1. The sledge is pre-eminently the means of geographical exploration in high latitudes, and as discovery now forms the main purpose of Polar expeditions, it may be important to describe clearly and precisely the system we followed, that others may either adopt or improve on our methods. Thus I will enter into many details, not in order to dwell on the inconveniences incident to this mode of travelling, but to show how the greatest amount of safety and protection may be secured to the sledge-party. 2. Sledge-journeys presuppose that the ship is safe and secure in a winter harbour. A ship which has not yet completed its summer voyage should avoid them as exceedingly hazardous; and as a principle such expeditions are to be absolutely declined by a ship which is beset in the ice; the success which may have attended some must by no means stimulate others to imitate them. Their object is the exploration of lands still unknown or imperfectly known. They presuppose also the existence of ice, closely adhering to a coast, on which the journeys are performed, and this coast-line must run in a northerly direction, if the North Pole be the goal of discovery. Though sledge-parties follow the coast-line they actually travel on the frozen sea; for it is never safe to abandon that line and make for pack-ice at a distance from it. The crossing of glaciers, however small may be their inclination, is always attended with danger; and if the route be stopped by a stretch of land whose extent forbids dragging, it is of course impossible to proceed. The roughness of the land and its insufficient covering of snow even in winter sufficiently explain this. A sledge cannot, for any considerable length of time, be dragged up an inclination exceeding two or three degrees.