When I say useless, referíame the proposed object, that is, create a route, however comercial. pursuing this crazy idea have discovered many things quite sane, useful for science, geography, meteorology and the study of magnetism terrestrial.

What was intended from the beginning? Opening a short way to the country of gold, to the East Indies. England and other states, jealous of Spain and Portugal, thought to surprise them in this way in the very heart of his distant empire, at the shrine of wealth. Having under Elizabeth, believed or found some gold prospectors find a few particles of this metal in Greenland, exploited the ancient legend of the North, the treasure hidden under the pole, large quantities of gold stacked and guarded by the gnomes, etc., and exalted the imagination. Encouraged by such flattering hope, made himself set sail for regions a fleet of sixteen ships high board as volunteers leading the children of the noblest families of England. All are vying for that privilege from Eldorado polar expedition and found only death, hunger, walls of ice.

But no one discouraged such a disaster. For more than three centuries with surprising perseverance, explorers did not give up. The list of martyrs of greed is great. The first, Cabot, owed its salvation to having been rebellious crew, prevented from moving forward; Brentz die of cold, and Willoughby, of hunger. Cortereal perished with everything he had. Hudson’s companions leave him in the sea in a little boat without food or sails, and no one knows what became of him. Behring, discovering the strait that separates Asia from America, dies of exhaustion, cold, misery, on a deserted island. Today the intrepid Franklin is lost in the middle of the ice, the meeting of his body we found that reduced to extremes, he and his men had to appeal to the most atrocious of resources: to eat one to others!