10. Among the maritime nations of Europe, it was England, and especially her merchants, who had hitherto largely invested in the costs and risks of these Argonautic expeditions “for the glory of God and the good of the country.” The Dutch soon contented themselves, after Barentz’s death, with the capture of whales in the Arctic seas; France remained an unconcerned spectator, while the sylphs of Versailles consumed the whalebone of whole fleets of whalers; and Spain and Portugal early withdrew from seas in which, instead of ingots of gold, ice-floes only were to be found. But even for England the days of the prophets had now passed away—the days of a Cabot, a Mercator,[10] a Wolstenholme, and a Walsingham. Men of weight raised their voices against the chimeras of Arctic commercial routes, and Chillingworth contemptuously compared an expedition for the discovery of the North-East passage to the study of the Fathers. 11. It may be asked why nations struggled with dauntless ambition for the lost cause of the barren North-West and North-East passages, while for a century they stretched forth timid hands after the rich treasures of lands lying in the more favoured zones? _The mighty stimulus of the love of the marvellous_ explains this series of efforts taken up by generation after generation. Frobisher, Davis, Baffin, and the Novaya Zemlya adventurers, told on their return of gold-lands far within the domains of the icy Hydra. Their tales of single combats with spear or matchlock against polar bears, of the dreadful snow-storms and fearful cold of the Arctic winter, were heard with grim delight by listeners on whom no hardships were imposed. Or they spoke of a darkness that continued for months, of the flaming arches of the northern lights, of the sun remaining visible for many weeks in the heavens, of a race of dwarfs, of unheard-of animals, of fish as big as ships of war, of monsters with long teeth which precisely resembled the Sphinxes of the plains of the Pyramids, of white and blue foxes, of floating mountains of dazzling crystal, of ships seen upside down in the air—when had ever the mind of man more food to nourish the love of the marvellous or greater incentives to stimulate the love of distinction? But besides these appeals to the imagination, every generation desires new confirmations of its convictions; and hence geographical questions, after being shelved for a time, come again to the front as by an inward necessity.