Year: 1877

An article from the Saturday Reuie'o, re-
printed in our columns, expresses some
eminently just opinions on Captain Mares
and his recent ''hasty dash" at the North
Pole. No person competent to judge, and
disposed to express himself plainly, will
differ from the RevieW in the opinion that
this expedition ended in a most discredita-
BILE failure, and that Captain Mares per-
sonally is distinctly responsible for that
result. Indeed, while the mistaken judg-
ment of Captain Mares led him to
give the greatest consequence to part OF
his expedition which was not contemplated
by his instructions as the most important
part, the specific act of his may be named
which rendered it impossible that even in
that part his expedition should bc success
full. "The collapse of the expedition at a
critical moment" says the Saturday Revie,o,
"was due to Captain Mares decision on q
question on which he was i'll informed"
He provided for the failure of his
sledge expeditions by insuring that the
men sent on them should be weakened and
crippled with scurvy. And this he did by
ordering that lime juice should not be in
cluded in the stores packed for those
journeys-an order given, as it appears, in
a mere spirit of arrogant ignorance. AS for
the primary purpose of the expedition-the
attempt to reach the North Pole-that seems
to have been regarded as q merely fictitious
pretence one of the traditions of Arctic
explorations that Arctic explorers should
laugh at quietly, as the ancient augurs
were supposed to laugh with one another
over the pretences of their science.
1t was q foregone conclusion with the expe-
dition that the Pole could not be reached !;
'they were ready to believe at any moment" 7"
therefore, that their conclusion was right,
and to give up altogether that feature of the
expedition. This is not the spirit to which
the British navy owes it's great achieve
ments and we are disposed to believe that
in the old times Captain Mares would have
been welcomed home by court martial.
He commanded an expedition fitted out at
great expense by comparison with other ex-
petitions He sailed away with great
flourish of promises, did absolutely moth
ing and returned full of swagger, as if an
utter failure could be hidden from critical
observers by q domineering tone, and q
strangely mistaken spirit of contempt for
earlier explorers whose achievements were
greater than his. For all this he is knighted,
which seems to indicate that in tho British
navy it is not now thought desirable to es-
tablish high standards for service. Captain
Mares return seems, however, to have stimu-
lated the spirit Of Arctic discovery, though
not perhaps in the most practical way.
There is now afoat much crude suggestion
on the subject in the nature of that made
by Captain Howgate. This officer proposes
to operate against the Pole on the Mcclellan
system. He would choose safe spot some
where intrench himself and wait for the
enemy to turn up wait till there was no
ice, till the sun was bright and everything
lovely in the high latitudes, which would
evidently be very great while. All the
hardy explorers seem to come in groups near
to one another, and all the fanciful ones are
apparently subject to the same rule