Arctic Research

Abstract

“PROGRESS of Arctic Research since the Foundation of the British Association,” by C. R. Markham, C.B, F.R.S. Such is the title of a very able arid instructive paper read before the Geographical Section of the British Association at York on September 6 last, and published in extenso in the November number of the Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society. The casual reader of this history may suppose it to be a fair and correct record of half a century of Arctic exploration, and that the names of distinguished men commanding naval expeditions, who themselves, or the officers under them, did a large amount of discovery and good scientific work, are mentioned, however briefly. Yet this is far from being the case. True, some of those expeditions which have been considered unworthy of notice were sent to the far north to gain tidings of the lost expedition under the good and noble but unfortunate Franklin; yet, in addition to doing an immense extent of sledging, by which many hundred miles of new coast were traced, they collected much scientific information, little, if any, less valuable than that brought home by the Nares Expedition, whose object was purely scientific.