Chapter VII: Part 7

With East, South-east, and South winds, the barometer falls.

With South-west winds, the barometer ceases to fall and begins to rise.

With West, North-west, and North winds, the barometer rises.

With North-east winds, the barometer ceases to rise and begins to fall.

In the Northern Hemisphere the thermometer rises with East, South-east, and South winds; with a South-west wind it ceases to rise and begins to fall; it falls with West, North-west, and North winds; and with a North-east wind it ceases to fall and begins to rise.

THE CHEMISTRY OF BOG RECLAMATION.

The mode of proceeding for the reclamation of bog-land at Kylemore is first to remove the excess of water by “the big drain and the secondary drains,” which must be cut deep enough to go right down to the gravel below. These are supplemented by the “sheep drains,” or surface-drains, which are about twenty inches wide at top, and narrow downwards to six inches at bottom. They run parallel to each other, with a space of about ten yards between, and cost one penny per six yards.

This first step having been made, the bog is left for two years, during which it drains, consolidates, and sinks somewhat. If the bog is deep, the turf, which has now become valuable by consolidation, should be cut.

After this it is left about two years longer, with the drains still open. Then the drains are cleared and deepened, and a wedge-shaped sod, too wide to reach the bottom, is rammed in so as to leave below it a permanent tubular covered drain, which is thus made without the aid of any tiles or other outside material. The drainage is now completed, and the surface prepared for the important operation of dressing with lime, which, as the people expressively say, “boils the bog,” and converts it into a soil suitable for direct agricultural operations.

Potatoes and turnips may now be set in “lazy bed” ridges. Mr. Mitchell Henry says, “Good herbage will grow on the bog thus treated; but as much as possible should at once be put into root-crops, with farm-yard manure for potatoes and turnips. The more lime you give the better will be your crop; and treated thus there is no doubt that even during the first year land so reclaimed will yield remunerative crops.” And further, that “after being broken up a second time the land materially improves, and becomes doubly valuable.” Also that he has no doubt that “all bog-lands may be thus reclaimed, but it is uphill work, and not remunerative to attempt the reclamation of bogs that are more than four feet in depth.”

There is another and a simpler method of dealing with bogs—viz., setting them into narrow ridges; cutting broad trenches between the ridges; piling the turf cut out from these trenches into little heaps a few feet apart, burning them, and spreading the ashes over the ridges. This is rather largely practiced on the coast of Donegal, in conjunction with sea-weed manuring, and is prohibited in other parts of Ireland as prejudicial to the interests of the landlord.

We shall now proceed to the philosophy of these processes.

First, the drainage. Everybody in Ireland knows that the bog holds water like a sponge, and in such quantities that ordinary vegetation is rotted by the excess of moisture. There is good reason to believe that the ancient forests, which once occupied the sites of most of the Irish bogs, were in some cases destroyed by the rotting of their stems and roots in the excess of vegetable soil formed by generations upon generations of fallen leaves, which, in a humid climate like that of Ireland, could never become drained or air-dried.

But this is not all. There is rotting and rotting. When the rotting of vegetable matter goes on under certain conditions it is highly favorable to the growth of other vegetation, even of the vegetation of the same kind of plants as those supplying the rotting material. Thus, rotten and rotting straw is a good manure for wheat; and the modern scientific vine-grower carefully places the dressing of his vines about their roots, in order that they may rot, and supply the necessary salts for future growth. The same applies generally; rotting cabbage-leaves supply the best of manure for cabbages; rotting rhubarb-leaves for rhubarb; rose-leaves for rose-trees; and so on throughout the vegetable kingdom.

Why, then, should the bog-rotting be so exceptionally malignant? As I am not aware that any answer has been given to this question, I will venture upon one of my own. It appears to be mainly due to the excess of moisture preventing that slow combustion of vegetable carbon which occurs wherever vegetable matter is heaped together and _slightly_ moistened. We see this going on in steaming dung-hills; in hayricks that have been stacked when imperfectly dried; in the spontaneous combustion of damp cotton in the holds of ships, and in factories where cotton-waste has been carelessly heaped; and in cucumber-frames and the other “hot-beds” of the gardener.

In ordinary soils this combustion goes on more slowly, but no less effectively, than in these cases. In doing so it maintains a certain degree of warmth about the roots of the plants that grow there, and _gradually_ sets free the soluble salts which the rotting vegetables contain, and supplies them to the growing plants as manure, at the same time forming the humus so essential to vegetation.

A great excess of water, such as soddens the bog, prevents this, and also carries away any small quantity of soluble nutritious salts the soil may contain. Thus, instead of being warmed and nourished by slight humidity, and consequent oxidation, the bog soil is chilled and starved by excess of water.

The absolute necessity of the first operation—that of drainage—is thus rendered obvious; and I suspect that the need of four years’ rest, upon which Mr. MacAlister insists, is somehow connected with a certain degree of slow combustion that accompanies and partially causes the consolidation of the bog. I have not yet had an opportunity of testing this by inserting thermometers in bogs under different conditions, but hope to do so.

The liming next demands explanation. Mr. Henry says that “it leaves the soil sweetened by the neutralization of its acids.”

In order to test this theory I have digested (_i.e._, soaked) various samples of turf cut from Irish bogs in distilled water, filtered off the water, and examined it. I find that when this soaking has gone far enough to give the water a coloring similar to that which stands in ordinary bogs, the acidity is very decided—quite sufficiently so to justify this neutralization theory as a partial explanation. There is little reason to doubt that the lime is further effective in enriching the soil; or, in the case of pure bogs, that it forms the soil by disintegrating and decomposing the fibrous vegetable matter, and thus rendering it capable of assimilation by the crops.

Another effect which the lime must produce is the liberation of free ammonia from any fixed salts that may exist in the bog.

The bog-burning method of reclamation is easily explained. In the first place, the excessive vegetable encumbrance is reduced in quantity, and the remaining ashes supply the surface of the bog on which they rest with the non-volatile salts that originally existed in the burnt portions of the bog. In other words, they concentrate in a small space the salts that were formerly distributed too sparsely through the whole of the turf which was burnt.

As there are great differences in the composition of different bogs, especially in this matter of mineral ash, it is evident that the success of this method must be very variable, according to the locality.

On discussing this method with Mr. MacAlister (Mr. Henry’s steward, under whose superintendence these reclamation works are carried out), he informed me that the bogs on the Kylemore estate yield a very small amount of ash—a mere impalpable powder that a light breath might blow away; that it was practically valueless, excepting from the turf taken at nearly the base of the bog. The ash I examined where the bog-burning is extensively practiced in Donegal, was quite different from this. The quantity was far greater, and its substance more granular and gritty. It, in fact, formed an important stratum, when spread over the surface of the ridges. These differences of composition may account for the differences of opinion and practice which prevail in different districts. It affords a far more rational explanation than the assumption that all such contradictions arise from local stupidities.

There is one evil, however, which is common to all bog-burning as compared with liming—it must waste the ammoniacal salts, as they are volatile, and are driven away into the air by the heat of combustion. Somebody may get them when the rain washes them down to the earth’s surface again; but the burner himself obtains a very small share in this way.

We may therefore conclude that where lime is near at hand, bog-burning is a rude and wasteful, a viciously indolent mode of reclamation. It is only desirable where limestone is so distant that the expense of carriage renders lime practically unattainable, and where the bog itself is rich in mineral matter, and so deep and distant from a fuel demand, that it may be burned to waste without any practical sacrifice. Under such conditions it may be better to burn the bog than leave it in hopeless and worthless desolation.

I cannot conclude without again adverting to the importance of this subject, and affirming with the utmost emphasis, that the true Irish patriot is not the political orator, but he who by practical efforts, either as capitalist, laborer, or teacher, promotes the reclamation of the soil of Ireland, or otherwise develops the sadly neglected natural resources of the country.

With Mr. Mitchell Henry’s permission I append to the above his own description of the results of his experiment, originally communicated in a letter to the _Times_; at the same time thanking him for his kind reception of a stranger at Kylemore Castle, and the facilities he afforded me for studying the subject on the spot.

“The interesting account you lately published of the extensive reclamations of His Grace the Duke of Sutherland, under the title of ‘An Agricultural Experiment,’ has been copied into very many newspapers, and must have afforded a welcome relief to thousands of readers glad to turn for a time from the terrible narratives that come to us from the east. If you will allow me, I should like to supplement your narrative by a rapid sketch of what has been done here during the last few years, on a much humbler scale, in the case of land similar, and some of it almost identical, with that in Sutherlandshire.

“The twelve _corps d’armée_ under the Duke’s command, in the shape of the twelve steam-engines and their ploughs, engaged in subduing the stubborn resistance of the unreclaimed wilds of Sutherlandshire, suggest to the mind the triumphs of great warriors, and fill us with admiration—not always excited by the details of great battle; but, as great battles can be fought seldom, and only by gigantic armies and at prodigious expense, so reclamation on such a scale is far beyond the opportunities or the means of most of us; while many may, perhaps, be encouraged to attempt work similar to that which has been successfully carried out here.

“And, first of all, a word as to the all-important matter of cost. Does it pay?

“Including farm-buildings and roads, the reclamations here have cost on an average 13_l._ an acre, which, at 5 per cent, means an annual rent-charge of 13_s._, to which is to be added a sum of from 1_s._ to 3_s._, the full annual value of the unreclaimed land. It is obvious that if we start with an outlay of 30_l._ _plus_ the 1_s._ to 3_s._ of original rent, such an amount would usually be found prohibitory; but, on the other hand, excellent profits may be made if the expenditure is so kept down that the annual rent is not more than from 15_s._ to 18_s._ per acre. Before entering into further details, let me say that I claim no credit for originality in what has been done. The like has been effected on numerous properties in Ireland in bygone days, and is daily being carried out by the patient husbandman who year by year with his spade reclaims a little bit from the mountain side. And you must allow me emphatically to say that what has been done here economically and well would not have been done except for the prudence, patience, and thoughtful mind of my steward, Archibald MacAlister, a County Antrim man, descended from one of the race of Highland Catholic Scotch settlers, who have peopled the north of Ireland and added so much to its prosperity.

“The Pass of Kylemore, in which I live, is undoubtedly favorably situated for reclamation, for there is but little very deep bog, and there is abundance of limestone. In former ages it must have been an estuary of the sea, with a river flowing through it, now represented by a chain of lakes and the small rapid river Dowris. The subsoil is sand, gravel, and schist rock, with peat of various depths grown upon it. As by the elevation of the land the sea long ages ago was driven back, the mossy growth of peat commenced, followed by pine and yew trees, of which the trunks and roots are abundantly found; but, except over a space of about 400 acres, every tree that formerly clothed the hillsides has been cut down or has totally disappeared. The general result is that we have a pass several miles long, bounded on the north and south by a chain of rugged mountains of some 1500 or 1800 feet in height, while the east is blocked up by a picturesque chain running north and south, and separating the Joyce country from Connemara proper, the west being open to the Atlantic. The well-known Killery Bay, or Fiord, would, I doubt not, present an exact resemblance to Kylemore if the sea, which now flows up to its head, were driven out. There are miles of similar country in Ireland, waiting only for the industry of man, where, as here, there exist extensive stretches of undulating eskers, covered with heather growing on the light clay, with a basis of gravel or sand.

“A considerable difference exists between the reclamation of the flat parts, where the bog is pretty deep, and the hillsides, where there is little or no bog. Yet it is to be remembered that bog is nothing more than vegetable matter in a state of partial decomposition, and holding water like a sponge. The first thing is to remove the water by drains, some of which—that is, the big drain and the secondary drains—must go right down to the gravel below; but the other drains—called sheep-drains—need not, and, indeed, must not be cut so deep. The drains are cut wedge-shape by what are called Scotch tools, which employ three men—two to cut and one to hook out the sods; and all that is requisite to form a permanent drain is to replace the wedge-shaped sod, and ram it down between the walls of the drain, where it consolidates and forms a tube which will remain open for an indefinite number of years. We have them here as good as new, made twenty-five years ago; and at Chat Moss, in Lancashire, they are much older. After land has been thus drained—but not too much drained, or it will become dry turf—the surface begins to sink; what was tumid settles down, and in the course of a few months the land itself becomes depressed on the surface and much consolidated. Next it is to be dug by spade-labor or ploughed. We use oxen largely for this purpose, and, strange to say, the best workers we find to be a cross with the Alderney, the result being a light, wiry little animal, which goes gayly over the ground, is easy to feed, and is very tractable. The oxen are trained by the old wooden neck-yoke; but, when well broken, work in collars, which seem more easy to them. Horses on very soft land work well in wooden pattens. After the land has been broken up, a good dressing of lime is to be applied to it, and this, in the expressive language of the people here, ‘boils the bog’—that is, the lime causes the vegetable matter, formerly half decomposed, to become converted into excellent manure. This leaves the soil sweetened by the neutralization of its acids, and in a condition pretty easily broken up by the chain-harrow; or, what is better still, by Randall’s American revolving harrow.

“Good herbage will grow on bog thus treated, but as much as possible should at once be put into root-crops, with farmyard manure for potatoes and turnips. The more lime you give the better will be your crop, and, treated thus, there is no doubt that even during the first year, land so reclaimed will yield remunerative crops. People ask, ‘But will not the whole thing go back to bog?’ Of course it will if not kept under proper rotation, which we find to be one of five years—namely, roots followed by oats, laid down with clover and grass seed, which remains for two years. After being broken up a second time, the land materially improves and becomes doubly valuable. I have no doubt that all bog-lands may be thus reclaimed, but it is up-hill work and not remunerative to attempt the reclamation of bogs that are more than four feet in depth.

“And here I will make a remark as to the effects of drainage in a wet country. By no means does the whole effect result from raising the temperature of the soil; there is something else as important, and that is the supply of ammonia, brought down from the skies in the rain, which, with other fertilizing matter, is caught, detained, and absorbed in the soil. A well-drained field becomes, in fact, just like a water-meadow over which a river flows for a part of a year; and thus the very wetness of the climate may be made to reduce the supply of ammoniacal manures, so expensive to buy.

“The porous, well-drained soil carries quickly off the superfluous moisture, while the ammonia is absorbed by the roots and leaves of the plants. An excessive bill for ammoniacal manures has been the ruin of many a farmer; and our aim in Ireland should be to secure good crops by thorough drainage and constant stirring of the soil, without much outlay for concentrated manures. At the same time I ought to remark that we have grown excellent potatoes by using 5_l._ worth per acre of superphosphate and nitrate of soda in cases in which our farmyard manure has fallen short.

“The reclamation of mountain-land as distinguished from bog-land can best be illustrated by a record of what has been accomplished on two farms here. Three years ago the leases of two upland farms fell in, and I took them into my own hands. The first consists of 600 acres, one-half a nearly level flat of deepish bog running alongside the river, the other half moor heath, which with difficulty supported a few sheep and cattle.

“There had never been any buildings on this land, nor had a spade ever been put into it; and the tenant, being unable to pay his rent of 15_l._ a year for the 600 acres, was glad to give it up for a moderate consideration. The first thing accomplished was to fence and drain thoroughly as before described, and the best half of the land was then divided into forty-acre fields. Exactly now two years ago—on September 15th—a little cottage and a stable for a pair of horses and a pair of bullocks was completed and tenanted by two men and a boy. They ploughed all the week and came home on Saturdays to draw their supply of food and fodder for the ensuing seven days, thus approximating very nearly to the position of settlers in a new country. We limed all the land we could, manured part of it with seaweed and part with the farm manure made by the horses and oxen which were at work, and cropped with roots such as turnips and potatoes. A good portion we sowed with oats out of the lea, but the most satisfactory crop we found to be rape and grasses mixed, for on the best of the land they form at once an excellent permanent pasture. We have now had two crops from this land; and I venture to say that the thirteen stacks of oats and hay gathered in in good condition, and the turnips and roots now growing, which are not excelled in the county Galway—except those of Lord Clancarty at Ballinasloe, who has grown 110 tons of turnips to the Irish acre, equal to upwards of 68 tons to the acre here—present a picture most gratifying and cheering in every way.

“The second farm, of 240 acres, which adjoins this, had a good building on it; but, having been let on lease at about 10_s._ an acre to a large grazier whose stock-in-trade was a horse, a saddle, and a pair of shears, had not been cultivated or improved.

“Similar proceedings on this farm have produced similar results; and, if now let in the market, I have no doubt that after two years of good treatment these farms would be let at 20_s._ an acre, and I do not despair of doubling this figure in the course of time.

“The exact weight of the turnip crop this season is, on raw bog, drained, limed, and cropped this year for the first time, 24 tons per acre; manure, seaweed. On land ploughed but not cropped, last year 23½ tons; mixed mineral manure. On land from which a crop of oats had previously been taken, 29 tons; manure, farmyard, with 3 cwt. per acre mineral manure.

“Last year my excellent steward, Mr. MacAlister, visited the Duke of Sutherland’s reclamations in Scotland, and was kindly and hospitably received. He found the land and the procedure adopted almost identical, with the conviction that oxen and horses will suit us better at the present time than steam culture, chiefly on the score of economy. He also visited the Bridgewater Estate at Chat Moss, near Manchester, where so much has been done to bring the deep peat into cultivation, and he found the system that has been followed there for so many years to be like that described above, marl, however, being used in the place of lime.”

At the time of my visit to Kylemore the hay crops were down and partly carried on the reclaimed bog-land above described. The contrast of its luxuriance with the dark and dreary desolation of the many estates I had seen during three summers’ wanderings through Ireland added further proof of the infamy of the majority of Irish landlords, by showing what Ireland would have been had they done their duty.

AERIAL EXPLORATION OF THE ARCTIC REGIONS.

On our own hemisphere, and separated from our own coasts by only a few days’ journey on our own element, there remains a blank circle of unexplored country above 800 miles in diameter. We have tried to cross it, and have not succeeded. Nothing further need be said in reply to those who ask, “Why should we start another Arctic Expedition?”

The records of previous attempts to penetrate this area of geographical mystery prove the existence of a formidable barrier of mountainous land, fringed by fjords or inlets, like those of Norway, some of which may be open, though much contracted northward, like the Vestfjord that lies between the Lofoden Islands and the mainland of Scandinavia. The majority evidently run inland like the ordinary Norwegian fjords or the Scotch firths, and terminate in land valleys that continue upwards to fjeld regions, or elevated humpy land which acts as a condenser to the vapor-laden air continually flowing towards the Pole from the warmer regions of the earth, and returning in lower streams when cooled. The vast quantities of water thus condensed fall upon these hills and table lands as snow crystals. What becomes of this everlasting deposit?

Unlike the water that rains on temperate hill-sides, it cannot all flow down to the sea as torrents and liquid rivers, but it does come down nevertheless, or long ere this it would have reached the highest clouds. It descends mainly as glaciers, which creep down slowly, but steadily and irresistibly, filling up the valleys on their way; and stretching outwards into the fjords and channels, which they block up with their cleft and chasmed crystalline angular masses that still creep outward to the sea until they float, and break off or “calve” as mountainous icebergs and smaller masses of ice.

These accumulations of ice thus _formed on land_ constitute the chief obstructions that bar the channels and inlets fringing the unknown Polar area. The glacier fragments above described are cemented together in the winter time by the freezing of the water between them. An open frozen sea, pure and simple, instead of forming a barrier to arctic exploration, would supply a most desirable highway. It must not be supposed that, because the liquid ocean is ruffled by ripples, waves, and billows, a frozen sea would have a similar surface. The freezing of such a surface could only start at the calmest intervals, and the ice would shield the water from the action of the wave-making wind, and such a sea would become a charming skating rink, like the Gulf of Bothnia, the Swedish and Norwegian lakes, and certain fjords, which, in the winter time, become natural ice-paved highways, offering incomparable facilities for rapid locomotion. In spite of the darkness and the cold, winter is the traveling season in Sweden and Lapland. The distance that can be made in a given time in summer with a wheeled vehicle on well-made post roads can be covered in half the time in a _pulk_ or reindeer sledge drawn over the frozen lakes. From Spitzbergen to the Pole would be an easy run of five or six days if nothing but a simply frozen sea stood between them.

This primary physical fact, that arctic navigators have not been stopped by a merely frozen sea, but by a combination of glacier fragments with the frozen water of bays, and creeks, and fjords, should be better understood than it is at present; for when it is understood, the popular and fallacious notion that the difficulties of arctic progress are merely dependent on latitude, and must therefore increase with latitude, explodes.

_It is the physical configuration of the fringing zone of the arctic regions, not its mere latitude, that bars the way to the Pole._

I put this in italics because so much depends upon it—I may say that all depends upon it—for if this barrier can be scaled at any part we may come upon a region as easily traversed as that part of the Arctic Ocean lying between the North Cape and Spitzbergen, which is regularly navigated every summer by hardy Norsemen in little sailing sloops of 30 to 40 tons burden, and only six or eight pair of hands on board; or by overland traveling as easily as the Arctic winter journey between Tornea and Alten. This trip over the snow-covered mountains is done in five or six days, at the latter end of every November, by streams of visitors to the fair at Alten, in latitude 70°, 3½ degrees N. of the Arctic circle; its distance, 430 miles, is just about equal to that which stands between the North Pole and the northernmost reach of our previous Arctic expeditions. One or the other of the above-named conditions, or an enclosed frozen Polar ocean, is what probably exists beyond the broken fjord barrier hitherto explored; a continuation of such a barrier is, in fact, almost a physical impossibility; and therefore the Pole will be ultimately reached, not by a repetition of such weary struggles as those which ended in the very hasty retreat of our last expedition, but by a bound across about 400 miles of open or frozen Polar ocean, or a rapid sledge-run over snow-paved fields like those so merrily traversed in Arctic Norway by festive bonders and their families on their way to Yule-time dancing parties.

Reference to a map of the circumpolar regions, or, better, to a globe, will show that the continents of Europe, Asia, and America surround the Pole, and hang, as it were, downwards or southwards from a latitude of 70° and upwards. There is but one wide outlet for the accumulations of Polar ice, and that is between Norway and Greenland, with Iceland standing nearly midway. Davis’s and Behring’s Straits are the narrower openings; the first may be only a fjord, rather than an outlet. The ice-block, or crowding together and heaping up of the glacier fragments and bay ice, is thus explained.

Attempts of two kinds have been made to scale this icy barrier. Ships have sailed northwards, threading a dangerous course between the floating icebergs in the summer, and becoming fast bound in winter, when the narrow spaces of brackish water lying between these masses of land ice become frozen, and the “ice-foot” clinging to the shore stretches out seaward to meet that on the opposite side of the fjord or channel. The second method, usually adopted as supplementary to the first, is that of dragging sledges over these glacial accumulations. The pitiful rate of progress thus attainable is shown by the record of the last attempt, when Commander Markham achieved about one mile per day, and the labor of doing this was nearly fatal to his men. Any tourist who has crossed or ascended an Alpine glacier with only a knapsack to carry, can understand the difficulty of dragging a cartload of provisions, etc., over such accumulations of iceberg fragments and of sea-ice squeezed and crumbled up between them. It is evident that we must either find a natural breach in this Arctic barrier or devise some other means of scaling it.

The first of these efforts has been largely discussed by the advocates of rival routes. I will not go into this question at present, but only consider the alternative to all land routes and all water routes, viz.: that by the other available element—an aerial route—as proposed to be attempted in the new Arctic expedition projected by Commander Cheyne, and which he is determined to practically carry out, provided his own countrymen, or, failing them, others more worthy, will assist him with the necessary means of doing so.

To reach the Pole from the northernmost point already attained by our ships demands a journey of about 400 miles, the distance between London and Edinburgh. With a favorable wind, a balloon will do this in a few hours, On November 27, 1870, Captain Roher descended near Lysthuus, in Hitterdal (Norway), in the balloon “Ville d’Orleans,” having made the journey from Paris in fifteen hours. The distance covered was about 900 miles, more than double the distance between the Pole and the accessible shores of Greenland.

On November 7, 1836, Messrs. Holland, Mason, and Green ascended from Vauxhall Gardens, at 1.30 P.M., with a _moderate breeze_, and descended eighteen hours afterwards “in the Duchy of Nassau, about two leagues from the town of Weilburg,” the distance in a direct line being about 500 miles. A similar journey to this would carry Commander Cheyne from his ship to the North Pole, or thereabouts, while a fresh breeze like that enjoyed by Captain Roher would, in the same time, carry him clear across the whole of the circumpolar area to the neighborhood of Spitzbergen, and two or three hours more of similar proceeding would land him in Siberia or Finland, or even on the shores of Arctic Norway, where he could take the Vadsö or Hammerfest packet to meet one of Wilson’s liners at Trondhjem or Bergen, and thus get from the North Pole to London in ten days.

Lest any of my readers should think that I am writing this at random, I will supply the particulars. I have before me the “Norges Communicationer” for the present summer season of 1880. Twice every week a passenger excursion steam packet sails round the North Cape each way, calling at no less than twenty stations on this Arctic face of Europe to land and embark passengers and goods. By taking that which stops at Gjesvaer (an island near the foot of the North Cape) on Saturday, or that which starts from Hammerfest on Sunday morning, Trondhjem is reached on Thursday, and Wilson’s liner, the “Tasso,” starts on the same day for Hull, “average passage seventy hours.” Thus Hammerfest, the northernmost town in the world, is now but eight days from London, including a day’s stop at Tromsö, the capital of Lapland, which is about 3 degrees N. of the Arctic circle, and within a week of London. At Captain Roher’s rate of traveling Tromsö would be but twenty-three hours from the Pole.

These figures are, of course, only stated as _possibilities_ on the supposition that all the conditions should be favorable, but by no means as _probable_.

What, then, are the _probabilities_ and the amount of risk that will attend an attempt to reach the Pole by an aerial route?

I have considered the subject carefully, and discussed it with many people; the result of such reflection and conversation is a conviction that the prevalent popular estimate of the dangers of Commander Cheyne’s project extravagantly exaggerates them on almost all contingencies. I do not affirm that there is no risk, or that the attempt should be made with only our present practical knowledge of the subject, but I do venture to maintain that, after making proper preliminary practical investigations at home, a judiciously conducted aerostatic dash for the Pole will be far less dangerous than the African explorations of Livingstone, Stanley, and others that have been accomplished and are proposed. And further, that a long balloon journey starting in summer-time from Smith’s Sound, or other suitable Arctic station, would be less dangerous than a corresponding one started from London; that it would involve less risk than was incurred by Messrs. Holland, Mason, and Green, when they traveled from Vauxhall Gardens to Nassau.

The three principal dangers attending such a balloon journey are: 1st. The variability of the wind. 2d. The risk of being blown out about the open ocean beyond the reach of land. 3d. The utter helplessness of the aeronaut during all the hours of darkness. I will consider these seriatim in reference to Arctic ballooning _versus_ Vauxhall or Crystal Palace ballooning.

As regards the first danger, Vauxhall and Sydenham are in a position of special disadvantage, and all the ideas we Englishmen may derive from our home ballooning experience must tend to exaggerate our common estimate of this danger, inasmuch as we are in the midst of the region of variable winds, and have a notoriously uncertain climate, due to this local exaggeration of the variability of atmospheric movements. If instead of lying between the latitudes of 50° and 60°, where the N.E. Polar winds just come in collision with the S.W. tropical currents, and thereby effect our national atmospheric stir-about, we were located between 10° and 30° (where the Canary Islands are, for example), our notions on the subject of balloon traveling would be curiously different. The steadily blowing trade-wind would long ere this have led us to establish balloon mails to Central and South America, and balloon passenger expresses for the benefit of fast-going people or luxurious victims of sea-sickness. To cross the Atlantic—three thousand miles—in forty-eight hours, would be attended with no other difficulty than the cost of the gas, and that of the return carriage of the empty balloon.

It is our exceptional meteorological position that has generated the popular expression “as uncertain as the wind.” We are in the very centre of the region of meteorological uncertainties, and cannot go far, either northward or southward, without entering a zone of greater atmospheric regularity, where the direction of the wind at a given season may be predicted with more reliability than at home. The atmospheric movements in the Arctic regions appear to be remarkably regular and gentle during the summer and winter months, and irregular and boisterous in spring and autumn. A warm upper current flows from the tropics towards the Pole, and a cold lower one from the Arctic circle towards the equator. Commander Cheyne, who has practical experience of these Arctic expeditions, and has kept an elaborate log of the wind, etc., which he has shown me, believes that, by the aid of pilot balloons to indicate the currents at various heights, and by availing himself of these currents, he may reach the Pole and return to his ship, or so near as to be able to reach it by traveling over the ice in light sledges that will be carried for that purpose. In making any estimate of the risk of Arctic aerostation, we must banish from our minds the preconceptions induced by our British experience of the uncertainties of the wind, and only consider the atmospheric actualities of the Polar regions, so far as we know them.

Let us now consider the second danger, viz., that of being blown out to sea and there remaining until the leakage of gas has destroyed the ascending power of the balloon, or till the stock of food is consumed. A glance at a map of the world will show how much smaller is the danger to the aeronaut who starts from the head of Baffin’s Bay than that which was incurred by those who started from Vauxhall in the Nassau balloon, or by Captain Roher, who started from Paris. Both of these had the whole breadth of the Atlantic on the W. and S.W., and the North Sea and Arctic Ocean N. and N.E. The Arctic balloon, starting from Smith’s Sound or thereabouts, with a wind from the South (and without such a wind the start would not, of course, be made), would, if the wind continued in the same direction, reach the Pole in a few hours; in seven or eight hours at Roher’s speed; in fourteen or fifteen hours at the average rate made by the Nassau balloon in a “moderate breeze.” Now look again at the map and see what surrounds them. Simply the continents of Europe, Asia, and America, by which the circumpolar area is nearly land-locked, with only two outlets, that between Norway and Greenland on one side, and the narrow channel of Behring’s Straits on the other. The wider of these is broken by Spitzbergen and Iceland, both inhabited islands, where a balloon may descend and the aeronauts be hospitably received. Taking the 360 degrees of the zone between the 70th parallel of latitude and the Arctic circle, 320 are land-locked and only 40 open to the sea; therefore the chances of coming upon land at _any one_ part of this zone is as 320 to 40; but with a choice of points for descent such as the aeronauts would have unless the wind blew precisely down the axis of the opening, the chances would be far greater. If the wind continued as at starting, they would be blown to Finland; a westerly deflection would land them in Siberia, easterly in Norway; a strong E. wind at the later stage of the trip would blow them back to Greenland.

In all the above I have supposed the aeronauts to be quite helpless, merely drifting at random with that portion of the atmosphere in which they happened to be immersed. This, however, need not be the case. Within certain limits they have a choice of winds, owing to the prevalence of upper and lower currents blowing in different and even in opposite directions. Suppose, for example, they find themselves N. of Spitzbergen, where “Parry’s furthest” is marked on some of our maps, and that the wind is from the N.E., blowing them towards the Atlantic opening. They would then ascend or descend in search of a due N. or N. by W. wind that would blow them to Norway, or W.N.W. to Finland, or N.W. to Siberia, or due E. back to Greenland, from whence they might rejoin their ships. One or other of these would almost certainly be found. A little may be done in steering a balloon, but so very little that small reliance should be placed upon it. Only in a very light wind would it have a sensible effect, though in case of a “near shave” between landing, say at the Lofodens or Iceland, and being blown out to sea, it might just save them.

As already stated, Commander Cheyne believes in the possibility of returning to the ship, and bases his belief on the experiments he made from winter quarters in Northumberland Sound, where he inflated four balloons, attached to them proportionately different weights, and sent them up simultaneously. They were borne by diverse currents of air in _four different directions according to the different altitudes_, viz., N.W., N.E., S.E., and S.W., “thus proving that in this case balloons could be sent in any required direction by ascending to the requisite altitude. The war balloon experiments at Woolwich afford a practical confirmation of this important feature in aerostation.” Cheyne proposes that one at least of the three balloons shall be a rover to cross the unknown area, and has been called a madman for suggesting this merely as an alternative or secondary route. I am still more lunatic, for I strongly hold the opinion that the easiest way for him to return to his ship will be to drift rapidly across to the first available inhabited land, thence come to England, and sail in another ship to rejoin his messmates; carrying with him his bird’s-eye chart, that will demonstrate once for all the possibility or impossibility of circumnavigating Greenland, or of sailing, or sledging, or walking to the Pole.

The worst dilemma would be that presented by a dead calm, and it is not improbable that around the Pole there may be a region of calms similar to that about the Equator. Then the feather-paddle or other locomotive device worked by man-power would be indispensable. Better data than we at present possess are needed in order to tell accurately what may thus be done. Putting various estimates one against the other, it appears likely that five miles an hour may be made. Taking turn and turn about, two or three aeronauts could thus travel fully 100 miles per day, and return from the Pole to the ship in less than five days.

Or take the improbable case of a circular wind blowing round the Pole, as some have imagined. This would simply demand the working of the paddle always northwards in going to the Pole, and always southwards in returning. The resultant would be a spiral course winding inwards in the first case, and outwards in the second. The northward or southward progress would be just the same as in a calm if the wind were truly concentric to the Pole. Some rough approximation to such currents may exist, and might be dealt with on this principle.

Let us now consider the third danger, that of the darkness. The seriousness of this may be inferred from the following description of the journey of the Nassau balloon, published at the time: “It seemed to the aeronauts as if they were cleaving their way through an interminable mass of black marble in which they were imbedded, and which, solid a few inches before them, seemed to soften as they approached in order to admit them still further within its cold and dusky enclosure. In this way they proceeded blindly, as it may well be called, until about 3.30 A.M., when in the midst of the impenetrable darkness and profound stillness an unusual explosion issued from the machine above, followed by a violent rustling of the silk, and all the signs which might be supposed to accompany the bursting of the balloon. The car was violently shaken. A second and a third explosion followed in quick succession. The danger seemed immediate, when suddenly the balloon recovered her usual form and stillness. These alarming symptoms seemed to have been produced by collapsing of the balloon under the diminished temperature of the upper regions after sunset, and the silk forming into folds under the netting. Now, when the guide rope informed the voyagers that the balloon was too near the earth, ballast was thrown out, and the balloon rising rapidly into a thinner air experienced a diminution of pressure, and consequent expansion of the gas.

“The cold during the night ranged from a few degrees below to the freezing point. As morning advanced the rushing of waters was heard, and so little were the aeronauts aware of the course which they had been pursuing during the night, that they supposed themselves to have been thrown back upon the shores of the German Ocean, or about to enter the Baltic, whereas they were actually over the Rhine, not far from Coblentz.”

All this blind drifting for hours, during which the balloon may be carried out to sea, and opportunities of safe descent may be lost, is averted in an Arctic balloon voyage, which would be made in the summer, when the sun never sets. There need be no break in the survey of the ground passed over, no difficulty in pricking upon a chart the course taken and the present position at any moment. With an horizon of 50 to 100 miles’ radius the approach of such a danger as drifting to the open ocean would be perceived in ample time for descent, and as a glance at the map will show, this danger cannot occur until reaching the latitudes of inhabited regions.

The Arctic aeronauts will have another great advantage over those who ascend from any part of England. They can freely avail themselves of Mr. Green’s simple but most important practical invention—the drag-rope. This is a long and rather heavy rope trailing on the ground. It performs two important functions. First, it checks the progress of the balloon, causing it to move less rapidly than the air in which it is immersed. The aeronaut thus gets a slight breeze equivalent to the difference between the velocity of the wind and that of the balloon’s progress. He may use this as a fulcrum to effect a modicum of steerage.

The second and still more important use of the drag-rope is the very great economy of ballast it achieves. Suppose the rope to be 1000 feet long, its weight equal to 1 lb. for every ten feet, and the balloon to have an ascending power of 50 lbs. It is evident that under these conditions the balloon will retain a constant elevation of 500 feet above the ground below it, and that 500 feet of rope will trail upon the ground. Thus, if a mountain is reached no ballast need be thrown away in order to clear the summit, as the balloon will always lift its 500 feet of rope, and thus always rise with the up-slope and descend with the down-slope of hill and dale. The full use of this simple and valuable adjunct to aerial traveling is prevented in such a country as ours by the damage it might do below, and the temptation it affords to mischievous idiots near whom it may pass.

In the course of many conversations with various people on this subject I have been surprised at the number of educated men and women who have anticipated with something like a shudder the terrible cold to which the poor aeronauts will be exposed.

This popular delusion which pictures the Arctic regions as the abode of perpetual freezing, is so prevalent and general, that some explanation is demanded.

The special characteristic of Arctic climate is a cold and long winter and a short and _hot summer_. The winter is intensely cold simply because the sun never shines, and the summer is very hot because the sun is always above the horizon, and, unless hidden by clouds or mist, is continually shining. The summer heat of Siberia is intense, and the vegetable proportionately luxuriant. I have walked over a few thousand miles in the sunny South, but never was more oppressed with the heat than in walking up the Tromsdal to visit an encampment of Laplanders in the summer of 1856.

On the 17th July I noted the temperature on board the steam packet when we were about three degrees north of the Arctic circle. It stood at 77° well shaded in a saloon under the deck; it was 92° in the “rōk lugar,” a little smoking saloon built on deck; and 108° in the sun on deck. This was out at sea, where the heat was less oppressive than on shore. The summers of Arctic Norway are very variable on account of the occasional prevalence of misty weather. The balloon would be above much of the mist, and would probably enjoy a more equable temperature during the twenty-four hours than in any part of the world where the sun sets at night.

I am aware that the above is not in accordance with the experience of the Arctic explorers who have summered in such places as Smith’s Sound. I am now about to perpetrate something like a heresy by maintaining that the summer climate there experienced by these explorers is quite exceptional, is not due to the latitude, but to causes that have hitherto escaped the notice of the explorers themselves and of physical geographers generally. The following explanation will probably render my view of this subject intelligible:

As already stated, the barrier fringe that has stopped the progress of Arctic explorers is a broken mountainous shore down which is pouring a multitude of glaciers into the sea. The ice of these glaciers is, of course, fresh-water ice. Now, we know that when ice is mixed with salt water we obtain what is called “a freezing mixture”—a reduction of temperature far below the freezing point, due to the absorption of heat by the liquefaction of the ice. Thus the heat of the continuously shining summer sun _at this particular part of the Arctic region_ is continuously absorbed by this powerful action, and a severity quite exceptional is thereby produced. Every observant tourist who has crossed an Alpine glacier on a hot summer day has felt the sudden change of climate that he encounters on stepping from _terra firma_ on to the ice, and in which he remains immersed as long as he is on the glacier. How much greater must be this depression of temperature where the glacier ice is broken up and is floating in sea-water, to produce a vast area of freezing mixture, which would speedily bring the hottest blasts from the Sahara down to many degrees below the freezing point.

A similar cause retards the _beginning_ of summer in Arctic Norway and in Finland and Siberia. So long as the winter snow remains unmelted, _i.e._, till about the middle or end of June, the air is kept cold, all the solar heat being expended in the work of thawing. This work finished, then the warming power of a non-setting sun becomes evident, and the continuously accumulating heat of his rays displays its remarkable effect on vegetable life, and everything capable of being warmed. These peculiarities of Arctic climate must become exaggerated as the Pole is approached, the winter cold still more intense, and the accumulation of summer heat still greater. In the neighborhood of the North Cape, where these contrasts astonish English visitors, where inland summer traveling becomes intolerable on account of the clouds of mosquitoes, the continuous sunshine only lasts from May 11 to August 1. At the North Pole the sun would visibly remain above the horizon during about seven months—from the first week in March to the first week in October (this includes the effect of refraction and the prolonged summer of the northern hemisphere due to the eccentricity of the earth’s orbit).