Year: 1879




an extension in another direction-that is,
if Kellett Land and the southern point OF
Greenland bear to one another as parts OF
an Arctic continent such a relation as on
our continent the peninsular extremity OF
Alaska might bear to the southern part OF
Mexico if that were free point-then the
! Polar region is covered with continental
mass nearly equal in proportions to the
whole of North America, and the
North Pole cannot be reached by any
ship. Such a continent may be the
geographical secret Of the Polar regions,
and the islands hitherto discovered all
around the circle-Spitzbergen Franz josef
Land and the new Siberian islands-are the
outlying accidents of its coast line. Some
of the arguments of physical geography
favor this theory, though apparently those
arguments would be just as well met If the
Polar territory is presumed to be distributed
in group of great islands such as lie be-
yond the southeastern extremity OF Asia.
On the other hand, all the arguments of
| those who believe in the theory of islands
will be equally accurate if there is Polar
| continent disposed in such an intricately
convoluted mass as may be observed in
the com bined peninsulas Of Lapland, Fin
land and Norway.


From this mere hint at the theories of
the possible distribution of the land in the
Arctic regions one may form q conception
of tho immense labors that may yet be
necessary to unravel all that tangle of
frozen land and frozen sea, and understand
how the grandest heroism of spirit, the
most determined energy and the sublimest
devotion may waste themselves and gain
little; how high latitude may be
reached with incredible labors merely that
ship may push her nose against
continent at the head Of some far
reaching estuary. On the other hand, the
same consideration may show how the
sons of good fortune, with the happy con-
sent of seasons, winds and tides, might
thread their devious way through the in
tricacy of all those channels and solve the
problem OF an Arctic route without
scratch. How grand labors may be wasted
without profitable result in those unknown
Polar seas we may perceive if we imagine
the Arctic problem tried in lands and
waters whose geography we know. Let
us suppose ship starts from a Dutch port
to reach the Pacific by sailing eastward, the
world being in absolute ignorance of the
seas to the north of Norway and in equal
ignorance of the Baltic and of the geogra-
ply of Russia and the Finnish lands. She
reaches the point where the peninsula
of Sweden and Norway stretches into
the German Ocean, and we will
suppose that she is then much in the
position of an Arctic explorer who, going
by Behring Strait, reaches the point Of
Kellett Land. Her commander reasons
on all the possibilities Of the case so far rs
they are opened to reason, by the testimony
of currents and other physical phenomena,
concludes, that the way to the north of
Norway is hopeless, and pushes up the
Baltic. He has glorious success in his ad-
vance he gets through the ice as he had
never ventured to hope he might. He
winters successfully, and in his second
summer is convinced that he has gone up
cM de sac. He runs his head against the
continent, go as he may, and is set down in
|
adventure. while if at the point of Norway
he had OILY gone to the left-ah, then


On SO delicate point does glory or fail
ure turn in Arctic, perhaps in every other
explorations for the possibility we have
! imagined is but picture of the facts as we
actually have them in the history of the
famous search for the Northwestern Passage.
| All fba yraaf rivarc hot ,, fro,,, tho ,,ouy
tains down the Atlantic slope OF our CONT
nent were discovered by men who sailed up
them in the hope that som ewhere at the
upper end they would lead out to another
ocean and so into the Indian seas ;'and as
man in the ignorance of the geography of
this continent sailed up the Hud-
son in hope it might lead him to
China, so man might, as we have imagined,
sail up the Baltic in similar aspiration
and in the same spirit men may push their
laborious and hopeless endeavors up the
icy channels of the waterways Of an Arctic
continent. Doubtless divine Joy seized
upon the soul of Henry Hudson when he
made his way into that noble expansion of
water known in his memory as Hudson 5
Bay; for he doubtless thought then for little
while that he had actually solved the great
problem. Arctic records tell Of the enthu-
siastic tenacity with which Kane held on to
an expanded sheet of water as an open
Polar sea and, as Hudson's discovery proved
not to be the he sought, doubtless
Kane's also was only bay in some Arctic
continent.


II, as we have supposed, Kellett Land is
the extended limb of an Arctic continent,
then the explorer who sails north and east,
or along the hither shore of that land, has
the hope to pass between that continent
and the northerly accidents of our own con-
tinent and to come out at the head OF
Smiths Sound or by some OF the sounds or