Incidentally the fresh Arctic journeys must secure much scientific information, but that aspect of them appeals to the few. It is as a display of the grandest powers of man in conflict with the tyranny of his surroundings that Arctic travel appeals directly to the heart. Since McClure, in 1850, forced the north-west passage from Bering Strait to Baffin Bay, and Nordenskjold, in 1878, squeezed the "Vega" through, between ice and land, from the North Cape to the Pacific, the futility of the golden dreams of the greedy old merchants who tried to reach the wealth of the Orient by short cuts through the ice has been demonstrated. Although no money is likely to be made out of the Arctic, we want information thence which it is almost impossible to get; and the almost impossible is dear to every valiant heart. We know a good deal about the state of matters near the poles, but yet not enough to let us understand all the phenomena of our own lands. In this respect, however, the South Pole is the most promising field, for its surroundings probably conceal the mainspring of the great system of winds which do the work of the air on every land and sea. Dr. Nansen has promised to go there after returning from the North, and solving its simpler problems. The chilly distinction of being the coldest part of the earth is probably due to the northern parts of Eastern Siberia, and not to the North Pole. The "magnetic pole," where the needle hangs vertically, has been found in the Arctic archipelago north of America, and in many ways scientific observations there are worth more than at the North Pole itself.