ARCTIC EXPLORATION.

Thames Star, Volume IX, Issue 3019, 18 October 1878, Page 4

ARCTIC EXPLORATION.

The schooner Eothen has sailed from New York for the Arctic regions to search for relics of Sir John Franklin. It may not be amiss to remind our readers that the 1 relics in question are those to which we referred several weeks ago as having been* heardof by one Thomas F. Barry while his vessel was wintering last year at Marble' Inland, in"" ,th" X upper part of Hudson Bay. - Barry then obtained from some Esquimaux of the Nechelli tribe^ a Bilver spoon with Franklin's crest uponit, and they offered to go and fppinfc out a cairn, built many years ago by white men, and in which were books!, papers, and other things. It was too far for Barry to go then, but, it is tobe lipped that the present expedition'will fee successful in obtaining any relics that may still exist of the great English Arctic explorer. We recently announced that Mr Gordon Bennett-^was fitting Alfen #pung*sJ*ejßsJfcthe Pandora, for a Polar expedition, to set out next year. We halve just seen a chart of the North Polar regions constructed .for, Mr,- Bennett by Stanford, the purpoiie ; of which i« to show, the various currents which flow to and from these regions. Mr Bennett, it.is stated, intends Ms expedition to go by Behiring Strait, a directipn in which our knowledge 'is very scanty.' It is well known that there i» a warm current flowing/north from the Pacific' through: Behring Strait, and the chart shows this current sweeping round the north-west coast of America, one.arm.of it going north by the west side of BankVs Land to 80 deg/N.; lit. No doubt this is the direction which it ia intended Mr Bennett's expedition will attempt. Kellett Land, at the north entrance to the strait, is extended into a great broad island, by the east side of which this warm current is represented >as iflowing. If: s^ush; jland really exists, it would certainljr form an excellent basis for further operations by; sledge. At present, however, its existence is hypothetical. Indeed, charts like the one referred to are apt to mislead; the Gulf Stream, for example, is made to sweep round the north of Europe and Asia as far as Cape Chelyuskin, in Siberia. Many eminent authorities altogether discredit so great an extension of the stream. The chart, however, is useful as showing the utmost that can be made of the data which exist.; j The) statement on the chart, which, we may say, is most ingeniously constructed, that the; region around the Pole probably consists of an archipelago of large islands,- is, we believe, very near, the truth.; Professor Nordenskjold, whose intended expedition in the Vega from Norway-to Behring Strait we recently., spoke pf, will be accompanied as far, as the mouth of the river Lena by another steamer, the Lena, of 100 tons,, which will sail up the riverafterwhich it is /named. 1.; —Tinieß*^.-..•!;:>; i.i - ':;!:/■.: ,- >:■<,;, ■■ •/• ;