world; especially the arctic explorers of England and of our own country?
The true chivalry of an advanced epoch--recognizing that there can be no
sublimer vocation for men of action than to extend the boundary of human
knowledge in the face of perils and obstacles more formidable and more
mysterious than those encountered by the knights of old in the cause of
the Lord's sepulchre or the holy grail--they have thus embodied in a form
which will ever awaken enthusiasm in imaginative natures, the noble
impulses of our latter civilization. To win the favour of that noblest
of mistresses, Science; to take authoritative possession, in her name,
of the whole domain of humanity; to open new pathways to commerce; to
elevate and enlarge the human intellect, and to multiply indefinitely the
sum of human enjoyments; to bring the inhabitants of the earth into
closer and more friendly communication, so that, after some yet
unimagined inventions and discoveries, and after the lapse of many years,
which in the sight of the Omnipotent are but as one day, the human race
may form one pacific family, instead of being broken up, as are the most
enlightened of peoples now, into warring tribes of internecine savages,
prating of the advancement of civilization while coveting each other's
possessions, intriguing against each other's interests, and thoroughly in
earnest when cutting each other's throats; this is truly to be the
pioneers of a possible civilization, compared to which our present
culture may seem but a poor barbarism. If the triumphs and joys of the
battle-field have been esteemed among the noblest themes for poet,
painter, or chronicler, alike in the mists of antiquity and in the full
glare of later days, surely a still more encouraging spectacle for those
who believe in the world's progress is the exhibition of almost infinite
valour, skill, and endurance in the cause of science and humanity.

It was believed by the Dutch cosmographers that some ten thousand miles
of voyaging might be saved, could the passage to what was then called the