served that the runners of the boats, and even our own footsteps, exhibited the same appearance; and on watching it more narrowly afterwards, we found the same effect to be produced, in a greater or less degree, by heavy pressure, on almost all the ice over which we passed, though a magnifying-glass could detect nothing to give it this tinge. The colour of the red snow which we bottled, and which only occurred in two or three spots, appeared somewhat different from this, being rather of a salmon than a rose colour, but both were so striking as to be the subject of constant remark.'-pp. 109, 110.

There is a curious and interesting paper in the Appendix, by Dr. Hooker, on the history of this substance, so frequently observed in various parts of the world, and named by some Protococcus nivalis, by others, Palmella nivalis, and by others again, Uredo nivalis. It has generally been thought, and Dr. Hooker seems to have no doubt, that it belongs to the order Algæ.

The further they proceeded southerly, the ice became thinner, and more frangible, the snow softer, and the surface more frequently covered with pools of water: the men were afflicted with chilblains, and the epidermis, or scarf-skin, in many peeled off in large flakes, from every part of the body. A large she-bear was killed, and the men spent the whole day in frying and devouring bear-steaks, the consequence of which was, that for several days many of them complained of violent pains: they all,' says Captain Parry, amusingly enough, attributed this effect to the quality, and not the quantity of meat they had eaten.' The officers, who ate less intemperately, suffered nothing of the kind. At length, on the 11th of August, in latitude 81° 34', they reached the open sea, which was dashing with heavy surges against the outer masses,' and finally quitted the ice, after having sojourned upon it for forty-eight days.

The next day, steering through the fog by compass, they made the Little Table-island, right a-head; so correctly had their chronometers kept time under all the unfavourable circumstances of climate, and the shocks they must have received; but it is most wonderful to what a degree of accuracy these instruments, so essential to navigation, have been brought. Here they soon discovered that the bears had devoured all the bread they had deposited. From hence they bore up for Walden Island, but the weather became stormy, with snow: they were obliged to trust to the compass, and reached it in the evening.

Everything belonging to us was now completely drenched by the spray and snow; we had been fifty-six hours without rest, and forty

*The chronometers employed on this occasion were made by Mesrrs. Parkinson and Frodsham, whose watches had performed so well on Capiain Parry's former voyages.

eight at work in the boats, so that, by the time they were unloaded, we had barely strength left to haul them up on the rock. We noticed, on this occasion, that the men had that wildness in their looks which usually accompanies excessive fatigue; and though just as willing as ever to obey orders, they seemed at times not to comprehend them. However, by dint of great exertion, we managed to get the boats above the surf; after which, a hot supper, a blazing fire of drift wood, and a few hours' quiet rest quite restored us.'—p. 121.

6

The party again set sail, and on the 21st of August arrived on board the Hecla, after an absence of sixty-one days, being received with that warm and cordial welcome which can alone be felt, and not described.' Thus ended this memorable expedition.

The distance traversed during this excursion was five hundred and sixty-nine geographical miles; but allowing for the number of times we had to return for our baggage during the greater part of the journeys over the ice, we estimated our actual travelling at nine hundred and seventy-eight geographical, or eleven hundred and twenty-seven statute miles. Considering our constant exposure to wet, cold, and fatigue, our stockings having generally been drenched in snow-water for twelve hours out of every four-and-twenty, I had great reason to be thankful for the excellent health in which, upon the whole, we reached the ship. There is no doubt that we had all become, in a certain degree, gradually weaker for some time past; but only three men of our party now required medical care, two of them with badly swelled legs and general debility, and the other from a bruise; but even these three returned to their duty in a short time.

'I cannot conclude the account of our proceedings without endeavouring to do justice to the cheerful alacrity and unwearied zeal displayed by my companions, both officers and men, in the course of this excursion; and if steady perseverance and active exertion on their parts could have accomplished our object, success would undoubtedly have crowned our labours.'—p. 128.

This expedition, we know, was reckoned by many as a dangerous, by some as a hopeless, and by others as an useless, undertaking. With regard to the danger, we know it was the opinion of naval men most conversant with the nature of it, that there was less risk than on either of the two preceding voyages for the discovery of a north-west passage, supposing always that proper precautions were used in the size, strength, and construction of the boats, in the selection and supply of provisions, and, above all, in the selection of officers and men, in whom perfect confidence could be placed.

To pronounce hopeless and absurd an experiment that has never been tried, is, à priori, one of the easiest modes of determining the character of any measure that does not suit the views, or is

above the capacity, of the Prophet of Evils.' Captain Parry did not adopt it without due consideration. Most of the navigators who had visited Spitzbergen represented the ice as by no means unfavourable for the project. Captain Lutwidge, the associate of Captain Phipps, describes the ice to the north-eastward as having the appearance of one continued plain of smooth unbroken ice, bounded only by the horizon;' in the chart of that voyage, the ice to the northward of the Seven Islands is represented as 'flat and unbroken;' and more to the westward, the main body quite solid.' Mr. Scoresby says, he once saw a field so free from fissure or hummock, that he thought, had it been free from snow, a coach might have been driven many leagues over it, in a direct line, without obstruction or danger.' Čaptains Franklin, Buchan, and Beechey, judging from their own experience, thought favourably of it, and Franklin actually drew up a plan for making the attempt and conducting it in his own person. Several intelligent and experienced whalers, too, all agreed that they considered the plan as feasible. The following is Captain Parry's explanation why the ice, over which he passed, was found to answer so little to the description he had obtained from such respectable authorities :

It frequently occurred to us, in the course of our daily journies, that this may, in some degree, have arisen from our navigators' having generally viewed the ice from a considerable height. The only clear and commanding view on board a ship is that from the crow's-nest; and Phipps's most important remarks concerning the nature of the ice to the north of Spitzbergen were made from a station several hundred feet above the sea; and, as it is well known how much the most experienced eye may thus be deceived, it is possible enough that the irregularities which cost us so much time and labour may, when viewed in this manner, have entirely escaped notice, and the whole surface have appeared one smooth and level plain.'—pp. 146, 147.

We cannot, however, subscribe entirely to Captain Parry's final conclusion: to wit, that, after much consideration, he cannot recommend any material improvement in the plan lately adopted; the plan of boats for such a service we think a bad one in all respects, and that a good stout sailing vessel would have been preferable. Judging from the state of the ice towards the end of July, at the spot from whence the party returned, which was scarcely able to bear the weight of the boats, its rapid disappearance, which was so complete that Captain Parry says, 'before the middle of August a ship might have sailed to the latitude 82°, almost without touching a piece of ice,' at which time, in fact, all was a clear open sea that had been covered with ice in June -considering,

-considering, also, that the constant southerly drift of the ice must have left so much clear water to the northward, it is highly probable, we cannot help thinking, that such a ship as the Hecla, starting from the northernmost part of Spitzbergen the beginning of August, might make her way to the Pole, and return in time to make good her passage to England the same season. The six hundred miles thither, and as many back, at twenty-six miles in twenty-four hours, would be accomplished by the 15th of September, which is a full month before the navigable season is over in this part of the Arctic Sea. Even supposing her to be caught and frozen in, with an adequate supply of fuel and provision, little or no danger need be apprehended. Besides, we wish to see our brave fellows in their proper station-on board a ship; not wasting their strength in the drudgery of dragging heavy loads in boats or sledges, up to the knees in half-melted snow and water,-a species of labour more fitted for convicts than seamen.

These northern voyages have, as we all know, been pronounced absolutely useless-by none, however, we are willing to believe, except a certain class of persons who hold all knowledge to be worthless of which they themselves cannot see the immediate benefit; who measure the utility of what is new by the pounds, shillings, and pence it is likely to bring-such persons as the 'Goldfiners of London,' who were more taken with the stones brought home by Martin Frobisher from his Arctic voyage, 'glistening with a bright marquesset of gold,' than by the geographical discoveries he had made, and who had influence enough to prevail on Queen Elizabeth that the captain in his second voyage should be specially directed, by commission, for the searching more of this gold ore, than for the searching any further discovery of the passage.' Persons of this description are ever at their post, to pronounce steam-boats, steam-carriages, gas-lights-in short, all new and important discoveries-useless

and absurd.

6

The president and council of the Royal Society, however, thought otherwise. They stated, when the project was referred to them, that this enterprise, if successful, could not fail to afford many valuable scientific results, and settle important matters of philosophical inquiry;' and a fellow of this society, one of the ablest and most scientific men of modern times, declared that he considered the attempt to reach the Pole the grandest object of discovery that remained to be made, and that he hoped the Admiralty, which had proved itself so friendly to the acquisition of knowledge, would not be adverse to Captain Parry's proposal.' Doctor Brewster, to whom the scientific world is much indebted

for

for many valuable researches, anticipated high advantage from 'the opportunity it would afford of determining the atmospherical and magnetical condition of the parallel of Spitzbergen, which possesses a peculiar interest from its being nearly equidistant from the two magnetic poles, and from the two cold meridians of the globe.' Will this position near the equidistant magnetic meridian explain the mild temperature that prevails along the whole coast of Norway and Spitzbergen, so mild that in 80° north a party from Hammerfest went out daily throughout the winter in chase of bears, walrusses, foxes, &c., and had copious rain at Christmas? That this meridian line is nearly equidistant from the two poles, is inferred from the circumstance of the variation of the magnetic needle being small, and subject to very little change from the Nore to Hakluyt's Headland, being about 25° or 26° but which, on going eastward to Hammerfest, which is in 230 East, it was found to have decreased to 10° or 11°.

On the first voyage up Lancaster Sound, Captain Parry determined pretty nearly the position of the Western magnetic pole. He found that, in latitude 73°, longitude about 89° W., the directive power of the needle became almost suspended; that the dip was 88° 26', and the variation 118° 23′ West; but in latitude 75°, and longitude 103° 44', the dip being exactly the same, the variation had changed from 118° West to 128 58 East, a proof that he had crossed immediately to the northward of the magnetic pole, which he calculates to be in about 100° W. of Greenwich. It is not a little remarkable that Derham, in his PhysicoTheology, should have deduced, from a theory of his own, the revolution of the magnetic pole in a circle of 13° radius; and that Mr. Lovett, in 1766, from the best observations of the variation of the compass at two different places, should have deduced its distance at about 14° from the pole of the earth, or in latitude 76°, being that nearly in which Captain Parry found it.

The scientific observations that have been made by Parry and Foster, Sabine and Fisher, and more particularly those highly interesting magnetical observations by Foster, which occupy half a volume of the Philosophical Transactions for 1826, and for which he obtained the Copley medal, contain such a vast body of information on every branch of meteorological science as is not to be found in any other work extant; and such is their known accuracy, that they are considered by all the learned societies in every part of Europe as so many matters of fact, to which they can with safety refer, in all their calculations and philosophical researches. The collections of natural history that have been brought home from these regions, and deposited in the museums

of