes in tears,
| ay after day in her first years,
| Must kneel and pray for grace from thee
What far, far deeper need have we!
| How hardly, if she win not heaven,
Will our wild errors be forgiven?
TWO IMPORTANT EXPEDITIONS.
The North Pole and South Pole to be
Searched Out Simultaneously.
| From the London Telegraph, December -.
In i few days, if not in a few
hours, the Challenger will start on
her long three years voyage of dis
covery and research. Singularly
enough, it is now as nearly as may
be hundred years since Cook set
out on his memorable expedition.
A hundred years have done great
things for us; and in these days OF
screw steamers and ocean telegraphs
n voyage round the world is a COM
paratively little matter. The Chal-
lenger, however, starts upon no
ordinary cruise. After brief visit
to Lisbon, Gibraltar, and Madeira,
she will spend twelve entire months
in thoroughly exploring the great
basin OF the Atlantic. Thence she
will fight her way southwark to the
mysterious regions of thick-ribbed
ice that hem in the Southern Pole.
Thence again she will wing her way
TO Australia and New Zealand, and
so on through the coral ocean to
Japan, returning homeward by way
of the Pacific. Nor will the gallant
vessel be alone in the task. 1t now
seems more than probable that
YET ANOTHER EXPEDITION
will be sent out to explore the un-
known regions round the North
Pole. Sailing through Davis
Straits and Batfin's Bay into Smith S
Sound, Kane, i'll 1854, sighted north
of Cape Constitution boundless,
open polar sea, teeming with animal
life. 1t is now proposed that, as a
complement to the deep-sea voyage
of the Challenger, yet a second ex-
petition should be dispatched to
visit the north coast of Greenland,
and TO make its way TO kane's open
ocean; and it is understood that Mr..
| Gladstone has consented to receive
Il deputation which will urge upon
him the advisability or opening the
national strings for this ad-
venturous effort. Should the me
morialists carry their point we shall
have conformity at work an arctic
and an antarctic expedition. The
Challenger, with her vast store of
scientific apparatus, will be beating
round about the Southern Pole,
while her sister ship will be making
the best of her way against the cruel
foes up Baffin's Bay. Thus will
NORTH POLE AND SOUTH POLE
be simultaneously searched out;
and, although it is difficult to
answer by the card those who, in a
spirit ofpounds, shillings and pence,
demand querulously, "Cni bono?''
it is yet easy to see that the dis
coveries which these conjoint expe-
ditions are likely to make will be of
the greatest scientific value. From
them we shall gain what we sorely
want-a more or less exact map of
the ocean depths, with chart of
the great decp-sea currents, more
accurate than any at present in our
possession. We shall solve several
difficult problems in magnetism
that remain as yet unsettled, and
we may possibly add considerably
to our now scanty knowledge OF the
geography Of the two polcs. The
value of discoveries such as these
it is hard to estimate precisely IN
coinage of the realm. 1t may, how
ever, console business men to know
that the Challenger, fitted ont as an
explorer, will cost less sum an
nualy than she would cost fin full
commission; and that the expenses
! of the Baffin's Bay expedition, are
likely to more than repay themselves
should only an inlet be discovered
into that boundless ocean which,
/ just eight years ago, spread itself
out before Kanc's eyes, and in which
whal, s walIowcd as thick as gud
geons roll upon the Teddington
sandbanks. AS the earth, like a
gigantic orange spins round and
round on her own axis, the huge
mass of the seas water, heated at
the equator by the direct rays of a
vcrtically-poised sun, flows otfnorth-
ward and southward toward the
two poles. a steady underwash,
like some monstrous river, runs
due north and south from the cqua-
tor; and as the stream approaches
the pole it rises to the surface.
AT THE VERY CENTER OF THE NORTH
/ POLE
there is no land, and the warm cur
rents, ascending like great geyser
or hot spring from the lower depths,
| spread themselves out and form 4
wide open Arctic ocean-thc home
of seal and walrus, Of whale and
bear. SO intense, however, is the
cold that the warm undercurrcnt,
as soon as it reaches the surface
and returns back upon itself toward
the equator, freezes into huge foes
and hummocks. And thus it is that
kanc's polar sea is girt in by a
giant circle Of ice which is forever
and ever ertraveling toward the south.
Over those drcary wastes Parry did
his best to journey due north, but
found to his dismay that 1he ice over
which he was slcdging floateddown-
ward toward the equator far more
rapidly than he with his sledges
could make way in the direction of
the pole. lie was attempting, in
short, to climb giant treadmill,
and so gave up the Sisyphcan task
in a very reasonable fit of despair.
AT THE SOUTH POLE
analogous, if not entirely identical
difficulties will meet the crew and
company Of the Challenger. There
is, so fal as we can conjecture, no
open sea at the South Pole, but