AN INTERNATIONAL POLAR EXPEDITION.

In a former paper on Polar Colonisation we mentioned that an American enthusiast had suggested that, with a view to the achievement of greater results, the enterprise of exploring the Arctic regions should be made an international one. A somewhat similar idea appears to have occurred about the same time to Count Wilczek, and Lieutenant Charles Weyprecht, of Arctic fame. After many months of careful consideration, these gentlemen lately issued at Vienna the programme of the work which they propose should be undertaken by an International Polar Expedition. The elaborate scheme therein propounded was originally prepared with a view to its details being fully discussed by the International Meteorological Congress which was to have met at Rome in the month of September of last year, but which, owing to political events, it has been found necessary to postpone till the present year. The peculiarity of their project is that they aim at purely scientific exploration in the Arctic and Antarctic regions, and that they leave geographical discovery out of their programme, intending that it should be undertaken by a separate expedition. To accomplish the highly important end they have in view, they suggest that each of the states participating in the work should equip an expedition and despatch it to one of the stations enumerated by them. Each of the powers interested will be left to decide how long it will continue the work and what questions should be studied beyond those laid down in the international programme. The investigations to be undertaken in common will only include the phenomena of meteorology and terrestrial magnetism, auroræ boreales, and the laws which govern the movements of ice. As of course uniformity and the utmost possible accuracy in the observations to be taken are absolutely necessary for purposes of comparison, the propounders of the scheme enter into very minute details, especially as regards the magnetic observations. The following are the places which are considered the most favourable for the purposes above indicated: (In the northern hemisphere), the north coast of Spitzbergen, the north coast of Novaya Zemlya, the vicinity of the North Cape of Finmark, the north coast of Siberia at the mouths of the Lena, New Siberia, Point Barrow at the north-east of Behring Strait (occupied by Maguire 1852-54), the Danish settlement on the west coast of Greenland, and the east coast of Greenland in about latitude 75°; (in the southern hemisphere) the neighbourhood of Cape Horn, Kerguelen or Macdonald Islands, and one of the groups south of the Auckland Islands. Each state interested, it may be mentioned in conclusion, must establish a station for a year at least, and conform strictly to the terms of the programme.