Now a glance at the map will show the reader that the traders of Western Europe--the British, the French, the Dutch, the Scandinavians--are situated on the northern shores of the Atlantic Ocean, and that, to reach the Pacific Ocean or the Indian, only two routes are at present open. For instance, they may cross the Atlantic to the American coast, and, keeping southward, strike through Magellan’s stormy Strait or round the bleak promontory of Cape Horn into the Pacific, and then, over some thousands of miles of water, proceed to Australia or Hindustan or China; or they may keep along the African coast to the Cape of Good Hope, its southernmost point, and so stretch across the warm Tropical seas to India and the Eastern Archipelago. A third, an _artificial_ route, has indeed of late years been opened up; and ships, entering the Mediterranean, may pass through the Suez Canal into the Red Sea. But this last-named route is unsuitable for sailing-ships, and all three routes are laborious and slow. How greatly the distance would be shortened were it possible to navigate the Northern Seas, and, keeping along the north coast of the American continent, to descend Behring’s Strait into the Pacific! In other words, were that North-West Passage practicable, which, for three centuries, our geographers and explorers so assiduously and courageously toiled to discover! But a still shorter route would be opened up, if we could follow a line drawn from the British Islands straight across the North Pole to Behring’s Sea and the Aleutian Archipelago. This line would not exceed 5000 miles in length, and would bring Japan, China, and India within a very short voyage from Great Britain. We should be able to reach Japan in three or four weeks, to the obvious advantage of our extensive commerce. Hitherto, however, all efforts to follow out this route, and to throw open this great ocean-highway between Europe and Asia, have failed. Man has been baffled by Nature; by ice, and frost, and winds, and climatic influences. With heroic perseverance he has sought to gain the open sea which, it is believed, surrounds the Pole, but a barrier of ice has invariably arrested his progress. His researches have carried him within about 500 miles of the coveted point; but he is as yet unable to move a step beyond this furthest limit of geographical discovery. Immediately around the North Pole, within a radius of eight to ten degrees or more, according to locality, still lies an Unknown Region, on the threshold of which Science stands expectant, eagerly looking forward to the day when human skill and human courage shall penetrate its solitudes and reveal its secrets.