The rescue of the Greely party of Arctic explorers (a few days too late)
has given the public two extraordinary sensations. The first exciting
incidents were those of the rescue of a party of men who had gone a
few miles nearer to the Pole. We were allowed two weeks of satisfaction
and rejoicing over the rescue and the scientific gains of the Greely
expedition. Then came a sickening revelation of cannibalism among the
starved and dying explorers. The sensational press never seemed so
hateful as it did when it went prying into the horrors of the last
month of that struggle for life. The cap-sheaf was put on indecency
by a pictorial paper which gave a picture of one of the dead men, and
printed under it that, after he was dead his comrades ate his flesh. The
shamelessness of such journalism can not be rebuked; civilized language
has no adequate terms. It is, however, no longer possible to deny that
cannibalism is one of the remote possibilities of Arctic exploration. The
fact may or may not temporarily arrest the efforts to uncover the secrets
of the frozen North. We do not perceive a sufficient reason in the fact.
We know that horrors hang around all histories of such discovery—this
among them. But this is only a more disgusting fact. We know that the
circumpolar battles between man and nature cost human life, rich and
costly life, vast sufferings and cruel disappointments. It would be a
strange thing if the full exposure of a revolting fact which is not new
to the initiated few, should raise a murmur among the many now for the
first time enlightened—a murmur so strong as to restrain governments from
further explorations. We doubt if public opinion can in that way get a
leverage under the scientific enthusiasm and overthrow it.
The main question recurs: What is the use of Arctic exploration? In
general terms, it may be said that there are few, if any, unsolved
problems of science on which Northern discovery _might not_ shed light,
and it may be said with equal truth that there is apparently nothing to
be found out at the Pole, but the location of frozen hills and frozen
seas among which life is impossible. There are chances that hints towards
the solution of many problems may be gained in that world of frost; there
is no certainty, not even any high probability that we shall be any
wiser when we have beaten the Ice King and successfully traversed his
dominions. Our readers know that the original impulse to these dangerous
voyages was the hope of finding a northwest passage to India. When hope
vanished new thoughts took the place of the old notion of going to India
by the North Atlantic. Questions of ocean currents, of northern forms
of vegetable and animal life, of the aurora borealis, of the phenomena
of the Ice Age of the earth, of divers other eagerly studied questions
of the world and man have arisen to stimulate discovery. The scientific
man kept on in the lines which the trader had given over in despair.
Besides, our blood was up. To be beaten by frost is not to be consented
to by courageous humanity. And so the struggle has gone on. Fruitlessly?
No, a considerable amount of precious knowledge has been gained. Each ten
years adds some stretches of land and sea to our maps. The total result
is probably richly worth the life and treasure expended. If in a battle
a cause can claim ten thousand lives, who may say that in the pursuit
of knowledge a few hundred shall be grudged? Besides, the world needs
a moral gymnasium—a field in which courage, endurance, heroism, may be
trained. The North is a better gymnasium than the field of war. It has
fewer horrors and a more thorough discipline. Examples of manliness,
devotion, self-denial abound in these stories of Arctic discovery. The
examples tell on society at large much more effectively than military
exploits. Every nation is interested in every heroic incident of the
frozen seas. The attempt to call a halt in these enterprises will
probably fail; and perhaps after all we should wish them to fail. Every
life is well spent whose loss tells on general character, and we have
no chapters of secular life that are richer in inspiration than those
of Polar enterprise. Lives are lost; but our Lord’s rule is good always
that lost lives may be better lost than saved. The North may yet yield
up precious secrets; it is safe to prophesy that if it has any under its
winding sheet of ice man will discover it.