THE SECRET OF THE POLE.
The rescue of the Greely party of Arctic explorers (a few days too late) has given the public two extraordinary sensations. The first exciting incidents were those of the rescue of a party of men who had gone a few miles nearer to the Pole. We were allowed two weeks of satisfaction and rejoicing over the rescue and the scientific gains of the Greely expedition. Then came a sickening revelation of cannibalism among the starved and dying explorers. The sensational press never seemed so hateful as it did when it went prying into the horrors of the last month of that struggle for life. The cap-sheaf was put on indecency by a pictorial paper which gave a picture of one of the dead men, and printed under it that, after he was dead his comrades ate his flesh. The shamelessness of such journalism can not be rebuked; civilized language has no adequate terms. It is, however, no longer possible to deny that cannibalism is one of the remote possibilities of Arctic exploration. The fact may or may not temporarily arrest the efforts to uncover the secrets of the frozen North. We do not perceive a sufficient reason in the fact. We know that horrors hang around all histories of such discovery—this among them. But this is only a more disgusting fact. We know that the circumpolar battles between man and nature cost human life, rich and costly life, vast sufferings and cruel disappointments. It would be a strange thing if the full exposure of a revolting fact which is not new to the initiated few, should raise a murmur among the many now for the first time enlightened—a murmur so strong as to restrain governments from further explorations. We doubt if public opinion can in that way get a leverage under the scientific enthusiasm and overthrow it.
The main question recurs: What is the use of Arctic exploration? In general terms, it may be said that there are few, if any, unsolved problems of science on which Northern discovery might not shed light, and it may be said with equal truth that there is apparently nothing to be found out at the Pole, but the location of frozen hills and frozen seas among which life is impossible. There are chances that hints towards the solution of many problems may be gained in that world of frost; there is no certainty, not even any high probability that we shall be any wiser when we have beaten the Ice King and successfully traversed his dominions. Our readers know that the original impulse to these dangerous voyages was the hope of finding a northwest passage to India. When hope vanished new thoughts took the place of the old notion of going to India by the North Atlantic. Questions of ocean currents, of northern forms of vegetable and animal life, of the aurora borealis, of the phenomena of the Ice Age of the earth, of divers other eagerly studied questions of the world and man have arisen to stimulate discovery. The scientific man kept on in the lines which the trader had given over in despair. Besides, our blood was up. To be beaten by frost is not to be consented to by courageous humanity. And so the struggle has gone on. Fruitlessly? No, a considerable amount of precious knowledge has been gained. Each ten years adds some stretches of land and sea to our maps. The total result is probably richly worth the life and treasure expended. If in a battle a cause can claim ten thousand lives, who may say that in the pursuit of knowledge a few hundred shall be grudged? Besides, the world needs a moral gymnasium—a field in which courage, endurance, heroism, may be trained. The North is a better gymnasium than the field of war. It has fewer horrors and a more thorough discipline. Examples of manliness, devotion, self-denial abound in these stories of Arctic discovery. The examples tell on society at large much more effectively than military exploits. Every nation is interested in every heroic incident of the frozen seas. The attempt to call a halt in these enterprises will probably fail; and perhaps after all we should wish them to fail. Every life is well spent whose loss tells on general character, and we have no chapters of secular life that are richer in inspiration than those of Polar enterprise. Lives are lost; but our Lord’s rule is good always that lost lives may be better lost than saved. The North may yet yield up precious secrets; it is safe to prophesy that if it has any under its winding sheet of ice man will discover it.