DESCRIPTION OF PLATE CXXI.

FIG. 1. Portion of a Potato-plant, with the Colorado Potato-beetle (Doryphora 10-lineata) in the egg (a), larva (b, c, d), and imago (e).

FIG. 2. Pupa, of the natural size.

FIG. 3. Imago, of the natural size.

FIG. 4. Underside of the imago.

FIG. 5. Left wing-case, enlarged, showing the arrangement of the black lines; a, outer margin.

FIG. 6. Left wing-case of Doryphora juncta, enlarged, showing the arrangement of the black lines; a, outer margin.

154

THE ARCTIC EXPEDITION: ITS SCIENTIFIC AIMS.

BY ROBERT BROWN, M.A., PH.D., F.L.S., F.R.G.S., &c.

BEFORE

EFORE the next part of this review is in the hands of its readers an English expedition-the object of which is to explore the wide unknown region surrounding the North Pole--will be well on its way to the scene of its labours for the next two years. An event so remarkable in the annals of science cannot be allowed to pass unnoted. For months past almost every journal in the kingdom has had something to say on the subject; for years to come we shall hear talk interminable, or may read print of which there is no end on this fruitful subject. Judging from the past we may expect these articles to be plentifully distinguished for the want of knowledge, more especially of what are the scientific aims and objects of the expedition. A few pages may be therefore profitably devoted to this question. Thanks to the unwearying efforts of Sherard Osborn and Clements Markham, backed by the Arctic Committees of the Royal and Geographical Societies, and their refusal to accept a denial-sedunt æternumque sedebunt-in a few weeks the ships and the men will be ready. The Alert and Discovery are now fitting out at Portsmouth with every appliance which experience and ingenuity can suggest as best fitted for serving the purposes for which they are intended. Twenty-three officers have been selected from the overwhelming number of volunteers who offered themselves. The head of the whole expedition will be Captain Nares, of Challenger fame. Commander Albert H. Markham, who has shown that his skill as a naval commander in many seas is almost equalled by his literary power in describing his voyages, is second in command; while Captain Stephenson, late of the Royal Yacht, will have the command of the second ship. Under these officers will be about 120 seamen. In addition there will be six ice-mastersexperienced whalemen-who will advise the officers on questions connected with ice navigation, and two civilian naturalists. It is to be hoped that one of these is a geologist; for, as we shall see presently, the geological questions to be solved are not the

least important of all those which await the labours of these gentlemen. Altogether he would be a carping critic who would cavil at the arrangements of this expedition, or its personnel. By the end of May it is believed that it will be ready to sail. In a fortnight or so after it will be sighting the coast of Greenland. It will now enter Davis' Strait, and after touching one or two of the little Danish posts on that dreary coast, it will sail into Baffin's Bay, and then into Smith's Sound, the "threshold of the unknown region." The exploration of this Sound has been advanced by the expeditions of Kane, Hayes, and Hall; and the chief aim of this expedition, geographically, will be to reach and explore a latitude beyond that attained by the last-named and ill-fated commander. How this is best to be accomplished may be safely left to the judgment of Captain Nares himself. Speaking broadly, the plan at present proposed is for the two ships to push north up Smith's Sound, or its continuation, to a point as far as the season, or the ice, will permit. One of the ships will remain in this locality, while the other will push still further on if possible, and explore, by boats or sledges, as circumstances may show to be best, the sea and lands lying beyond. In case of disaster the depôt vessel will afford the adventurers a home to fall back upon. It is, however, unnecessary to say that the details of such plans must be altered indefinitely, and that it would be most unwise to strangle the skill of a commander, who has already shown himself so worthy of trust, by the bonds of red tape, which cut-anddry "instructions" would assuredly be.

What, then, are the objects of this expedition? In the first place, it is the only expedition--since the unfortunate one of Sir John Franklin in the Erebus and Terror-which the English Government has despatched to the Arctic seas for exploration alone. Since 1845 numerous ships flying the pennant have been within the Arctic circle, and have greatly enlarged our knowledge of the circumpolar regions. But they were in search of the expedition of Franklin; discovery was not one of their objects; and though they might have incidentally advanced science, provision was not made for research; and, indeed, so long as the mission they were sent on was unfulfilled, no man dared to think of science or of geographical exploration, brilliant though some of the discoveries made, no doubt, were. Need I remind the reader that on one of these expeditions the North-west Passage was discovered?

But the adventurers in the Alert and Discovery will have no thought to divert their minds from exploration in the widest sense of the term. Every provision has been made for it consistent with that economy of space which the storage of such a large quantity of fuel and provisions demand. Unlike the case of the

Challenger, there are no posts to visit, where stores can be taken or surplus baggage left. All must be at once taken from England; on this they will have to draw for the whole term of the expedition. The land and seas they are to explore are dreary enough, and an idea obtains that there is really nothing to be done in these far northern lands; that no interest attaches to them from a scientific point of view; and that the naturalists of the Arctic expedition, after they have surveyed their home in the far North, may sit down on its frozen shores and weep, if they are so inclined, because there is there no world for them to conquer. Around the Pole there are about 2,500,000 square miles of sea and land yet unknown, and lying virgin for exploration. It must not be supposed that the mere vainglory of reaching the spot known as the North Pole is the object of the equipment of this expedition. "The North Pole," writes Mr. Clements Markham (I quote the ipsissima verba of this eminent geographer because I can find none of my own which more fully expresses the meaning which I wish to convey), "is merely a spot where the sun's altitude is equal to its declination, and where bearings must be obtained by reference to time and not to the magnet. It will doubtless be reached in the course of exploration, and there is something which takes the imagination of ignorant and uncultivated persons in the idea of standing upon it. But this will not be the main, or even a principal result, of the expedition. The objects in view are the discovery of the conditions of land and sea within the unknown area, and the investigation of all the phenomena in that region, in the various branches of science. These results can only be obtained by facing difficulties, perils, and hardships of no ordinary character; but their vast importance, owing to the additions they will make to the sum of human knowledge, will be an ample recompense. ."* I mention this, because in some circles the mere vainglory of reaching the North Pole seems to be considered the acme of the labours, of the brave and accomplished men who are so soon to leave England, just as among the same people to march up a steep mountain, and then like the King of France, in the nursery rhyme, come down again (if possible with greater celerity than they went up), is the aim and end of all alpine research. In all likelihood the "North Pole" will be found to be situated in the midst of some icy sea, or if on land, in the midst of some dreary waste, its position only ascertainable by a long series of observations by the scientific officers, and differing certainly in no degree from the region immediately surrounding it. It is impossible to say what branches of science will be most advanced by the researches of

• "The Threshold of the Unknown Region," 3rd edition, p. 325.

the expedition. Oftentimes discoveries are made when least expected. One discovery leads to another, and with the material at hand an accomplished naturalist can never fail to make interesting observations, and even deduce important generalisations which those at home, only acquainted with what has already been done, cannot even presage. Still there are a few points in various branches of science which it would be well that the naturalists should attend to, and which the Jeremiahs, who are never weary of crying that all is barrenness, should be aware still require solution, or more extended observations in regard to. Let us take geology. Over the North of Europemost markedly in Great Britain-America, and in all likelihood, Asia also, are found certain remarkable deposits which are believed to date from one of the latest geological epochs, viz., that known as the glacial period, and are known to have been caused by ice. These deposits are very varied, but they may be referred to three great series, viz., great beds of stiff tenacious clay, unfossiliferous, but mixed with rounded boulders most frequently scratched and ice-worn; a series of finely-laminated clays, containing fossils, chiefly Arctic shells; and lastly beds of sand and gravel and boulders, rounded and angular, scattered over the country, and belonging to formations not in the immediate vicinity; indeed often far distant from the localities where these boulders and "travelled blocks" are found, showing that they may have been transported by some agency. This agency is now universally conceded to be ice in some form, most likely icebergs. Ice, again, must have been at work in forming the "glacial beds;" but whether floating ice, or some great ice cap covering the whole country, is as yet undecided, though the preponderance of belief points to the latter as being the mode in which the ice was formed. Agassiz long ago pointed out that Scotland must have been swathed, hill and dale, mountain and valley, in such a great glacier covering. For long he was treated with incredulity, simply because we knew of no country which at the present time was in such a condition,* and therefore, reasoning on the great principles taught by Lyell, we could not accept such a hypothesis. We now know that Greenland is a country in exactly such a condition, and it is to it that we must look for an explanation of the glacial phenomena of Britain and the rest of the Northern hemisphere. The naturalists, by a thorough study of glacial phenomena in that great country of glaciers, can do much to solve the questions now under discus

Yet in 1780 Otho Fabricius wrote ("Fauna Groenlandica," p. 4)," interioribus ob plagam glacialem continuam inhabitabilibus ;" and Lars Dalager, among others, described the "inland ice.”