The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1875-02-23
The Dangers OF Arctic Exploration.

The Dangers OF Arctic Exploration.
We think the North Pole can be reached
provided those interested in the matter will
only go about it Systematically, as men go
about any other business. In order to build
railroads capital, labor and deliberate prep
Grafton are necessary; and why in the prose-
cution Of great scientific enterprise the
same system should not prevail would be diff
fcult to understand. Let the nations con-
cerned sink their individual ambitions and
postpone until given time the execution of
their plans The English have taken the lead
during the past few months, with the idea of
sending out an expedition by the way of
Smiths Sound during the coming summer.
If they would put off the completion of their
preparations another year We have no doubt
that Germany, Austria and America would be
ready to join with them, and thus the more
certainly insure success. This, as we
stated few days ago, has been
seriously proposed in England and power
full and concentrated effort is necessary. But
while all this is discussed by scientific soce-
ties and in the newspapers, people are con-
tinually throwing cold water upon the prof.
ect by declaring that, even if important re-
suits are to be achieved, the dangers to human
life are so great that no justification can be
given for the risk Thus highly important
explorations are needlessly embarrassed by q
mere fancy. 1t is we'll known by the ex-
perienced that the dangers of Arctic travel are
not greater than those encountered in other
parts OF the world, and are incomparably less
than travel in Africa. The history of Arctic
explorations, from the beginning to the
present time, presents comparatively little of
disaster. Lives have been occasionally lost,
it is true, but the proportion has been sur
prisingly small, when we consider the great
losses which have attended like enterprises
in the tropical regions The fate of Sir John
Franklin and his two ships companies of
one hundred and twenty-eight souls is fresh
in the mind of the public; but this is en-
tirely exceptional, no similar event ever having
occurred except in the case of Sir Hugh
Willoughby who, in 1868, was lost, with his
ships crew, on the coast of Lapland. Barentz,
in 1896, passed terrible winter on the north
eastern point of Nova Zembla but his party
escaped after the wreck of the ship in open
boats, with the loss of three men, including
the sturdy commander. This case is parallcled
only by that of DR.. Kane, who escaped in
like manner, in open boats, from his ice-be-
leaguered vessel the Advance, with the loss of
only three Of his party two OF whom died
from causes incident to exposure without suf-
6cient protection. Scurvy has always been re-
garded as the great scourge of Arctic voy-
ayers, and Kane's party, like many others,
suffered from that dreadful malady,
caused by eating salt food. But DR..
Hayes subsequently wintered in the
same locality without having among his
crew single trace of the disease. Game
was there in abundance. and the ship was
beautifully supplied with canned and dried
fresh meats and vegetables. The scurvy did
not make its appearance in Captain Halls ex-
petition, and no serious consequences resulted
to anybody, even although half the ships
company drifted on an ice rift, after the Pola-
ris was wrecked, sixteen hundred miles, and
the other half lived in a miserable hut through
only victim; and his death was probably in
no way attributable to the climate and re-
suited entirely from natural causes. Ship
wrecks, it is true, are common, but not more
so in proportion to the number of vessels en-
gagged in Arctic navigation than in any other
quarter, while the risks to life after shipwreck
are ordinarily much less vessels being rarely
wrecked except by being crushed among
the ice fields, where opportunity is
always offered for escape and for
the saving of clothing, provisions and
boats In the dangerous navigation of Baffins
Bay hundreds of ships crews have, without
difficulty, escaped to the south, as did Dr.
Kane in 1856 In truth, Arctic service has
been popular, not only among the whalemen
of Hull and Aberdeen and New Bedford, but
10 peculiarly attractive to the British man-of-
war; man. Men who have been TO the North
once almost invariably desire to go again, and
certainly the privations are best understood
by those who have been sledging over the
barren ice fields, especially during the past
twenty-five years. These men are not scared
by the mere recollection of cold fingers, even
if they have nothing else with which to en-
liven their stories of Arctic adventures.
"Men," says Captain Sherard Osborn, edo not
volunteer for certain death or starvation; and
I can only say that so popular is Arctic service
with the sailors that l am frequently asked
by old seamen, Are you going up that
way again, sir? DO not forget 1 am a
volunteer. The fact is more sailors haye been
thrown to the sharks from the diseases Incl
dent to service in China and the coast of
Africa, within the past four years, than befell
in thirty years Arctic service; and our sea-
men and officers know it.
There seems to be peculiar fascination
about the romantic and mysterious regions of
the hyperborea to inspire men with ambition
to taste and retaste of its peculiar sweetness