estimated had an altitude of 700 feet above the sea surface, and it was seven miles long. Bergs have often been seen grounded on the Banks of Newfoundland, where the depth of sea lead gave a depth of 650 feet. Ross saw several stranded in Baffin's Bay, where the depth was 1,400 feet. Bergs are unusually numerous in some years, and a connection is said to have been traced between the frequency of bergs in the North Atlantic and the low temperature in the British Islands during the summers of some years. The ship Swanton passed 300 bergs in 1842, in 43° N. lat., 50° W. long. She narrowly escaped destruction during the night as she passed between two huge bergs that almost grazed her sides. Captain Scoresby, while whaling in the northern icy sea, counted no less than 500 bergs under way for the open waters of the Atlantic. In June, 1896, the ship Concordia, passed 78 large bergs in a short space of time, as they lay aground in the Straits of Belle Isle. In 1896 the ice was both late and scarce. In 1883 it was very abundant. No forecast can be made as to the probability of frequency of bergs. A vessel has been so firmly fixed in the ice in the month of March, in 44° N., 45° W., that her master was able to take a stroll on the ice. In 1841, several ships, stopped by ice in mid-Atlantic, were afforded the opportunity for their crews to kill seals that were basking upon it. Bergs have been seen in the North Atlantic laden with lumps of rocks, sand and soil. The Banks of Newfoundland would appear to have been formed in this way. Arctic lands suffer denudation by the inland ice as it creeps along toward the sea, and the bergs, separated from their parent glaciers, deposit the fragments at the bottom of the old ocean, there to harden into rocks and help in moulding the surface of the coast. Nothing is lost, nothing is new. In August, 1827, a berg was observed stranded in 85 fathoms, in 46.5° N., 45° W. Much earth and rock were embedded in its fissured sides. Polar bears and other Arctic animals were seen on the bergs of 1883. An abandoned ship was passed high and dry on a huge ice island in 1794, and a ship with her crew was seen similarly situated in 1845; but no help could be afforded.

On April 21, 1851, the brig Renovation passed an immense ice island, about 90 miles to the eastward of St. Johns, Newfoundland. Two dismantled ships lay snugly upon it, but there was no sign of life. Captain Ommanney, R. N., was deputed to investigate this report, and took great pains to arrive at its truth, as it was inferred that these ships were the Erebus and Terror, of Sir John Franklin's ill-fated expedition. Some people are still of the same way of thinking. The crew of the German discovery ship, Hansa, were compelled to abandon their vessel, crushed by ice, and took refuge on an immense floating mass of ice, where they remained for eight months. Their floating ice island was seven miles in circumference, and drifted south, until the poor fellows were able to make their escape. During this time they had lived in a hut constructed from the coal saved from their ship. H. M. S. Resolute was abandoned, em. bedded in the ice, but was picked up after a long drift southward. This ice-bearing current tends to make the American coast very cold. The warmer water of the Gulf Stream, on the other hand, enables the whalers to get far to the northward, on that side of the Atlantic, and makes the mean temperature of Ireland in 52 degrees N., as high as that of American coast ports in 38 degrees N., 14 degrees nearer to the equator.

Ship-masters should take frequent observations of the temperature of the sea, although it must not be relied upon as a specific indication. Warning may often be obtained by means of the echo given off from a berg when a steam whistle is sounded. The Admiralty charts show the seasonable limits of bergs, and the United States Hydrographic Office issues charts every month giving the exact position of each berg sighted up to the moment of going to press.

Strength of Ice.-Ice 1 inches thick will support a man; 4 inches, cavalry; 5 inches, an 84 pound cannon; 10 inches, a multitude; 18 inches, a railroad train.

MOST NORTHERN POINTS REACHED.

The farthest points of north latitude reached by Arctic explorers up to the present date are as follows: In 1607,

Hudson, 80° 23'; in 1773, Phipps (Lord Musgrove), 80° 48'; in 1806, Scoresby, 81° 12′ 41′′; in 1827, Parry, 82° 50'; in 1874, Meyer (on land), 82°; in 1875, Markham (Nares expedition), 83° 20' 26"; in 1876, Payer, 83° 07'; in 1884, Lockwood (Greely's party), 83° 24′; in 1895, Nansen, 85° 57′ N. latitude and 66° E. longitude, on October 16. The distance from the farthest point of polar discovery to the pole itself is 4° 3', or, in round numbers, about 300 miles. But this polar radius, though only some 300 miles in extent, is covered by ice gorges and precipices of incredible difficulty; and frost is so severe that no instrument of human invention can measure its intensity, and it blisters the skin like extreme heat. The greatest progress that has ever been made across these wildernesses of storm, of fury, and desolation, was at the rate of five or six miles in a day, the explorers often necessarily resting as many days as they had before traveled miles in a single day, debarred by the obstacles they encountered.

ANTARCTIC RESEARCH.

It is a fact that we can place little dependence upon a great deal of the information that appears upon the South Polar charts. Captain Sharp entered in his log on Nov. 14, 1681: "On this day we could perceive land, from which, at noon, we were due west." His approximate position at that time is known, and the authorities long ago agreed that what he saw was ice only; and there is reason to believe that many of his successors, scanning the horizon through the snow-filled air, or during the confusion of a gale, have placed land on their charts where none exists. All or nearly all the inaccuracies contributed to the charts by occasional visitors to South Polar waters for nearly three centuries, are perpetuated on the maps of to-day. Both Ross and Captain Nares sailed over parts still marked as land on many charts.

Many people have been surprised by the statement of Dr. John Murray, that the South Polar continent may have an area of 4,000,000 square miles. Though this is pure conjecture, no geographer will be astonished if it

prove true. The statement is based upon the fact that the dredging operations of the Challenger in Antarctic waters gave evidence to proximity to continental rather than to oceanic lands; and further, the lands discovered on all sides of the Antarctic circle-Enderby, Kemp, Wilkes, Victoria, Graham, and Alexander Islands-have none of them been seen in their entire extent. In each case the top is covered by an almost unbroken ice sheet, extending outward from the coasts into the sea and terminating in precipitous cliffs, the Great Ice Barrier of the South Polar explorers. There are plausible reasons for believing that these lands around the Pole and extending toward it from near the 66th parallel, may be all parts of the coast of a great continental mass. If Dr. Murray's conjecture as to the size of this supposed continent approximates the truth, it is eight times the size of Greenland, which Peary has shown to be the largest island known to us, and a third larger than the United States, exclusive of Alaska.

The earlier voyages in high southern latitudes were made in vessels of from fifty to one hundred and fifty tons, and the ships used by Cook, Ross, Bellinghausen, D'Urville, and Wilkes, though larger, cannot be compared in size, speed, or safety with the modern whaler. Sledge traveling was almost unknown when Antarctic research stopped. Nansen and Peary have shown us how to make a highway of the inland ice. Almost every branch of science will profit by the renewal of South Polar research. Biology, geology, meteorology, physics and physical geography will be chiefly enriched.

In 1774, Capt. James Cook penetrated southward below the 71st parallel on the 107th meridian. In 1821, Captain Bellinghausen discovered Peter Island and Alexander Land. In 1832, Captain Biscoe, a British sealer, thought he discovered islands, one of which he named Adelaide Island and a group, Biscoe Islands, and a country which he called Graham Land. The Belgica, with De Gerlache and Dr. Cook, sailed over the region where these islands are charted, in 1898, and did not encounter them. In 1839, Lieutenant Walker, in the Flying Fish, at the 70th parallel of latitude saw "ap

pearance of land," which does not exist, because the Belgica sailed over the spot and found there a sea 1,000 feet deep. On March 31, 1898, the Belgica reached latitude 71° 36' 30", having gone as far poleward as possible, being thwarted by the ice. The Belgica was 13 months locked in ice, and drifted with it about 2,000 miles, from 5 to 40 miles per day. Its soundings proved a sea where land is charted, and a submarine bank like the bank on the Newfoundland coast; also, that the magnetic pole is about 200 miles east of its present assigned position.

STRANGE STORMS.

A mystery with which every sailor is familiar is the formation of dust at sea. No matter how carefully the decks may be washed down in the morning and how little work may be done during the day, if the decks are swept at nightfall, a large quantity of dust will be collected.

A Sand Storm.-The British steamship Glenshiel reported that when half way up the Red Sea on a certain voyage, a most terrific sand storm, which lasted nearly ten hours, suddenly swept down. It was impossible to see anything a ship's length away. The wind blew a gale, and it was dangerous to stay on deck for any length of time. The sand was hot, and when it came into contact with the body, would sting like the point of a knife.

Dust and Red Rain Storm.-The British ship Berean encountered a storm of dust once when about 600 miles west of the Cape de Verde Islands. Her sails and rigging were thickly coated with a very fine powdery dust of a dark yellow or saffron color, scarcely discernible on or near the deck, but profuse on the highest parts of the rigging, so that the sails appeared "tanned."

Admiral Smyth many years ago reported, during his stay in Sicily, on the 14th of March, 1814, a "blood rain," which fell "in large, muddy drops, and deposited a very minute sand of a yellow-red color," quite similar to that reported by the Berean. He then regarded it as "sirocco dust," from the African desert, "crowning the beautiful theory of atmospheric circulation." Both on