t one of its kind. That is, it
appropriated a million dollars and engaged the cooeperation of the best
scientific authorities, and sent out its best men, who departed in the
full knowledge that their enterprise had aroused a real national
enthusiasm, and that the most strenuous effort was expected of them.
The purpose of these accumulated advantages was to so fortify the
voyagers that their success or failure should satisfy the world upon
the subject of polar exploration. They went, struggled so bravely that
their loss of life was greater than on any expedition since the fatal
one under Franklin--and came back without succeeding. Their commander
deliberately declared success to be impossible from the nature of the
difficulties which always exist near the pole, and that this goal of
nine centuries' effort would never be reached.

But, in spite of Captain Nares's positiveness, the Arctic question is
now just where he took it up. Seventy miles has been added to the
distance covered, but the world is just as unsatisfied as ever, and
polar exploration is just as ardently desired as ever. The spirit is
unchanged, but the name is altered. Against the uniform report of the
explorers who have been so numerous during the last decade that a mere
journey to the pole is not likely to yield much addition to man's
knowledge, it is hardly possible for even the most enthusiastic
navigators to stand up. But when Lieutenant Payer, on returning from
the Austrian expedition north of Spitzbergen, declared that there was
but one way to make the icy northern regions yield up their scientific
secrets, and that was by colonizing parties within the Arctic circle,
to stay there long enough to make a continued study of its meteorology
and physics, the scientific world gave him its unqualified support.
Several nations have been reported to be on the point of organizing
such a colony, but America seems likely to be the first to act
energetically on the suggestion. Captain Howgate of the Signal Service
Corps has petitioned Congress for $50,000 with which to send out a
company of forty men, provided with supplies for three years. They are
to be taken by a government vessel to some point between 81 deg. and 83
deg., the route taken to be by Smith's sound. There they will be left,
the vessel returning. An annual visit is to be paid the colony, but
otherwise they will be left to themselves. To prevent the scandalous
quarrels which ruined the Polaris exped