CHAPTER XXXVI.

Livingstone, Stanley, Peary, Nansen and Other Great Discoverers and Explorers.

[=Ignorance of the Earth's Surface at the Beginning of the Century=]

At the beginning of the nineteenth century, long as man had previously existed upon the earth, much more than half its surface was unknown to the most civilized nations. Of the extensive continent of Africa, for instance, only the coast regions had been explored, while the vast interior could fairly be described as the "Great Unknown." The immense continent of Asia was known only in outline. With its main features men had some acquaintance, but its details were as little known as the mountains of the moon. With America men were little better acquainted than with Africa. The United States itself had been explored only as far west as the Mississippi, and that but imperfectly. The vast space between that great stream and the Pacific almost wholly awaited discovery. The remainder of the continent was divided into national domains, which were thinly inhabited and very imperfectly known. Of the continental island of Australia only a few spots on the border had been visited, and still less was known of the broad region of the North Polar zone.

[=Great Activity of Explorers in the Nineteenth Century=]

At the end of the century a very different tale could be told. The hundred years had been marked by an extraordinary activity in travel, adventure, and discovery; daring men had penetrated the most obscure recesses of continents and islands, climbed the most difficult mountains, ventured among the most savage tribes, studied the geographical features and natural productions of a thousand regions before unknown, and learned more about the conditions of the earth than had been learned in a thousand years before. The work of the century has no parallel in history except the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, when America was discovered and the East Indies were explored, and the horizon of human knowledge was immensely extended.

The great achievements of the century with which we have to deal were performed by a large number of adventurous men, far too numerous even to be named in this review.

[=The Notable Fields of Nineteenth Century Travel=]

In fact it would need a volume, and one of considerable extent, to tell, even in epitome, the story of travel and exploration within the nineteenth century. Such a story, given in any fulness, would far transcend our purpose, which is confined to the description of the great events of the century, those of epoch-making significance, and which played leading parts in the progress of the period with which we are concerned. In this review, therefore, we may fairly confine ourselves to records of travel in two regions of the earth, the continent of Africa and the Arctic Zone, of both of which little was known at the opening of the century, while the story of their exploration has been of startling interest and importance. The interior of Asia and America, while presenting problems to be solved, were not unknown in the sense in which we speak of Africa, over which rested a pall of darkness as black as the complexion of its inhabitants. Australia alone was unknown in a similar sense. But the interior of that great island is practically a desert, and its exploration possesses nothing of the interest which attaches to that of Africa, a land which for many centuries has attracted the active attention and aroused the vivid curiosity of mankind, while a satisfactory acquaintance with it has been left for the latter half of the nineteenth century.

Of the great travelers to whom we are indebted for our present knowledge of this continent two stand pre-eminent, David Livingstone and Henry M. Stanley, and we may deal with their careers as the pivots around which the whole story of African exploration revolves.

[=Famous African Travelers=]

The first of modern travelers to penetrate the interior of western Africa to any considerable depth was the justly celebrated Mungo Park, whose first journey to the Niger was made in 1795-96, and the second in 1805. He traced that important stream through a large part of its upper course--finally losing his life as a result of his intrepid daring. On the east coast, at a somewhat earlier date (1768-73) the equally famous James Bruce penetrated Abyssinia to the head-waters of the Blue Nile, which he looked upon as the source of the great river of Egypt. About the same time the French traveler Vaillant entered the continent at Cape Town and journeyed north for more than three hundred miles, into the country of the Bushmen.

Such was the state of African exploration at the beginning of the century under consideration. The travelers named, and others of minor importance, had not penetrated far from the coast, and the vast interior of the continent remained almost utterly unknown. In fact the century was half gone before anything further of consequence was discovered, the first journey of Dr. Livingstone being made in 1849.

[=Dr. Livingstone's Missionary Labors=]

David Livingstone, an enterprising man, of Scotch birth, left England in 1840 to devote his life to missionary work in Africa. He had studied medicine and theology, and was well equipped in every way for the arduous and difficult work he had undertaken. Landing at Port Natal, he became associated with the Rev. Robert Moffat, a noted African missionary, whose daughter he afterwards married, and for years he labored perseveringly as an agent of the London Missionary Society. He studied the languages, habits, and religious beliefs of a number of tribes, and became one of the most earnest and successful of missionaries, his subsequent journeys being undertaken largely for the advance of his religious labors.

His experience in missionary work convinced him that success in this field of duty was not to be measured by the tale of conversions--of doubtful character--which could be sent home every year, but that the proper work for the enterprising white man was that of pioneer research. He could best employ himself in opening up and exploring new fields of labor, and might safely leave to native agents the duty of working these out in detail.

[=Discovery of Lake Ngami=]

This theory he first put into effect in 1849, in which year he set out on a journey into the unknown land to the north, the goal of his enterprise being Lake Ngami, on which no white man's eyes had ever fallen. In company with two English sportsmen, Mr. Oswell and Mr. Murray, he traversed the great and bleak Kalahari Desert,--which he was the first to describe in detail,--and on the 1st of August the travelers were gladdened by the sight of the previously unknown liquid plain, the most southerly of the great African lakes.

Two hundred miles beyond this body of water lived a noted chief named Sebituane, the chief of the Makololo tribe, whose residence Livingstone sought to reach the following year, bringing with him on this journey his wife and children. But fever seized the children and he was obliged to stop at the shores of the lake. Nothing daunted by this failure, he set out again in 1851, once more accompanied by his family, and with his former companion, Mr. Oswell, his purpose being to settle among the Makololos and seek to convert to Christianity their great chief. He succeeded in reaching the tribe, but the death of Sebituane, shortly after his arrival, disarranged his plans, and he was obliged to return. But before doing so he and Mr. Oswell made an exploration of several hundred miles to the northeast, their journey ending at the Zambesi, the great river of South Africa, which he here found flowing in a broad and noble current through the centre of the continent.

[=Livingstone's Journey from the Zambesi to the West Coast=]

The subsequent travels of Livingstone were performed more for purposes of exploration than for religious labors, though to the end he considered himself a missionary pioneer. Sending his family to England, he left Capetown in June, 1852, and reached Linyanti, the capital of the Makololo, in May, 1853, being received in royal style by the chief and his people, by whom he was greatly esteemed. He next ascended the Zambesi, in search of some healthy high land for a missionary station. But everywhere he found the tsetse fly, an insect deadly to animals, and, annoyed by the ravages of this insect among his cattle, he determined to leave that locality and enter upon the greatest journey ever yet undertaken in Africa, one through the unknown interior to the west coast.

The start was made from Linyanti on November 11, 1853, the party ascending the Leeba to Lake Dilolo, which was reached in February, 1854. Finally, on the 31st of May, they came to the coast town of St. Paul de Loanda, in Portuguese West Africa. Their long and dangerous journey had been attended by numberless hardships, and Livingstone reached the coast nearly worn out by fever, dysentery and semi-starvation. But nothing could deter the indefatigable traveler. He set out again after a few months, reached Lake Dilolo on June 13, 1855, and Linyanti in September. After a brief interval of rest he left this place with a determination to follow the broad-flowing Zambesi to its mouth in the eastern sea.

[=The Discovery of the Great Victoria Falls=]

A fortnight after his start he made the most notable of his discoveries, the one with which his name is most intimately associated in popular estimation, that of the great Victoria Falls of the Zambesi, a cataract which has no rival upon the earth except the still mightier one of the Niagara. Here an immense cleft or fissure in the earth cuts directly across the channel of the river, which pours in an enormous flood down into the cavernous abyss, whence "the smoke of its torrent ascendeth forever." The country surrounding seems to be a great basin-shaped plateau, surrounded by a ring of mountains, the depression having probably at one time been filled with an immense lake whose waters were drained off when the earth split asunder across its bed.

[=The First Crossing of the Continent=]

On went the untiring traveler, and on May 20, 1856, he reached the east coast at the Portuguese town of Quillimane, at the mouth of the Zambesi, in a frightfully emaciated condition. He had, in two and a half years of travel, performed one of the most remarkable journeys ever made up to that time. First proceeding north from the Cape to Loanda, through twenty-five degrees of latitude, he had for the first time in history, crossed the continent of Africa from ocean to ocean, through as many degrees of longitude, while his discoveries in the geography and natural history of the region traversed had been immense.

Livingstone returned to England in the latter part of the year and was received with the highest enthusiasm, being welcomed as the first to break through that pall of darkness which had so long enveloped the interior of Africa. The Royal Geographical Society had already conferred upon him its highest token of honor, its gold medal, and now honors and compliments were showered upon him until the modest traveler was overwhelmed with the warmth of his reception.

[=Livingstone Discovers Lake Nyassa=]

The desire to complete his work was strong upon him, and after publishing an account of his travels, in a work of modest simplicity, he returned to Africa, reaching the mouth of the Zambesi in May, 1858. In 1859 his new career of discovery began in an exploration of the Shire, a northern affluent of the Zambesi, up which he journeyed to the great Lake Nyassa, another capital discovery. For several years he was engaged in exploring the surrounding region and in furthering the interests of missionary enterprise among the natives. In one of his journeys his wife, who was his companion during this period of his travels, died, and in 1864 he returned home, worn out with his extraordinary labors in new lands and desiring to spend the remainder of his days in quiet and repose.

But at the suggestion of Murchison, the famous geologist and his staunch friend, he was induced to return to Africa, one of his main purposes being to take steps looking to the suppression of the Arab slave trade, whose horrors had long excited his deepest sympathies. Landing at the mouth of the Rovuma River--a stream he had previously explored--on March 22, 1866, he started for the interior, rounded Lake Nyassa on the south, and set off to the northeast for the great Lake Tanganyika--which had meanwhile been discovered by Barton and Speke, in 1857.

[=Stanley in Search of Livingstone=]

[=The Death of the Great Explorer=]

After his departure Livingstone vanished from sight and knowledge, and for five years was utterly lost in the deep interior of the continent. From time to time vague intimations of his movements reached the world of civilization, but the question of his fate became so exciting a one that in 1871 Henry M. Stanley was dispatched, at the expense of the proprietor of the _New York Herald_, to penetrate the continent and seek to discover the long-lost traveler. Stanley found him at Ujiji, on the northeast shore of Tanganyika, on October 18, 1871, the great explorer being then, in his words, "a ruckle of bones." Far and wide he had traveled through Central Africa, discovering a host of lakes and streams, and finding many new tribes with strange habits. Among his notable discoveries was that of the Lualaba River--The Upper Congo--which he believed to be the head-waters of the Nile. His work had been enormous, and the "Dark Continent" had yielded to him a host of its long hidden mysteries. Not willing yet to give up his work, he waited at Ujiji for men and supplies sent him by Stanley from the coast, and then started south for Lake Bangweolo, one of his former discoveries. But attacked again by his old enemy, dysentery, the iron frame of the great traveller at length yielded, and he was found, on May 1, 1873, by his men, dead in his tent, kneeling by the side of his bed. Thus perished in prayer the greatest traveler in modern times.

For more than thirty years Livingstone had dwelt in Africa, most of that time engaged in exploring new regions and visiting new peoples. His travels had covered a third of the continent, extending from the Cape to near the equator, and from the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean, his work being all done leisurely and carefully, so that its results were of the utmost value to geographical science. He had also aroused a sentiment against the Arab slave-trade which was to give that frightful system its death-blow.

The work of Livingstone stirred up an enthusiasm for African travel, and many adventurous explorers set out for that continent during his career. After the discovery of Lake Tanganyika by Burton and Speke, in 1857, the latter started to the northeast, and reached the head-waters of the great Victoria Nyanza, the largest body of water on the continent. Subsequently this traveler, accompanied by Mr. Grant, journeyed to the White Nile, north of this lake, while Samuel Baker, another adventurous traveler, accompanied by his heroic wife, reached in 1864 a great lake west of the Victoria, which he named the Albert Nyanza.

[=Other African Travelers=]

Further north Dr. Barth, as early as 1850, set out on a journey across the Sahara to the Soudan, and at a later date various travelers explored this northern section of the continent, while in 1874-75 Lieutenant Cameron repeated Livingstone's feat of crossing the continent from sea to sea. But the greatest of African travelers after Livingstone was Henry M. Stanley, with whose work we are next concerned.

While a reporter in the _New York Herald_, this enterprising man had been sent to Crete to report upon the revolution in that island, to Abyssinia during the British invasion, and to Spain during the revolution in that country. While in Spain, in 1869, James Gordon Bennett sent him the brief order to "find Livingstone." This was enough for Stanley, who proceeded at once to Zanzibar, organized an expedition, and did "find Livingstone," as above stated.

[=Stanley's Journey to the Victoria Nyanza=]

[=The Descent of the Great Congo River=]

Next, filled with the spirit of travel, Stanley set out to "find Africa," now as joint agent for the _Herald_ and the London _Daily Telegraph_. Setting out from Zanzibar in November, 1874, he proceeded, with a large expedition, to the Victoria Nyanza, which he circumnavigated; and then journeyed to Tanganyika, whose shape and dimension he similarly ascertained. From these he proceeded westward to the Lualaba, the stream which Livingstone had supposed to be the Nile. How Stanley made his way down this great stream, overcoming enormous difficulties and fighting his way through hostile tribes, is too long a story to be told here. It must suffice to say that he soon found that he was not upon the Nile, but upon a westward flowing stream, which he eventually identified as the Congo--a great river whose lower course only had been previously known. For ten months the daring traveler pursued his journey down this stream, assailed by treachery and hostility, and finally reached the ocean, having traversed the heart of that vast "unexplored territory" which long occupied so wide a space on all maps of Africa. He had learned that the interior of the continent is a mighty plateau, watered by the Congo and its many large affluents and traversed in all directions by navigable waters. Politically this remarkable journey led to the founding of the Congo Free State, which embraces the central region of tropical Africa, and which Stanley was sent to establish in 1879.

In 1887 he set out on another great journey. The conquest of the Egyptian Soudan by the Mahdi, described in a preceding chapter, had not only greatly diminished the territory of Egypt, but had cut off Emin Pasha (Dr. Edward Schnitzler), governor of the Equatorial Province of Egypt, leaving him stranded on the Upper Nile, near the Albert Nyanza. Here Emin maintained himself for years, holding his own against his foes, and actively engaging in natural history study. But, cut off as he was from civilization, threatened by the Mahdi, and his fate unknown in Europe, a growing anxiety concerning him prevailed, and Stanley was sent to find him, as he had before found Livingstone.

[=Stanley Goes to the Rescue of Emin Pasha=]

Organizing a strong expedition at Zanzibar, the traveler sailed with his officers, soldiers and negro porters for the mouth of the Congo, which river he proposed to make the channel of his exploration. Setting out from this point on March 18, 1887, by June 15th the expedition had reached the village of Yambuya, 1,300 miles up the stream. Thus far he had traversed waters well known to him. From this point he proposed to plunge into the unknown, following the course of the Aruwimi, a large affluent of the Congo which flowed from the direction of the great Nyanza lake-basins.

It was a terrible journey which the expedition now made. Before it spread a forest of seemingly interminable extent, peopled mainly by the curious dwarfs who form the forest-folk of Central Africa. The difficulties before the traveler were enormous, but no hardship or danger could daunt his indomitable courage, and he kept resolutely on until he met the lost Emin on the shores of Albert Nyanza, as he had formerly met Livingstone on those of Lake Tanganyika.

[=A Terrible Forest Journey=]

Three times in effect Stanley crossed that terrible forest, since he returned to Yambuya for the men and supplies he had left there and journeyed back again. Finally he made an overland journey to Zanzibar, on the east coast, with Emin and his followers, who had been rescued just in time to save them from imminent peril of overthrow and slaughter by the fanatical hordes of the Mahdi. This second crossing of the continent by Stanley ended December 4, 1889, having continued little short of three years. The discoveries made were great and valuable, and on his return to Europe the explorer met with a reception almost royal in its splendor. Among the large number of travelers who during the latter half of the century have contributed to make the interior of Africa as familiar to us as that of portions of our own continent, Livingstone and Stanley stand pre-eminent, the most heroic figures in modern travel: Livingstone as the missionary explorer, who won the love of the savage tribes and made his way by the arts of peace and gentleness; Stanley as the soldierly explorer, who fought his way through cannibal hordes, his arts being those of force and daring. They and their successors have performed one of the greatest works of the nineteenth century, that of lifting the cloud which for so many centuries lay thick and dense over the whole extent of interior Africa.

[=The Exploration of the Arctic Zone=]

Leaving this region of research, we must now seek another which has been the seat of as earnest efforts and terrible hardships and has aroused as ardent a spirit of investigation, the Arctic Zone. At no point in the story of the nineteenth century do we find a greater display of courage and resolution, a more patient endurance of suffering, and a more unyielding determination to extend the limits of human knowledge, than in this region of ice and snow, the delving into whose secrets has actively continued during the latter half of the century.

[=Early Expeditions to the Far North=]

A number of voyages were made to the Arctic regions in former centuries, and Henry Hudson as early as 1607 sailed as far north as the latitude of 81 degrees 30 minutes in the vicinity of Spitzbergen. With the opening of the nineteenth century exploration grew more active, and voyage after voyage was made; but the distance north reached by Hudson two centuries before was not surpassed until 1827, when Parry reached 82 degrees 40 minutes north latitude in the same region of the sea. Beyond these efforts to penetrate the ice barrier, and the discovery of some islands in the Arctic Ocean, nothing of special interest occurred until the date of Sir John Franklin's expedition, which left England in 1845 and disappeared in the icy seas, every soul on board perishing. This expedition was made famous by the many search parties which were sent out in quest of the lost mariners.

By one of these parties the northwest passage from ocean to ocean, around the Arctic coast of America, was traversed in 1854. The fate of Franklin and his men was not fully solved until 1880, when an American expedition, under Lieutenant Schwatka, found the last traces left by the unfortunate explorers.

As famous and as disastrous as the Franklin expedition was the "Lady Franklin Bay Expedition," conducted by Lieutenant Greely, of the United States army, which set out in 1881. This expedition was not sent for purposes of polar research, but in pursuance of a plan to conduct a series of circumpolar meteorological observations. The relief party of 1883, dispatched to the rescue of the explorers, was unfortunately put under the control of military men, who not only failed to reach their destination, but even to leave a supply of food where Greely and his men might justly expect to find one.

[=The Dreadful Fate of the Greely Party=]

As a result of this failure, the explorers were obliged to abandon their ships and make their way southwards over almost impassable ice. In October they reached Cape Sabine, one of the bleakest spots in the Arctic zone. If food had been left there for them all would have been well. But they looked in vain for the expected supplies, and when, in June, 1884, Commodore Schley reached them with a new relief ship, starvation had almost completed its work. Of the whole party only six men survived, and a day or two more of delay would have carried them all away. Among the survivors was their leader, Lieutenant Greely.

[=The Fatal "Jeannette" Expedition=]

A disaster as fatal in character attended the _Jeannette_ expedition, sent out by the _New York Herald_, in 1879, under Commander DeLong, to push north by way of Bering Strait. The vessel was crushed by the ice in 1882, and the crew made their way over the frozen surface past the New Siberian Islands to the mouth of the Lena River, on the north coast of Siberia. Here starvation attacked them, and DeLong and many of his men miserably perished, their bodies being found by Engineer Melville, one of their companions, who had pushed south to the Siberian settlements and secured aid, with which he heroically returned for the rescue of the unfortunate mariners.

[=Expedition of Prof. Nordenskjöld=]

Another expedition calling for attention was that of Adolf Erik Nordenskjöld, a Swedish scientist. The purpose of this enterprise was to discover, if possible, a practical commercial route through the waters north of Europe and Asia, the long sought-for Northeast Passage. In 1878 Nordenskjöld set out in the _Vega_, commanded by Captain Pallander, of the Swedish Navy. The party succeeded in making the long journey round the northern coasts of Europe and Asia, wintering in Bering Strait and reaching Japan in 1879. This vessel was the first one to round the northernmost point of Asia, and Nordenskjöld was rewarded by being made a baron and a commander of the order of the Pole Star in his own country, and by marks of distinction from several others of the courts of Europe.

[=Land Journeys in Greenland=]

Since 1890 the work of polar exploration has taken new forms. In 1870 Nordenskjöld made a journey into Greenland, and a second one in 1883, penetrating that island more than 100 miles and reaching a snow-clad elevation of 7,000 feet. In 1886 Lieutenant Robert E. Peary, of the United States Navy, made a similar journey, and in 1888 Dr. Frithjof Nansen, a Norwegian explorer, crossed the southern part of the island on snowshoes from east to west.

[=Peary Crosses North Greenland=]

In 1891 Peary proceeded with a small party to McCormick Bay, a locality far up on the west coast of Greenland, whence he set out in the following spring with a single companion for a sledge journey over the northern section of the island. After a remarkable journey of 650 miles he reached the northeast coast of Greenland, at 81°, 37" N. latitude, but the appearance of an area of broken stones impassable by sledges cut off his progress to the far north. In 1895 Peary repeated this journey, but failed to make farther progress northward.

During the final decade of the century polar expeditions became numerous. Walter Wellman, a young American journalist, attempted in 1894 to reach the pole by sledge and boat over the Spitzbergen route, but his supporting vessel was crushed in the ice, and he was forced to retreat when near the 81st parallel. He made a second "dash for the pole" in 1898-99, but was disabled by an accident, and again obliged to return without success. In 1894 Frederick G. Jackson, an English explorer, visited Franz Joseph Land, an island region discovered by an Austrian expedition in 1872-74, and whose northern extension was not known. He remained on this island three years, carefully exploring it, and in 1896 stood on its northern extremity, near the 81st parallel, and in view of an open expanse of polar waters. Jackson's most notable service to science was the rescue of the daring explorer Nansen, whose expedition needs next to be described.

[=Nansen and His Enterprise=]

Frithjof Nansen, whose crossing of Greenland has been mentioned, soon after projected an enterprise of a new character. There was excellent reason to suppose that a strong ocean current crossed the polar area, flowing from the coast of the Eastern hemisphere across to Greenland and down both shores of that island. By trusting to the drift influence of this current a vessel might be carried past the pole and the long baffling mystery solved. Nansen accordingly had a vessel constructed adapted to resist the most powerful crushing force, and so formed that a severe ice pressure would lift it to the surface of the floe. In this vessel, the _Fram_, he set out in June, 1893, sailed east to the vicinity of the New Siberia Islands, and there made fast his ship to an ice floe, with the hope that the current would slowly carry ice and ship across the polar area.

[=Nansen's "Farthest North"=]

For three years Nansen and his crew were lost to all knowledge of man, in these frozen seas, and all hopes of his return had nearly vanished when he triumphantly reappeared, having achieved a marvelous success, even though short of that which he had desired. For more than a year the _Fram_ had drifted slowly northward, and on Christmas eve, 1894, the latitude of 83 degrees 24 minutes, reached by the Greely expedition, and the highest yet attained, was passed. In March, 1895, Nansen left the ship, dissatisfied with its slow progress, and with one companion started on a sledge journey to the north. But the ice grew so difficult to cross and his dog teams so depleted in number, that, after a desperate effort, he was obliged to give up the enterprise on April 7th. He had then reached latitude 86 degrees 14 minutes, being 200 miles nearer the pole than former explorers had gone, and within 300 miles of that "farthest north" point. The vessel which he had left continued to drift north until it reached 85 degrees 57 minutes, when it turned southward. Here the sea was found to be deep, and the belief that the pole might be surrounded by a land area was disproved. It lies probably in a sea region of over 10,000 feet in depth.

[=The Rescue of Nansen=]

Nansen and Johansen, his companion, finally reached the coast of Franz Joseph Land, where they drearily spent the winter of 1895-96, living on the flesh of bears and walrusses, which they shot. In the spring they set out to cross the ice to Spitzbergen, and after two unsuccessful attempts had the good fortune to meet Dr. Jackson on the shores of Franz Joseph Land. The incident was one of the most notable in the history of research, it seeming next to impossible that almost the only human beings in the vast area of the frozen north should have the remarkable fortune to come together. The voyagers completed their journey home in Jackson's supply ship, the _Windward_, their arrival in the realms of civilization being one of the most striking events of the century. In 1897 Jackson returned, having explored and mapped Franz Joseph Land.

[=Andrée's Fatal Balloon Venture=]

The final years of the century were very active in polar research. A new explorer of Swedish birth, S. A. Andrée, devised a plan of reaching the pole as original as that of Nansen, and thought by many to be more hopeful. This was the taking advantage of the currents of air, instead of those of water. Mr. Andrée was an aëronaut of experience, and found it possible, by aid of a rope drag and a rubber sail, to direct the motion of a balloon somewhat aside from the course of the wind. A balloon seemingly suitable for his enterprise was constructed, and in the summer of 1897 he set out for the north with two companions, and with ardent hopes of returning successful in a few months. Unhappily, accident or miscalculation interfered with the plans of the adventurous aëronaut, and he and his companions have failed to return. They have in all probability fallen victims to the terrible conditions of the northern zone.

In 1898 Lieutenant Peary set out again for the scene of his former triumph, now equipped for a continued effort to solve the problem of the pole. He proposed to establish depots of provisions at successive points in the north, and to continue the enterprise for years if necessary, finally dashing polar-ward from his farthest north station. In the same year the Norwegian Captain Sverdrup proceeded to the same locality in the famous _Fram_, with purposes analogous to those of Peary. In 1899 the adventurous Italian Prince Luigi, set out for Franz Joseph Land, well equipped for a journey north, and proposing to devote several years to the enterprise.

Thus there is room for hope that the pole may be reached by the end of the nineteenth century, or before the twentieth century is many years advanced. Meanwhile the enterprise of South Polar exploration, long neglected, has been actively revived. Several expeditions have recently visited that region, and active steps are being taken for its exploration on a larger scale.