Considerable interest is naturally felt in England in the Arctic Expedition of 1875. Its cost is estimated at £98,000, but the amount is regarded as a bagatelle in a national and scientific point of view in comparison with the value of the object to be attained. The two steam vessels to be employed have been named by the Admiralty the ."Discovery and the Alert. Captain Nares, of the Challenger, who was lately with his ship in Wellington harbor, has reached England to assume the command of the expedition ; and his seconds in office will he Captain Stevenson and Commander Markham. The route which it is proposed the expedition shall follow is through the channel leading north from the head of Baffin’s Bay to Smith’s Sound, which is thought to lead into the open water supposed to surround the pole. The ships to be employed have been made as strong as it is possible to make them. The crew will consist of about sixty officers and men, and they will be provisioned for at least three years. In Greenland they are to ship about sixty dogs for sledge purposes. The two vessels are to leave Portsmouth in the end eff May. In 80 or 82 N.L. they will separate, one passing on towards the unknown seas, and the other remaining to explore the northern coast of Greenland. Captain Nares, we observe, was present at a meeting of the Eoyal Geographical Society at which the subject was discussed, and in his remarks on the paper read dwelt upon the spirit with which he entered upon the work before him. The Prince of Wales was present at the meeting.
At a meeting of the lloyal Colonial Institute, hold in Loudon on February 16, a paper was read by F. W. Chesson (the secretary of the Aborigines Protection Society), on “The Past and Present of Fiji.” It was remarked that Sir Arthur Gordon, the newly-appointed first Governor of Fiji, Sir James Fergusson, and Mr. Ducaue (late Governor of Tasmania), were present. In the course of the debate that ensued on the reading of the paper, Sir James Fergusson expressed an earnest hope that “ the recent steps taken by the Government, with such singular prudence, deliberation, and wisdom, would not only result happily to the new colony, but at no distant date tend to the great extension of our dominion in Polynesia. The fruit had not been plucked too soon, and we had run a great risk of losing what we could never have afterwards obtained.”
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New Zealand Times, Volume XXX, Issue 4392, 17 April 1875, Page 2
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421Untitled New Zealand Times, Volume XXX, Issue 4392, 17 April 1875, Page 2
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