Attempts of two kinds have been made to scale this icy barrier. Ships have sailed northwards, threading a dangerous course between the floating icebergs in the summer, and becoming fast bound in winter, when the narrow spaces of brackish water lying between these masses of land ice become frozen, and the “ice-foot” clinging to the shore stretches out seaward to meet that on the opposite side of the fjord or channel. The second method, usually adopted as supplementary to the first, is that of dragging sledges over these glacial accumulations. The pitiful rate of progress thus attainable is shown by the record of the last attempt, when Commander Markham achieved about one mile per day, and the labor of doing this was nearly fatal to his men. Any tourist who has crossed or ascended an Alpine glacier with only a knapsack to carry, can understand the difficulty of dragging a cartload of provisions, etc., over such accumulations of iceberg fragments and of sea-ice squeezed and crumbled up between them. It is evident that we must either find a natural breach in this Arctic barrier or devise some other means of scaling it. The first of these efforts has been largely discussed by the advocates of rival routes. I will not go into this question at present, but only consider the alternative to all land routes and all water routes, viz.: that by the other available element—an aerial route—as proposed to be attempted in the new Arctic expedition projected by Commander Cheyne, and which he is determined to practically carry out, provided his own countrymen, or, failing them, others more worthy, will assist him with the necessary means of doing so. To reach the Pole from the northernmost point already attained by our ships demands a journey of about 400 miles, the distance between London and Edinburgh. With a favorable wind, a balloon will do this in a few hours, On November 27, 1870, Captain Roher descended near Lysthuus, in Hitterdal (Norway), in the balloon “Ville d’Orleans,” having made the journey from Paris in fifteen hours. The distance covered was about 900 miles, more than double the distance between the Pole and the accessible shores of Greenland.