had succeeded and where they had failed, would have enabled any one who takes Mr. Leslie's book in hand to follow Nordenskiöld with intelligent interest, as one successful in a particular direction amidst many failures.

It is true that in the second chapter Mr. Leslie prefaces the account of the Swedish Arctic Expeditions of 1858 and 1861 with a short notice of what had been done up to that time on the coast of Spitzbergen, but he leaves unnoticed the rest of the Arctic regions. Those whose main interest lies in seeing how the real problems of Arctic explorations have been solved by successive explorers, wish rather to see Nordenskiöld's place as an Arctic voyager defined, and his success compared with that of others, than to have another account of his already sufficiently known adventures.

Injustice is done to the reputation of Nordenskiöld himself by this fragmentary way of dealing with his labours. He has been an Arctic explorer for years. As geologist, mineralogist, botanist, astronomer, surveyor, naturalist, he knows all the points of difficulty that are offered to an inquirer, and he has done much to throw light upon them all. But he has never lost sight of the fact that his own labours were but contributions to a general stock, and that it is only by the endeavours of a number of observers, working concurrently at different points, that the whole Arctic mystery will eventually be resolved. We learn this from his journals, and from the elaborate memoirs in which he sketched, for the Government he served, his plans for each successive expedition.

No accurate idea of Arctic exploration taken as a whole can be formed, without a knowledge of the geographical peculiarities which mark the theatre of operations. The Polar Seas are a vast lake, of which the Pole is the centre. Land surrounds it at the average distance of twelve hundred miles. One part of the shore is formed by the northern coasts of America; farther to the west comes the long and dreary coast-line of the two Siberias, then the northern shores of European Russia and Lapland. Greenland completes the circle. The shore of this great basin is continuous round the circle, except for three outlets. First, there are narrow sounds leading into Baffin Bay, between the west coast of Greenland and America; secondly, there is Behring Strait, between America and Siberia; and thirdly, a wide opening, partially closed by Spitzbergen and Franz Josef land, between Lapland and the eastern coast of Greenland.

The mainland round two-thirds of the polar basin terminates about 1,000 or 1,200 miles from the Pole; that is, speaking generally, along the seventieth parallel of latitude. But in many places the continental land is continued by islands lying closely packed together, which run up a great deal farther towards the north. To the north of Hudson's Bay, and to the north of Greenland, land stretches polewards at least as far as 848 north latitude, and possi

bly (this is one of the problems of polar exploration) to the Pole itself. Greenland may be part of a polar continent, but it is more probably a gigantic island. The neighbouring land, from which it is separated only by a narrow sound some few miles wide, covers a large expanse of surface, but is broken up by narrow channels into a perfect labyrinth of islands. This cut-up continent, or cluster of crowded islands-either name is equally appropriate-plays a great part in Arctic history. It has formed a trap into which many have sailed and not returned. But until comparatively recent times it was considered the most hopeful field for polar exploration. It is called, indifferently, the Parry Islands, or the Arctic Archipelago. It is a curious fact, ascertained by the concurrent testimony of a crowd of explorers, that through each of the three outlets we have mentioned-namely, through Smith Sound into Baffin Bay, through Behring Strait into the Pacific Ocean, and through the East Greenland Sea into the Atlantic-a current sets constantly southwards from the Pole. The Gulf Stream, after warming the shores of the British Islands, and running upwards north-east along the coasts of Norway, enters the polar basin and runs towards the east. Drift- wood from the Mexican Gulf, and seeds and fruits from the Caribbean Seas, are found in Spitzbergen, as Nordenskiöld mentions in many of his journals. What then becomes of it? A little consideration will show that, entering the polar basin as a warm current, it must become gradually cold by contact with the ice, and, after passing eastward along the coasts of the two Siberias, part of it must flow southward through Behring Strait, and part must continue the circle along the shores of Alaska and North America, till it reaches the Parry Islands. There part must flow into Melville Sound, and finally reach Baffin Bay. Part must flow through Smith Sound into Baffin Bay, and what becomes of the remainder? That depends upon the answer to the question, is Greenland an island? If it is, the downward current which runs along Greenland's eastern shore is part of the gulf current which has, when it reaches the Greenland seas, performed the whole circuit of the polar basin. Of course long before it has completed the circuit it has ceased to be a warm current; it has sent branches in various directions; it has been diverted by counter-currents due to other causes in various localities; and, as some pretend, it has dived beneath opposing currents, and run as an under-current in its own courge, while its temporary opponent runs as a surface-current in the opposite direction. If Greenland be not an island, the southgoing current of East Greenland must be a branch of the Gulf Stream, which, split by the Spitzbergen Islands, impinges on land near the Pole, and is turned by it southwards along the East Greenland shore. This unsolved problem is one of great interest; geographers quarrel about it as fiercely as if they had more conclusive data to go upon than they actually possess. It was hoped

that Commander Beaumont would set the matter at rest in 1876; and but for the breakdown of the health of his party he would probably have done so.

The whole of the polar basin, so far as it is known, is thickly studded with islands. Some of them, such as the Spitzbergen group and Novaya Zemlya, are of great extent. The Austrian expeditions of 1872-4 tend to show that Franz Josef Land, which is nearer the Pole than either, is also of important size.

Now, putting together the testimony of explorers of all nations and all times, it appears that from whatever direction the Pole is approached a field of ice is reached, at the distance of some 400 miles from the Pole, which differs entirely in character from any ice seen elsewhere. It would seem, though this too is an unsolved polar problem, that this vast ice-field is a solid floating cap on the axis rotation of the world. It does not split up, as other ice-fields do, into lanes and channels, and so admit the passage of a ship. It offers a solid barrier, along the edges of which the mariner might sail round and round the Pole for ever if he were not stopped by lateral obstacles; but through the impassable ice-cap he would never force his way. Sir George Nares gave it the distinctive name, which has since been adopted by acclamation, of "Palæocrystic ice." This ice-field appears to sway to and fro within very narrow limits. It is very thick, and for that reason it floats deep and grounds at some distance from land. A channel is thus usually formed in which a ship can sail between the pack and the land. Sometimes when the wind is off-shore, the pack floats away for a few miles, and the navigable channel between the edge of the pack and the land is broad and free from encumbrance. But a change of wind always brings it back. The channel, even while it exists, is not always navigable. It is closed by drift-ice. or detached pack-ice, or even ice that forms round the ship itself. But these latter kinds of ice are not permanent: they shift, and eventually give the mariner a chance of advance or escape. But the impassable polar pack gives him no chance for his ship, and is too rough for his sledges. This it is which forms the true difficulty-we will not say the impossibility-of reaching the Pole.

It may be remarked that the history of Arctic exploration divides itself into periods, in each of which the attainment of a different object was proposed. As one set of questions became decided, generally after years of patient and persistent endeavour, explorers by general consent turned their attention to another. For 200 years

the attention of adventurers was directed to the Spitzbergen seas: thenceforward up to the time of Franklin, or rather of Maclure and the other brave commanders who searched for Franklin, the accomplishment of a North-West passage was the general aim of all. After Franklin's disaster, the North-West passage was tacitly abandoned as impracticable; and the third phase of Arctic explo

ration began. In it successive expeditions were equipped for the purpose of local and systematic exploration of limited areas of the Arctic Circle.

This third period, too, has been succeeded by a fourth, in which, principally under Erik Nordenskiöld, attempts have been made at a passage North-East, instead of North-West, through the Arctic seas. We think that we shall best perform the task we have set before ourselves, namely, that of assigning to Erik Nordenskiöld his true place among Arctic explorers, by giving a rapid sketch of the way in which these periods succeeded each other, and the reasons which led the maritime nations of the world to successive modifications of their plans.

The Hakluyt Society have collected for us the voyages of early adventurers to the unknown region. Barents, the great Dutch pioneer of Arctic travel, discovered Novaya Zemlya in 1594, and the Spitzbergen group in 1596. Dr. Beke gave, in the Hakluyt Society's publication for 1853, an account of that great mariner's life and work. It is astonishing how accurately, with only the rude appliances of cross-staff and astrolabe, the old sailor fixed the positions of the places he discovered. Barents passed the winter of 1596 on the shores of Novaya Zemlya, and we believe he was the first civilized European who is ever recorded to have endured a winter within the Arctic Circle. Perhaps, indeed,

"Vixere fortes ante Agamemnona,"

but of them we have no record. Barents was more fortunate. The "Vates sacer" appeared for him in the person of honest old Gerrit de Veer, from whom we learn the details of the voyage. It is remarkable for one very curious incident. Barents, as we said, wintered on Novaya Zemlya. He built a house there, partly of drift-wood and partly of planks from the deck and forecastle of his ship. A chimney was fixed in the centre of the roof, a Dutch clock was set up and made to strike the hours bed-places were made along the walls, and a wine cask was converted into a bath. There" they made merrie on twelfth night with a little sack and wo pounds of meal." Gerrit de Veer gives a woodcut representing "the exact manner of the house wherein we wintered." This it will be remembered, was in 1596. Spring came, and the early summer of 1597 Suddenly the ice broke up, the gallant Dutchmen left their house standing, left their ship immovably frozen in, and took to their boats; and after many adventures reached home."

No one ever sailed to the desolate shore for two hundred and seventy-eight years. Then, in 1871, a Norwegian captain, Elling Carlsen, sailed for the first time as he believed into the bay Barents's house was standing as the builders had left it. The clock, silent for near three centuries, was in its place, the bath in

its corner, the bed-places against the wall. The halberd and muskets were in their old places, and strewed about were the carpenter's tools, the drinking-vessels, the instruments, the books, and a pair of little boots that had belonged to the ship's boy, who formed one of the company, and who died during the winter. The relics are all carefully preserved in the Naval Museum at the Hague, where a house, open in front, in exact imitation of Gerrit de Veer's engraving, has been built to receive them.

Ön Henry Hudson, an English sailor, descended the mantle of Barents. He followed the polar ice from Greenland to Spitzbergen. His voyages were commercially of vast importance, for they opened out the whale fishery in the Spitzbergen seas.

Discovery and enterprise were mainly confined to the Greenland and Spitzbergen seas for 200 years after the time of Hudson. Whalers and sealers went every year along the edge of the polar pack. Experience, as time went on, taught them the best position for pursuing their fishery at different times of the year. But though hundreds of vessels, making in all probably thousands of voyages, pressed up to the edge, not one ever penetrated far beyond the edge. The floating mass sometimes pushed a few leagues to the south, in some years it retreated a little to the north. But in 1827 it occurred to Sir Edward Parry to use his ship merely as a base of operations, and to start across the Palæocrystic ice in sledges. Sledge-travelling, which has since been reduced to a science, was then comparatively unknown. Sir Edward Parry was its pioneer. He started, leaving his ship, the "Hecla," in lat. 81° 5' on the north coast of Spitzbergen. He attained a very high latitude nearer the Pole than any man has ever since attained, till Markham beat it in his wonderful sledge journey from the " Alert,” in Sir George Nares's expedition of 1875. Parry would have gone much farther, had it not been for the circumstance that at the time of their journey the whole ice-field on which his sledges were travelling drifted towards the south, so that in proportion as, with incredible toil, they advanced towards the north, the very ground beneath their feet, so to speak, carried them south at the rate of four miles a day. When they turned homewards, they had travelled over 292 miles of ground, but were only 172 miles from their ship.

Foiled in this attempt, discoverers accepted the defeat of Parry, and turned their attention in another direction.

Then began what we have called the second period of Arctic exploration. It was thought that sooner or later a practicable way would be discovered among the straits and islands of the Arctic Archipelago, by which a passage north-west from the Atlantic waters to the Pacific might be accomplished. A glance at the globe was enough to show that if a channel could be found, by means of which a ship could pass from the Atlantic across or near