Genre:

Introduction, Drollery; Ballad, Drollery

Relevant illustrations:

wdct.

Illustrators:

T Hood

Subjects:

Exploration, Biblical Authority, Navigation, Anthropocentrism, Magnetism, Menageries, Physiology, Climatology

People mentioned:

William E Parry , John Ross , George Back

    In the introduction the narrator describes encountering in Deptford 'an old, whimsical, frost-bitten Tar', a 'North-Poler' called Drury, with whom he has 'a slight Somerset House acquaintance' (135). They discuss the 'late Arctic Expedition', recently returned. The sailor believes that it and all such expeditions have been 'trying to find what's not to be found'; his opinion is based on 'scripture larnings, which is worth all other larning ten times over, not excepting navigation'. (136) He considers that 'Natur would never act so agin nature, as stick a sea where there was no early use for it', and argues that 'there never was no sea at all in them high latitudes, afore the Great Flood' (137). He claims that the Arctic Sea 'was named arter the Ark, by Noah, when he diskivered it in his first voyage. That's Philosophy!' (137–38). The 'Scholards' are convinced there is a pole, and Drury has 'even heard say, there be Scholards as look for a wooden needle there, acccordin' to magnetism', but he believes that 'if ever there was sich a pole, there, or thereabouts, why then—old Admiral Noah carried it away with him for a pole to stir up "his wild beasts!" (138–39). The illustration captioned 'You're Quite Safe—He Can't Wag His Tail!' (facing 139) depicts a man firmly holding a lion's tail through the bars of a cage; he has not seen, however, that his colleague, who has entered the cage, has his head in the lion's mouth. Drury nevertheless has a high opinion of the conduct of the latest expedition. He sings 'The Old Poler's Warning' (142–46), which cautions sailors about the change in a person's sense of temperature that results from spending time in the Arctic, such that temperate climes thereafter feel tropical.