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plies out upon the ice north of all land; (2) a sledge journey across the ice pack to the Pole; and (3) a return southwestward in the course of the Greenland current to either Koldeway Island or Shannon Island on the East Greenland coast. For the accomplishment of these plans, Mr. Baldwin is provided with multifarious devices. For his expedition, funds practically unlimited were furnished by Mr. William Ziegler, of Brooklyn, and no Arctic expedition, not even the famous Nares expedition, has been so elaborately equipped as this. The leader has three ships: (1) the Dundee whaler, Esquimau, renamed the America, a barque-rigged steamship of 466 tons, which was completely refitted at Dundee for special service as the flagship of the expedition, with new decks, new masts, and accommodations for making the crew unusually comfortable; (2) her tender, the Frithjof, a steamer of 260 tons; and (3) the Belgica, a barque which transported the expedition under Lieutenant de Gerlache, that first passed a winter below the Antarctic circle (1898-99). Mr. Baldwin has four houses in parts ready to put together; and these, being constructed with a double shell, can be turned into eight if necessary, at the will of the leader. He has in addition to a comfortable supply of ordinary canned foods, and the standard food for sledge journeys, pemmican, a large number of new condensed foods; 8,000 pounds of coffee in tablets; 1,500 tins of crystallized eggs, etc. In all, he has 200 tons of concentrated food.

Forty Balloons.—In order to mark the advance of his party, and in general to give out records of his work, Mr. Baldwin is supplied with forty balloons, each holding 3,000 cubic feet of hydrogen gas produced by the vitriolic process. To each of these balloons ten top-shaped cork buoys, copper sheathed and weighted with lead, each buoy weighing ten pounds, are attached by a rope. When the escape of gas causes a balloon to fall so low that the lowest buoy strikes the ice, a device releases the buoy, and relieved of its weight, the balloon springs up once more, and so on until all the buoys are set free. In each buoy there is a hollow brass tube which contains records showing the accomplishments of the party to the time when the balloon was sent up. The buoys are painted red and blue, and each is provided with a metal American flag. It is expected that they will float with currents until they are picked up, and thus they will furnish records of the set of the water in the Arctic Ocean.

Dogs as Food-One of the main problems of Arctic exploration has been to find food for the dogs which drag the provisions of the men. Mr. Baldwin has a hundred tons of dog food, but does not depend on that alone for the subsistence of his draft animals. It is his intention to cause a portion of this food to transport itself; that is, he means to carry along, loose, less efficient dogs as food for those which are better able to stand the strain of hauling the sledges. To use the weakest dogs as food for the strongest, has been, as a matter of fact, the practice of all Arctic explorers; but none has equipped himself for the purpose as deliberately as has Mr. Baldwin. He has 420 dogs-no other expedition has had more than a third of the number. Another device of his is to cause the dogs which are not dragging sledges to bear their own provisions in packs fastened on their backs. He has also fifteen Siberian draft ponies, intended to do the heavy work in the first stages of his journey, and ultimately to become dog food.

Mr. Baldwin's Party-To carry out the various duties which such a large expedition demands, Mr. Baldwin has forty-one men, including six Siberian dog drivers. His first aim is avowedly to reach the North Pole; but he does not mean to neglect scientific observations, and has a full set of scientific instruments to determine the meteorology, the terrestrial magnetism, the geodesy, the tides, and the topography of Franz Josef Land. He has a very complete photographic apparatus, including even a moving-picture machine. Mr. Baldwin himself is a meteorologist, and among his comrades are men especially equipped to fill each scientific function of the expedition.

Movements of the Expedition.-The three vessels foregathered at Tromsö, Norway. The Frithjof left July 17, 1901, for Cape Flora, bearing a party of hunters who were to begin the campaign by shooting walrus and white bear for dog food. The Belgica left Sandefjord July 25, for either Koldeway Island or Shannon Island on the Greenland coast, bearing three houses, sledges, food to be deposited along the Greenland coast sufficient for twelve men for a year, and signal-poles to be erected along this coast. The America left with the Frithjof, but went first to Solombala, Russia, to pick up the dogs. After a stormy passage of three weeks, she reached Franz Josef Land August 14, and with the Frithjof proceeded north to Markham Sound, and established a headquarters on the southwest coast of Alger Island, 80° 20' N. 55° 52′ E. The ice ahead was so thick that the Frithjof, which had to return and could not risk delay, did not dare to enter it. Before she left the America to come home, thirty-two polar bears and sixty-two walrus had been killed for dog food.

Mr. Baldwin's Plans for 1902.-It was Mr. Baldwin's intention to push the America

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into the ice as far north as possible, and when she should become permanently beset, to advance over the ice with dogs and ponies-each of which will drag as much as twenty dogs-to the farthest attainable point and there to establish permanent headquarters. He hopes that these headquarters will be above the 83d parallel, fifty miles or so north of the point of departure selected by Mr. Peary. It is his estimate that this station will be about 550 miles from the Pole. With lightly laden sledges-only fifty to sixty pounds per draft dog, instead of the hundred pounds usually assigned to these animals-he expects to proceed rapidly. His calculation is that he can accomplish the journey to the Pole and back to Greenland in about a hundred days. He will begin to establish his advance stations on the ice about March 2, after the sun has returned from its winter's absence, and about the first of April the main sledge party will leave Franz Josef Land.

The Melville-Bryant Drift Casks.-Ever since the famous pair of breeches lost from the Jeannette, north of Siberia, turned up in Greenland, there has been widespread speculation as to the character of the currents which set across the North Pole. Nansen made a partial test of one of these currents. A more comprehensive test is now being conducted by means of casks placed on the ice-floes north of Behring Strait. Each cask is numbered and the latitude and longitude where it is thrown overboard is noted. The plan originated with Rear-Admiral George W. Melville, the chief engineer of the United States Navy, the hero of the Jeannette expedition, the discoverer of De Long's remains, and the chief engineer of the Greely Relief Expedition. The president of the Philadelphia Geographical Society, Mr. Henry G. Bryant, who was the leader of one of the Peary auxiliary expeditions, and second in command of another, interested the Society in the plan, and the Society determined to provide the casks. In all, fifty casks have been placed upon the ice floes by whalers, and also by the revenue cutter Bear, stationed on the coast of Alaska, which began this year with fifteen casks. The casks are made of heavy oak staves bound with iron hoops, and each has a capacity of about twenty gallons and contains a sealed bottle, in which is a paper instructing the finder to note the spot where the cask was picked up, and to send the records to the nearest United States consul.

The Duc d'Abruzzi's Search Expedition.-The Duke of the Abruzzi sent an expedition in the summer of 1901 to seck traces of the three men who were lost from one of Captain Cagni's sledge expeditions in the preceding summer. The search expedition in the steamer Capella spent the open season in Franz Josef Land, but failed to find any traces of the missing men. A memorial to them was erected at Cape Flora.

The Ermak.-The Russian ice-breaking steamship Ermak in 1901 again visited the polar sea near Spitzbergen. Ostensibly her object was to aid the Russian members of the party which was measuring the magnetic arc. According to the announcement in the fall of 1900, however, her commander intended to test her powers against the Arctic ice packs with a view of a possible discovery of the Pole. Against the wide and heavy floes of the ocean she proved a failure. It was reported, however, that she had made five trips between Novaya Zemlya and Franz Josef Land.

Captain Bauendahl's Expedition.-News arrived by the Hamburg American liner Augusta Victoria that Captain Bauendahl, who had started in 1900 in the small fishing boat Matador, to reach the Pole from the north of Spitzbergen, had wintered at Dane Island, had sent his ship home, and had started with one companion, a Norwegian, to the east coast of Greenland with the intention of proceeding up the coast to the Pole.

The Magnetic Arc Measurements.-The Russians and Swedes who are measuring a magnetic arc at Spitzbergen, spent their third summer there in 1901, and the work is not yet finished. The Russians determined all the points in the triangulation which fell to their share. But the Swedes, whose department was the north of the group of islands, being obstructed by the ice, were not able to complete their task. The expedition used the steamship Antarctic, which was afterwards bought by Heer Nordenskjöld for his Antarctic expedition.

The Toll Expedition.-The expedition under Baron Toll, which started in 1900 to carry on explorations in Sannikoff Land, reached the Gulf of Taimur. During the sledging season, a member of the party pushed on to the Nordenskjöld Islands. Baron Toll himself began the exploration of Chelyuskin. Lieut. Kalomütseff, of Baron Toll's party, in the steamship Zaria, wintered in the Bay of Taimur (76° 8' N.). During the winter Lieut. Kalomütseff tried twice to reach Kamchatka overland, but without success. The Zaria returned to Yeneslisk for coal in the summer, and set forth again to establish a coaling station on Dickson Bay.

Future Expeditions. Several enterprising explorers announced in 1901 the plans of expeditions by which they mean to reach the Pole. The most picturesque was that of Dr. Anschütz-Kämpfe, who intended to equip himself with a submarine boat

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ARCTIC EXPLORATION.-The Baldwin-Ziegler Expedition. Evelyn B. Baldwin, Leader (Left); William Ziegler, Patron (Right). Flagship, America.

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which should proceed beneath the ice. She was to be 70 feet long and 25 feet wide, with a capacity of 3,500 cubic feet of air-enough to last five men for 15 hours. She was to be propelled and guided, forward and up and down, by horizontal and vertical screws driven respectively by a 40 horse-power and a 5 horse-power engine. She could carry 150 tons of petroleum to feed a 220-volt accumulator. Her speed under water would be 3 knots an hour. The leader calculated that in the 15 hours during which his air would last he could make 45 knots, and that no Arctic floe could be 45 knots wide. Sometime in the course of that distance, therefore, he must come across an opening or "lead" in the ice and then he would rise to the surface and replenish his air. In case no lead should be discovered, he would find a thin place in the ice-indicated by his manometer-and blast a hole through. This plan, taken directly from Jules Verne, has been received as by no means preposterous; but it has not yet been put into execution.

Mr. Walter Wellman has announced that he too will try to reach the Pole, and that he has bought for the purpose the steamer Magdelena. But he has not publicly announced the details of his plans.

The Northern Magnetic Pole will be the object of an expedition announced for 1902 by R. Amundsen, a Norwegian, who was a member of the Belgian expedition to the Antarctic regions in 1898-99.

ARGENTINA, a republic on the Atlantic coast of South America. The capital is Buenos Ayres.

Area, Population, Education.-The estimated area of the 14 provinces and 9 territories is 1,113,849 square miles, and the population (census of 1895) 3,954,911. According to a French report the population of Argentina at the beginning of 1901 was 4,800,000, of whom 1,250,000 were foreigners; among these were 635,000 Italians, 250,000 Spaniards, 115,000 French, 60,000 Orientals, 20,000 English, 26,000 Chilians, 22,000 Germans, 20,000 Russians, and 20,000 Swiss. The estimated population of Buenos Ayres on April 30, 1901, was 829,896. In 1900 the immigrants numbered 105,902, of whom 84.851 came directly to Argentine ports, while the remainder first landed at Montevideo; of the 84,851, 52,143 were Italians and 20,383 Spaniards; the Germans numbered only 760.

Primary instruction is free, secular, and nominally compulsory; in 1899 the primary schools numbered 4,291, with an enrollment of 427,331 pupils. There are lyceums and normal schools for secondary education, and for higher education two national and three provincial universities. The reported number of periodicals and newspapers in Argentina in March, 1901, was 739, of which 94 were dailies and 256 weeklies; 682 were published in Spanish and 24 in Italian.

Government. The chief executive authority is vested in a president, who is elected for a term of six years, and appoints a responsible ministry; the president since October 12, 1898, has been Señor Julio A. Roca. The legislative power devolves upon congress of two houses, the senate and the house of deputies. The several states elect their own legislatures and governors.

The effective army numbers over 29,000. In October, 1901, the congress adopted a bill imposing obligatory military service; privileges, however, were granted to conscripts for purchasing exemption. The navy comprises 5 armored cruisers, 3 highspeed coast-defense cruisers, 4 coast defense armor-clads, 7 smaller gunboats and cruisers, 22 torpedo boats, 4 torpedo-boat destroyers, and a number of older craft. The naval complement, in addition to the marines, consists of 656 officers and 7,760

seamen.

Finance. The most important sources of revenue are import duties and excise; by far the largest item of expenditure is interest on the public debt. The silver peso is worth 96.5 cents, and the paper peso about 44 cents. In 1899 the revenue was 70,978,627 pesos (26,453,972 pesos, gold, and 101,192,399 pesos, paper), and the expenditure 70,978,587 pesos. The revenue in 1900 was 65,301,119 pesos (37,937,805 pesos, gold, and 62,189,352 pesos, paper), and the expenditure 60,538,941 pesos (20,980,230 pesos, gold, and 89,906,110 pesos, paper). The estimated revenue for 1901 was 37,991,718 pesos (gold) and 63,300,000 pesos (currency), and the estimated expenditure 26,025,176 pesos (gold) and 89,940,499 pesos (currency).

According to a statement published in Buenos Ayres in the summer of 1901, the total foreign debt of Argentina, payable in gold, was 386,004,118 pesos; the internal debt amounted to 6,349,000 pesos gold, and 96,819.854 pesos currency. In 1900 the total floating debt amounted to 19,892,000 pesos. In his message to the congress in May, 1901, the president stated that, after a ten-years' suspension of amortization, service would be resumed in July, since for this purpose there was already in London a sum of £1,000,000. There was some agitation against the law promulgated in November, 1899, for the conversion of the paper currency, but it was stated in July, 1901, that the law would not be repealed, and that the president would sanction no further issue of paper money. It was expected that by the end of the year the conversion fund would reach nearly $15,000,000. See paragraph Unification Bill.

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