The scientists look less upon the picturesque and exciting side of Arctic exploration, and more upon its useful phases.

"It helps to solve useful problems in the physics of the world," wrote Professor Todd of Amherst college.

"The meteorology of the United States to-day; perfection of theories of the earth's magnetism, requisite in conducting surveys and navigating ships; the origin and development of terrestrial fauna and flora; secular variation of climate; behavior of ocean currents--all these are fields of practical investigation in which the phenomena of the Arctic and Antarctic worlds play a very significant role." Lieutenant Maury, whose eminent services in mapping the ocean won him international honors, writes of the polar regions: "There icebergs are launched and glaciers formed.

There the tides have their cradle, the whales their nursery.

There the winds complete their circuits, and the currents of the sea their round in the wonderful system of inter-oceanic circulation.