RESULTS OF THE ARCTIC EXPEDITION.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XII, Issue 77, 31 March 1877, Page 4

RESULTS OF THE ARCTIC EXPEDITION.

Under this head Mr Clements R. Markham gave a lecture before a • crowded audience in the theatre of the 'London Institution. After a resume of a former lecture, he proceeded to show thai the' suffering endured by therecent Arctic Expedition exceeded nil that had been endured ia the annals of travelling. Compared with the trials of officers. and men when sick thornselves, dragging, -along their sick companions over: trough iceyall that had been previously endured was mere <ohildVplay.- (Applause.) They had returned with a. harvest rich in results, and had thrown great light on the sub-; ject of the. great Polar<Basin. These results could not be fully made known for some moutbe, as a great mass of, 'generalisation required' to be Worked . out, Instead of. the land, east and west' of Smith Sound leading further north, according tc the accepted notion, the ■Expedition proved the opposite to be ' the^case. The sea of ancient ice had' .been.; reached, and to a certain extent -explored* It was not one vast con-, gealed mass, never in motion, but was 'subjected to disruption, and early in .3wiy the whole of the huge field was in motion, tha course being towards the east, with the set in that direction. In September the frost set in, and the: pools of water between the floes became, .frozen; but the motion still continued,: .this way. immense hummocks of; .broken ice were raised. The ice was so different from that of any other Polar pack that it was necessary to give it a name, and accordingly geographers had accepted that of the -Palseocrystic Sea,- or sea of ancient ice. From the data obtained it was concluded that lend did not exist further ! north than the point reached by the Expedition, observations taken from a bill 2000 feet hight high on a olear day, failing to give any signs of land.' There was no flight of birds, the only living thing, seen being a little snow banting which bad strayed from the! nearest shore. There were no cetaceans, the coldness of the current having destroyed their food. Except one or two stragglers, there were no seals, and consequently no bears. No human being had ever before traversed the shore of the Palaecryetic sea, because the Eeqimaux, like the bears, were unable io subsist without seals. Further south were the musk ox and the .wolves that followed them, the foxes and the bares, and the lemmings, which lived on saxifrage, and which were followed by the snowy owl. The Palaeocrystic sea itself was found to be a ,sea of solitude. It was comparatively shallow, bottom at four miles from shore being found at seventy-two fathoms. Another indication of shallownees was the comparative recent upheaval of the adjacent land. It would appear that the tidal flow from the north dowa Robertson Channel rose tcrae feet at the Alert, and five feet t»t the Discovery station Referring to the iu formation of former explorers who barely touched this sea ot ancient ice, Mr Markham pointed out 'out that the Expedition had shown Collioßon, Maclure, Beeebam, and Osborne in error in supposing tliut 'this sea was land-locked, and bounded ont he north by land. Dr Peterman's "thedry,he contended was based on similar j error. The whole polar, area was no doubt a vast basin, surrounded on all sides by land except at the great opening between Spitzbergen and Great; Greenland. Through this opening, in consequence of the great indraft of warm water from the Atlantic, masses c ;ot ice ma Ja their way as well as through ; Kobeaon Chanoel -and every outlet towards the south; but it was clear that old floes remained and grew larger by the accumulation, of ice .and enow every year. The geographical and ; hydrogr&phical results obtained must have ft most important bearing on the 'meteorological science. Beanie? their cWork id .the examination of the coast ; lines the Expedition had made a collecttion of rocks and fossils of great value. They had discovered good teriliary coal and brought back impressions of loaves which showed that plants now found in California bad grown on the shore of ( Pa'as3crystic Sea, where now only the lowly saxifrage could be found. For his part he looked upon the discovery or ternary coal as alone worth the cost of the Expedition twice ov^r. (Applause), On the subject of drift wood invariably found ia bays open- to the west, much was found high above .the shore where it could not have been .carried by tbe action of the waves, and

from this wood having the bark still on he was inclined to believe that the trunks of trees found were vestiges of ancient forests and had grown where they were found. Specimens of the whole flora of the new region were brought home, and would, according to Dr Hooker have an interesting bearing dm: the] distribution of American and Scandinavian plants. To addition to mammals, birds, and insects, the sea was made to yield up what it contained, including many microscopic forms. When these results were collnted, the recent expedition would be found to be second to none, if not the most successful that ever crossed the Arctic circle, as to the means by which the results were obtained, Mr M^rkhana pointed out that in the winters of other; Arctic explorers in lower latitudes the sun was absent about seventy - three days, and the darkness more dense, and the cold more intense than those experienced by other expeditions. He drew a graphic picture of the 3olitude of. those Polar regions, and of the feelings of exhilaration that comforted the Expedition in the consciousness that they were exploring regions where no human being had ever trod before, and where every scrap of information gained was a discovery. He alludsd also to tbe bravery and endurance of tbe men, aud especially to the officers who accompanied the Danish interpreter, from one ship to the other when the thermometer was 82 degrees below freezing, and who kept him alive by lying beside him, and warmiug him with the warmth of their own bodies. For his own part he looked upon it as riot an unimportant result of the Expedition that we should have incidents such as these to record, and to hand down to our children. He merely alluded to the horrors of scurvey and, io conclusion attached much importance to tbe fact that the recent Expedition had. given new Arctic experts/who would continue the traditions in the the navy, and who had whetted the appetite for further discovery.

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