Literary and Scientific Society (article 5 december 1883)
Literary and Scientific Society is an article published in The Evening News (Portsmouth) on 5 december 1883.
Report
(5 december 1883, p. 2)
The second meeting of the above was held last evening at the Sailor Boys' Room at the Soldiers' Institute, when a paper on "The Arctic Seas" was read by Dr. A. Conan Doyle, a gentleman who has had considerable personal experience in those regions. The lecturer contended that notwithstanding the great strides which our knowledge had made of the world during the past hundred years, there still remained for the traveller and the geographer of the future employment. Over 2,000,000 square miles round the Pole had as yet been untouched by the foot of man, and in the Antarctic regions, the great mysterious continent of the south, shrouded itself behind a veil of ice. Indeed, from the high clouds of Thibet to the stony plains of the interior of Australia, and again from the lakes of South Africa to the Savannahs of Central America there appeared on the maps blank spaces which were an opprobrium to science and a challenge to human daring. Nothing could equal in all the annals of travel and discovery the dramatic interest of the struggle made by the human race to reach the North Pole during the past couple of centuries, although on the one side it was not a pleasing story, being a record of blasted hopes, and balled exertions too often ending in lonely graves far up in the dim twilight land. Yet still there was a brighter side, because there was likewise a history of indomitable pluck, self-abnegation, and devotion; and the long succession of men who had crowded forward anxious to sacrifice their own individuality for the common good, and the interest of science was surely something which pointed to a character in a human nature higher than some pessimists would have them believe. Having traced from earliest times the efforts made to reach the pole, the lecturer said that man had been within 399 1/2 miles of the Pole, and the question as to arriving at it hinged on whether the remaining entrance was as bleak and barren as that which had been passed already. He felt inclined to think that it was not, and that after a certain point the temperature would change for the better as they reached the Pole. He would also ask whether the initial idea of reaching the pole was the right one and the best calculated to lead to success. That was open to doubt, and he would ask why the preference of approach to the Pole should be given to Smith's Sound and Kennedy Channel, which was the very worst highway possible to a northern latitude — instead of the broad road between Greenland and Spitzbergen, where there was a fine expanse of sea where the floes had plenty of room to circulate, although with a hard winter and mild summer the chances of course would be small. He felt that the Government should offer at least a reward of £30,000 for the discovery of the Pole and that, instead of great preparatory expenses, the Government should fit out one of the various suitable cruisers ready at hand, and let some of the excellent officers on half pay take command. Starting about the middle of June they could go and make examinations, but abstain from running the ship into the first ice field they came to. Again and again they might return unsuccessful, but if the attempt were made, each Year, sooner or later, there would come a suitable season, and if an opening in the ice were found he believed two days' steaming would bring them to the Pole, and a glow of pride would fill the hearts of the Anglo-Saxon, when the day came (as he believed it would) that the flag of Britain should wave on the northernmost pinnacle of the earth. — The President (Col. Drayson) moved a vote of thanks to the lecturer for his able paper. — The Hon. Sec. seconded the vote, which was carried, and Dr. Doyle having responded, the meeting separated.
