THE LATE SLEDGE EXPEDITIONS. 255 them, it is not to them that we are indebted for our knowledge that Sir John Franklin did not take the Cape Walker route. This circumstance is not, however, to be set down as matter of blame to their com manders. These had a specific duty to per form which rendered individual exertion or with which the book abounds are strikingly parties which were despatched from the ves superior to the average of such subsidiary sels. Though the performance of the steamcompositions. These illustrations, drawn ers far exceeded the most sanguine expecta with great care to give the author's charactions that had been entertained respecting ter to the reader at a glance, are printed in a perfectly new style-in sepia-which gives them the effect of drawing. The humorous the pathetic, the graceful, and the grand are all represented in these very beautiful and successful sketches; and, while a perfect no tion is conveyed of the varied power of the artist, it is difficult at times to escape the daring impossible. Their vessels were, in conviction that the pencil of Stothard him- fact, simply steam tugs-and their power self had been employed to adoru each vol- was spent in towing the heavy sailing ships ume as it issued from the press, with blank through the ice-encumbered seas. This was spaces left for the hand of genius to illumi like harnessing a spirited war-horse to a nate. This is especially the case with such cumbrous wagon:-unfettered, what might sketches as the Bacchanalian Group, which they not have done! A satisfactory solu was drawn by Mr. Stothard himself on the tion to this question may be found in the wood, and has recently been well cut in by following account of one of the ice-charges Thompson. The specimen is highly char- made by the Intrepid steamer when frce: acteristic of Stothard's style and feeling-is fresh airy, and full of grace and freedom. Upon the whole, we have not opened a prettier volume these many years.-London Times. THE LATE SLEDGE EXPEDITIONS. "There was no time for thinking; action, and not consideration, was necessary. The ice was closing around us, and the squadron still several miles in advance; regain it we must. Through or over this neck the Intrepid must go. Sawing was useless, a mere waste of time; there was no alternative but to give it the 'stern.' 'Go a-bead full speed,' was the word of command; 'stem on' she From a volume which will be laid before goes, the concussion is terrific; the vessel Parliament in a few days-and which now trembles from head to taffrail. The stub. lies before ourselves our readers, who have born element bends and cracks, but does not been kept well acquainted with the whole break. 'Stop her!' Turn astern!' let us narrative that describes from its beginning try it again. Go a-head with all the speed the long search after Sir John Franklin and you can give her;' the greater portion of the his companions-may desire that we should crew is now on the ice to assist in clearing lay before them some further details of those away. She comes, she comes with addi-, sledge performances which formed so promtional force-stand clear-the ice breaksinent a feature in the late Expedition-and will be continued as probably most efficient agencies in what Low remains to be done. hurrah! A piece thirty feet square is adrift, other heavy masses spout from underneath the main floes, making a wonderful clearThe late Arctic searching Expeditions ance, grapnels over the bow, hook on the were, without exception, the most efficient pieces, take a turn on board-turn astern’as regards their equipment and the best or- 'stop her'-unhook the grapnels; this manganized that have ever left our shores. It is oeuvre was repeated over and over again Somewhat remarkable, however, that the ex- with similar success until the noble craft tensive exploratory results of those Expedi-seemed no longer a piece of mechanism, but tions should be due, not to the ships or their thing of life; some ferocious beast boundsteam tenders, but to the sledge travelinging on, and crushing the barrier that oppos⚫ Does ed it. To the spectator the scene was novel ders of the Dead Sea, whose imposing aspect and interesting, the men-o'-war's men hur-attract the traveler, but when they are ob rah'd and laughed at the sport, while 'hoary hended experience' - those veterans who had grown grey in Arctic service, stood gap ing with astonishment at the ice-destroyer' smashing a floe six feet thick as if it had been a sheet of glass. She now makes a desperate and final effort, the barrier is bro ken, she is through, she is free, and the silent shores of Melville Bay echo the astounding cheers of a hundred seamen as she dashes with lightningspeed towards her conBort the Assistance, For three days was the Intrepid adrift from the squadron, but during that period she performed feats unparalleled in the annals of Arctic navigation. No human perseverance, no degree of physical energy, no known mechanical power, save the 'strong arm of steam,' could have enabled us to regain our position."-London Paper. tained, are naught but bitterness. Walled Lake, 1852. L. S. For the Miscellany. THE GREAT POLAR OCEAN. However diversified our pursuits, happitress is the aim of all our actions, the focus At the last meeting of the London Geoin which are concentrated all desires. It is graphical Society, Lieut. Osborn, a member the theme of our morning reflections, our of one of the British Arctic expeditions, arnoon-day meditations, and our evening regued, at some length in favor of the supviews. From youth to old age, we pursue port of the existence of a great Polar Ocean. it with untiring zeal and unwearied perse-He said that in Wellington channel, he had verance. Yet, after the most indefatigable observed immense numbers of whales runtoils, we find inscribed on every thing earthing out from under the ice, a proof that ly, disappointment. Do we group ourselves they had been to water and come to water, with the votaries of pleasure, and enter the for every one knew they must have room enchanted circles of amusement? Does to blow. He further said that there were almirth float on every breeze? Still, after we most constant flights of ducks and geese, have pursued happiness in all its apparent from the northward, another proof of water forms, we find at last an ignus-fatuus; bril-in that direction, since these birds found liant, indeed, but deceptive. We are bewil dered by its dazzling brightness, as we follow it through the giddy rounds of folly and fashion, till it lauds us in the sea of satiety, or the gulf of disappointment. their food only in such water. He added that it was his deliberate opinion, from observation made on the spot, that whales passed up Wellington channel into a northern sea. In reference to the abundance of animal life, in the latitude of this supposed Polar Sea, he remarked that while, on the Does wealth-all-alluring wealth, contain the desired object? It may justly be compared to the apples which grow on the bor-southern side of Lancaster Sound, he never THE GREAT AMERICAN DESERT. 257 saw game enough to keep his dog. Melville | though the interior of the great Sahara has Island, one hundred and fifty miles to the not yet been fully explored, enough is northward, abounded in deer, and musk known of it to prove that it contains large oxen. It was thus clear, he continued, that tracts of mountains and hilly country, with animal life did not depend on latitude, but rocks and valleys, lakes, rivers, and springs. increased if any thing, after passing the There are also fertile spots, at wide distances seventieth degree. Moreover, while in from each other, covered with trees and Baffin's Bay the tide made for the south-shrubs, and beautiful vegetation. Some of ward, coming from the Atlantic, in Barrow's these spots are small, while others are of Straits it made for the northward, which could only be explained on the hypothesis of a sea in that direction. All this seems to us proof on proof of a great Polar Ocean. THE GREAT AMERICAN DESERT. THERE is a great Desert in the interior of North America. It is almost as large as the famous Sahara of Africa. It is fifteen hundred miles long, and a thousand wide.Now if it were a regular shape-that is to say, a parallelogram-you could at once compute its area, by multiplying the length upon the breadth; and you would obtain one million and a half for the result-one million and a half of square miles. But its outlines are as yet very imperfectly known; and altho' it is fully fifteen hundred miles long, and in some place a thousand in breadth, its surface extent is probably not over one million of square miles, or twenty-five times as big as all England! Do you not think that it has received a most appropriate name, when it is called the GREAT AMERICAN DE SERT! Now, my friend, what do you understand by a desert? I think I can guess. When you read or hear of a desert, you think of a vast level plain, covered with sand, and without trees, or grass, or any kind of vegetation. You think, also, of this sand being blown about in thick yellow clouds, and no water to be seen in any direction. This is your idea of a desert; is it not? Well, it is not altogether the correct one. It is very tue, that in almost every desert there are these sandy plains, yet are there other parts of its surface of a far different character, equally deserving the name of DESERT. AlVol. 6, No. 6-17. large extent, and inhabited by independent tribes, and even whole kingdoms of people. A fertile tract of this kind is called an oasis; and, by looking at your map, you will perceive that there are many oases in the Sahara of Africa. Of a similar character is the Great American Desert; but its surface is still more varied with what may be termed “geographical features." There are plains-some of them more than a hundred miles widewhere you can see nothing but white sand often drifting about on the wind, and here and there thrown into long ridges such as those made by a snow storm. There are other plains, equally large, where no sand appears, but brown baren earth, utterly destitute of vegetation. There are others, again, on which grows a stunted shrub, with leaves of a pale silvery color. In some places it grows so thickly, interlocking its twisted and knotty branches that a horseman can hardly ride among them. This shrub is the artemisia—a species of wild sage or wormwood-and the plains upon which it grows are called by the hunters who cross met with that present a black aspect to the them the sage prairies. Other plains are traveler. These are covered with lava, that at some distant period of time has been vomited forth from volanic mountains, and now lies frozen up, and broken into small fragments like the stones upon a new-made road. Still other plains present themselves in the American Desert. Some are white, as if snow had fallen fresh upon them; and yet it is not snow, but salt! Yes, pure white salt-covering the ground six inches deep, and for fifty miles, in every direction! Others, again, have a similar appearance ;— but instead of salt you find the substance which covers them to be soda-a beautiful effloresence of soda. There are mountains, too—indeed. onehalf of the desert is very mountainous; freshly painted. These stripes mark the strata of different colored rocks, of which the mountains are composed. And there are still other mountains in the Great Amer their strange appearance. They are those that glitter with mica selenite. These, when seen from a distance flashing under the sun, look as though they were mountains of silver and gold. and the great chain of the Rocky Moun-ican Desert, to startle the traveler with tains-of which you have no doubt heard runs sheer through it from north to south, and divides it into two nearly equal parts But there are other mountains besides these; mountains of every height, and sometimes in their shape and color presenting very striking and singular appearances. Some of them run for miles in horizontal ridges like the roofs of houses, and seeming so narrow at their tops that one might sit astride on them. Others again of a conical form,stand out in the chain apart from the rest, and look like teacups turned upon their mouths in the middle of a table. Then there are sharp peaks that shoot upward like needles, and others shaped like the dome of some great cathedral-like the dome of St. Paul's, These mountains are of many colors. Some are dark, or dark green, or blue when seen from a distance. They are of this color when covered by forests of pine or cedar, both of which trees are found in great plenty among the mountains of the Desert. There are many mountains where no trees are seen, nor any signs of vegetation along their sides. Huge naked rocks of granite appear piled upon each other, or jutting out over dark and frowning chasms. There are The rivers, too; strange rivers are they.Some run over broad shallow beds of bright sand. Large rivers-hundreds of yards in width, with sparkling waters. Follow them down to their course. What do you find?— Instead of growing larger like the rivers of your own land, they become less and less, until at length their waters sink into the sands, and you see nothing but the dry channel for miles upon miles. Go still farther, and the water again appears, and onward increases in volume, until thousands of miles from the sea, large ships can float upon their bosom. Such are the Arkansas and the Platte. 'There are other rivers that run between bleak and rocky banks-banks a thousand feet high, whose bald, naked "bluffs" frovn at each other across the deep chasm, in the bottom of which roars the troubled water. Often these banks extend for hundreds of miles, so steep at all points that one cannot go down to the bed of their stream; and often the traveler has perished with thirst, while the roar of their water was sounding in his ears. Such are the Colorado and the Snake. peaks perfectly white, because they are covered with a thick mantle of snow. These can always be seen from the greatest distance, as the snow lying upon them all the year without melting proves them to be of vast elevation above the level of the sea.- Still, others go sweeping through the There are other peaks almost as white, and broad plains, tearing up the clay with their yet it is not by snow. They are of a milky mighty floods, and year after year changing hue, and stunted cedar trees may be seen their channels, until they are sometimes a elinging in seams and crevices along their hundred miles from their ancient beds.— sides. These are mountains of pure lime Here they are found gurgling for many stone. or the white quartz rock. There is leagues under ground-under vast rafts formmountains again, upon which there are ed by the trees which they have borne downneither tree nor leaf to be seen; but in their ward in their currents. There you find stead, the most vivid colors of red and green, them winding by a thousand loops, like the and yellow and white, running in stripes sinuosities of a great serpent, rolling slugalong their sides, as though they had been gishly along, with waters red and turbid as THE GREAT AMERICAN DESERT. 259. though they were rivers of blood. Such are sands of others of all sizes-from fifty miles the Brazos and the Red. Strange rivers are they that struggle thro' the mountains, and valleys, and plateau lauds of the Great American Desert. in breadth, to the little spot of a few acres, formed by the fertilizing waters of some gurgling springs. Many of these are without inhabitants. In others again, dwell Not less strange are its lakes. Some lie tribes of Indians, some of them numerous in the deep recesses of hills that dip down and powerful, possessing horses and cattle; so steeply that you cannot reach their shores; while others are found in small groups o while the mountains around them are so three or four families each, subsisting miserbleak and naked, that not even a bird ever ably upon 100ts, seeds, grass, reptiles and crosses their silent waters. Other lakes are insects. In addition to the two great settleseen in the broad, barren plains; and yet a ments we have mentioned, and the Indians, few years after, the traveler finds them not there is another class of men scattered over they have dried up or disappeared. Some are this region. These are white men-hunters fresh, with waters like crystal; others brack-and trappers. They subsist by trapping the ish and muddy; while many of them are beaver, and hunting the buffalo and other more salt than the ocean itself. animals. Their life is one continued scene In this Desert there are springs-springs of soda and sulphur, and salt waters; and others so hot that they boil up as in a great caldron, and you cannot dip your finger into them without scalding it. There are vast caves piercing the sides of the mountains, and deep chasms opening into the plains-some of them so deep that you might fancy mountains had been scooped out to form them. They are called "barrancas." There a. e precipices rising straight up from the plains, thousands of feet in height, and steep as a wall; and through the mountains themselves you may see great clefts cut by the rivers, as though they had been tunneled and their tops had fallen in. They are called "canons." All these singular formations mark the wild region of the Great American Desert. It has its denizens. There are oases in it; some of them large, and settled by civilized men. One of these is the country of New Mexico, containing many towns, and 30,000 inhabitants. These are the Spanish and mixed Indian races. Another oasis in this country around the Great Salt and Utah Lakes. Here is also a settlement, established in 1846. Its people are Americans and Englishmen. They are the Mormons; and, though they dwell hundreds of miles from the sea, they will in time become a large and powe ful nation of themselves. of peril, both from the wild beasts which they encounter in their lonely excursions and the hostile Indians with whom they come in contact. These men procure the furs of the beaver, the otter, the muskrat, the marten, the emine, the lynx, the fox, and the skins of many other animals. This is their business, and by this they live.There are forts or trading posts, established by adventurous merchants, at long distances from each other; and at these forts the trappers exchange their furs for the necessary implements of their perilous calling. There is another class of men who trav erse the Great Desert. For many years These caravans travel for hundreds of miles through countries in which there are no inhabitants, except the scattered and rovBesides these great oases, there are thou-ing bands of Indians; and there are many |