The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1880-01-10
What the Ancients Know Of the Frozen
North.

FROM the earliest days of the Arian
race the march of enterprise has been
most largely and steadily to the West
and the North. The westward line of
activity and discovery has now become
circle, betting the earth. All mum
dane questions are answered or in hand
for solution along the three central
zones. The poles alone now reserve
their mysteries for the greatest of all
physical endeavor to reach and reveal.
Every high quality in mans constitu-
ton is demanded in the work that shall
complete our knowledge of the world
we live on. The Polar regions are
now, as for ages past, the field of un-
finished research and adventure. Will
the indomitable energy and efforts of
our age conquer the terrible difficulties
and break through the obstacles barring
scomplete knowledge of the North
lands and the Antarctic regions of the
worldP A glance at some of the an
Gent voyages and later discoveries
toward the North Pole, such as may
not be generally well known, will doubt
less be of interest. The sea does not
begin where we, standing upon the
shore, seem first to behold ships
faint and partial appearance at the dis
tant horizon. The filmy and almost
indistinguishable trace of the PARKWAY
sails and then the blur of the rising
hull are to the eye as the myths and
traditions of the worlds prehistoric
period to the Observers mind.
There is a period with underlined
beginning crowned by the Homer
ic age, when the people about the
easterly parts of the Mediterranean
Sea possessed considerable knowl-
edge of the northern seas and
lands of Europe. That age is semi
historic, and is Immediately succeeded
by one affording clearer statements.
We have, from the days of Homer, re-
corded expressions of geographical
knowledge. Some recorded by the
poet relates especially to the northerly
part of the world. Fragments of the
early accounts are clearly authentic.
Those and later statements by other
writers will be noticed. In the Hebrew
Scriptures Isaiah XIV the idea is ex-
pressed that heaven, or the mount of
the Lord, is situated in the North
The Greeks believed the internal re-
gions were located in the remotest
North. Men have thought they found
both there--heaven in the sublime seem
cry and the glory and beauty of the
Arctic summer, and the very gates of
the pit in the darkness and storm and
bitterness of the polar winter. The
Phenicians, who founded Tyre and
Sidon on the eastern shore of the Med
iterranean were the boldest known nav
igators of ancient times. They were
the founders of Carthage, where many
remarkable maritime enterprises were
projected. Cadiz, in Spain, was the
seat of one of their colonies about a
thousand years before the Christian era.
At that time the Phenicians had at
tanned vast opulence by their CONNER
cial enterprise. They overran much of
the world, by land and sea for trade
(and in piracy, as the Mortimer in
later ages overran Europe for the
plundering of cities. Phenicians were
the pilots of all Egyptian ships, and
taught the Greeks the act of extended
navigation. That the Phenician sail
ors were semi-pirates may be inferred
from Homer's declaration of their
"doing all manner of iniquity to men,"
These explorers were probably the first
discoveries of Great Britain. Their
policy was generally one of secrecy as
to the locality of the most profitable
islands and countries. Homer, both poet
and geographer, gives some very
marked points of knowledge of the con-
dition of the Arctic seas and lands.
This knowledge was probably derived
in great part from the Phenicians. He
considered the ocean river, and it is
not unlikely, from a report of the great
currents that sweep through parts then
known to the Phpnicians and, it may
be, the Greeks. Homer's relation of
the ends of the Arctic Ocean, where the
Cimmerians lived in gloom, where the
sun was not seen to set or risk (the sun
during the Arctic summer appears to
sweep around above the herizon), indi-
Gates the possession of a knowledge of
the long nights of very high ATTITUDES.
The plG1sctg or wandering rocks of the
sea that he mentions were simply ice
bergs. That Homer should rate the
polar as the internal regions must seem
excusable to many Northern. explorer.
Superficial critics of the Homeric voy-
ages should remember the length of the
Arctic day. The old bard understood
something of the geographical truths
told in his story of Ulysses, though the
facts were clothed in such poetic gar
ments as to be unacceptable by most
people in later times.
The ancient tale of the Argonauts, of
possibly later date than the age of
Homer, and bearing the name of Or
pheus, affords some striking evidence
of the possession by the writer of con-
siderable knowledge of the northern
seas and lands. Few scholars doubt
the reality of the Argonautic expedi-
ton. Many of the statements made in
the relation are geographical facts.
These were not purely accidental hits
of they are too peculiar
to be truths reached by guessing. The
Argonauts (who probably used boats of
hides and carried their Zig hit and porta-
BILE craft across interrupting land
spaces) are said to have reached a gulf
(the Baltic), extending to the Cronian
Ocean. They passed forth by rowing
nine days and nights to the Cronian
Sea (the sea at the west of Norway,
which stretched along beyond the Ri