1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Andrée, Salomon August

ANDRÉE, SALOMON AUGUST (1854–1897 ?), Swedish engineer, was born at Grenna, on Lake Vetter, on the 18th of October 1854. After education at the Stockholm technical college, he studied aeronautics, and in 1895 elaborated a plan for crossing the north polar region by a balloon which should be in some degree dirigible by sails and trailing ropes. After an abortive effort in 1896, the winds being contrary, he started with two companions from Danes Island, Spitsbergen, on the 11th of July 1897. The party was never seen again, nor is the manner of its fate known. Of several expeditions sent in search of it, the first started in November 1897, on the strength of a report of cries of distress heard by shipwrecked sailors at Spitsbergen; in 1898 and 1899 parties searched the north Asiatic coast and the New Siberia Islands; and in May 1899 Dr Nathorst headed an expedition to eastern Greenland. None was successful, and only scanty information was obtained or inferred from the discovery of a few buoys (on the west of Spitsbergen, northern Norway, Iceland, &c.) which the balloonists had arranged to drop, and a message taken from a carrier pigeon despatched from the balloon two days after its ascent. There were also messages in two of the buoys, but they dated only from the day of the ascent. The others were empty.