Connecticut western news., 1877-07-27
The North Pole,

Must we conclude that the North Pole is really inaccessible? It appears to us that the annals of Arctic research justify no such conclusion. The at tempt which has just been made. al- though supposed at the outset to have been directed along the most promls- ing of all the routes heretofore tried, turned out to be one of the most ditfi- cult and dangerous. Had there been land extending northward Gas Sherard Osborn and others opined) on the western side of the sea into which Robeson Channel opens, successful advance might have been made along it's shore by sledging. McClintock, in 1853 travelled, 1920 miles in 105 days; Richards, 1,O12 miles in 102 days; Mec- ham, 1908 miles; Richards and Osborn, 1.093 miles; Hamilton, 1,150 miles with dog-sledge and one man. In 1854 Mecham travelled l, ,157 miles in only 70 days; Young trayeled 1,150 miles, and McClintock 1880 miles. But these journeys were made overland or over unmoving ice close to a shore line. Over an ice bound sea journeys of the kind are quite inpracticale. But the conditions, while not more favorable in respect to the existence of land, were in other respects altogether less favorable along the American route than along any of the others we have considered in our brief sketch of the attempts hitherto made to reach the Pole. The recent expedition wintered as near as possible to the region of maximum winter cold In the western hemisphere, and pushed their journey northward athward the region of max imum summer cold. Along the course pursued by .Parry's route the cold is far less intense, in corresponding lati- tudes, than along the American route; and cold is the real enemy which bars the way toward the Pole, All the diff ticulties and dangers of the journey either have their origin Gas directly as the ice itself) in the bitter Arctic cold, or are rendered effective and intensi- fed by the cold. The course to be pur- sued therefore, is that indicated by the temperature. Where the July isO- therms, or lines of equal summer heat run northward, a weak place is indica- ted in the Arctic barrier; where they trend sOuthward, that barrier is strongest. Now there are two longi- tudes in which the July Arctic isO- therms run far northward of their av- craze latitude. One passes through the Parry Islands, and indicates the sea north east of Behring's Straits as a suitable region for attack; the other passes through Spitzbergen, and indi- cates the course along which Sir E
 Parry's attack was made. The latter is slightly the more promising line of the two, so far as temperature is concerned the isotherm of 96 deg. Fahrenheit Cir July) running here as far north as the 77th parallel, whereas it's highest northerly range in the longitude of the Parry Islands is but about 76 deg. The difference, however, is neither great nor altogether certain; and the fact that Parry found the ice drifting southward, suggests the possibility that mag be the usual course of oceanic currents in that region. North of the Parry Islands the drift may be north wardly, like that which Payer and Weyprecht experienced to the nortI of Novaia Zemlia. There is one great attraction for men of science in the route by the Parry Islands. The mag. netic pole has almost certainly traveled into that region. Sir J. Ross found it indeed, to be near Boothia Gulf, far tC the east of the Parry Islands, in 1887
 But the variations of the needle all
 over the world since then indicate unmistakably that the magnetic poles have been travelling round toward the west, and at such 8 rate that the northern magnetic pole has probably nearly reached by this time the longi- tude of Behring's Straits. The deter imitation of the exact present position of the Pole would be @ much more i'm pOrtant achievement, so far as science is concerned, than voyage to the pole of rOtation.-COrnhjU M0gd=ine.