eturned, not
having reached the Pole, not having reached the eighty-third parallel,
for the attainment of which there was a reward of a thousand pounds held
out by government. They reached the parallel of eighty-two degrees
forty-five minutes, which was the most northerly point trodden by the
foot of man.

From that point they returned. In those high latitudes they met with a
phenomenon, common in alpine regions, as well as at the Pole, red snow;
the red colour being caused by the abundance of a minute plant, of low
development, the last dweller on the borders of the vegetable kingdom.
More interesting to the sailors was a fat she bear which they killed and
devoured with a zeal to be repented of; for on reaching navigable sea,
and pushing in their boats to Table Island, where some stones were left,
they found that the bears had eaten all their bread, whereon the men
agreed that "Bruin was now square with them." An islet next to Table
Island--they are both mere rocks--is the most northern land discovered.
Therefore, Parry applied to it the name of lieutenant--afterwards Sir
James--Ross. This compliment Sir James Ross acknowledged in the most
emphatic manner, by discovering on his part, at the other Pole, the most
southern land yet seen, and giving to it the name of Parry: "Parry
Mountains."

It very probably would not be difficult, under such circumstances as Sir
W. Parry has since recommended, to reach the North Pole along this route.
Then (especially if it be true, as many believe, that there is a region
of open sea about the Pole itself) we might find it as easy to reach
Behring Straits by travelling in a straight line over the North Pole, as
by threading the straits and bays north of America.

We turn our course until we have in sight a portion of the ice-barred
eastern coast of Greenland, Shannon Island. Somewhere about this spot in
the seventy-fifth parallel is the most northern part of that coast known
to us. Colonel--then Captain--Sabine in the _Griper_ was landed there to
make magnetic, and other observations; for the same purpose he had
previously visited Sierra Leone. That is where we differ from our
forefathers. They commissioned hardy seamen to encounter peril for the
search of gold ore, or for a near road to Cathay; but our peril is
encountered for the gain of knowledge, for the highest kind of service
that can now be rendered to the human race.

Before we leave the Northern Sea, we must not omi