The story of Geographical Discovery/chapter 12
CHAPTER XII.
THE POLES—FRANKLIN—ROSS—NORDENSKIOLD — NANSEN—PEARY—AMUNDSEN—SCOTT.
Almost the whole of the explorations which we have hitherto described or referred to had for their motive some practical purpose, whether to reach the Spice Islands or to hunt big game. Even the excursions of Davis, Frobisher, Hudson, and Baffin in pursuit of the north-west passage, and of Barentz and Chancellor in search of the north-east passage, were really in pursuit of mercantile ends. It is only with James Cook that the era of purely scientific exploration begins, though it is fair to qualify this statement by observing that the Russian expedition under Bering, already referred to, was ordered by Peter the Great to determine a strictly geographical problem, though doubtless it had its bearings on Russian ambitions. Bering and Cook between them, as we have seen, settled the problem of the relations existing between the ends of the two continents, Asia and America, but what remained still to the north of terra firma within the Arctic Circle? That was the problem which the nineteenth century set itself to solve, and very nearly succeeded in the solution. For the Arctic Circle we now possess maps that only show blanks over a few thousand square miles.
This knowledge has been gained by slow degrees, and by the exercise of the most heroic courage and endurance. It is a heroic tale, in which love of adventure and zeal for science have combated with and conquered the horrors of an Arctic winter, the six months' darkness in silence and desolation, the excessive cold, and the dangers of starvation. It is impossible here to go into any of the details which rendered the tale of Arctic voyages one of the most stirring in human history. All we are concerned with here is the amount of new knowledge brought back by successive expeditions within the Arctic Circle.
This region of the earth's surface is distinguished by a number of large islands in the eastern hemisphere, most of which were discovered at an early date. We have seen how the Norsemen landed and settled upon Greenland as early as the tenth century. Burrough sighted Nova Zembla in 1556, in one of the voyages in search of the north-east passage, though the very name (Russian for Newfoundland) implies that it had previously been sighted and named by Russian seamen. Barentz is credited with having sighted Spitzbergen. The numerous islands to the north of Siberia became known through the Russian investigations. of Discheneff, Bering, and their followers; while the intricate network of islands to the north of the continent of North America had been slowly worked out during the search for the north-west passage. It was indeed in pursuit of this will-of-the-wisp that most of the discoveries in the Arctic Circle were made, and a general impetus given to Arctic exploration.
It is with a renewed attempt after this search that the modern history of Arctic exploration begins. In 1818 two expeditions were sent under the influence of Sir Joseph Banks to search the north-west passage, and to attempt to reach the Pole. The former was the objective of John Ross in the Isabella and W. E. Perry in the Alexander while in the Polar exploration John Franklin sailed in the Trent. Both expeditions were unsuccessful, though Ross and Parry confirmed Baffin's discoveries. Notwithstanding this, two expeditions were sent two years later to attempt the north-west passage, one by land under Franklin, and the other by sea under Parry. Parry managed to get half-way across the top of North America, discovered the archipelago named after him, and reached 114° west longitude, thereby gaining the prize of £5000 given by the British Parliament for the first seaman that sailed west of the 110th meridian. He was brought up, however, by Banks Land, while the strait which, if he had known it, would have enabled him to complete the north-west passage, was at that time closed by ice. In two successive voyages, in 1822 and 1824, Parry increased the detailed knowledge of the coasts he had already discovered, but failed to reach even as far westward as he had done on his first voyage. This somewhat discouraged government attempts at exploration, and the next expedition, in 1829, was fitted out by Mr. Felix Booth, sheriff of London, who despatched the paddle steamer Victory, commanded by John Ross. He discovered the land known as Boothia Felix, and his nephew, James C. Ross, proved that it belonged to the mainland of America, which he coasted along by land to Cape Franklin, besides determining the exact position of the North Magnetic Pole at Cape Adelaide, on Boothia Felix. After passing five years within the Arctic Circle, Ross and his companions, who had been compelled to abandon the Victory, fell in with a whaler, which brought them home.
We must now revert to Franklin, who, as we have seen, had been despatched by the Admiralty to outline the north coast of America, only two points of which had been determined, the embouchures of the Coppermine and the Mackenzie, discovered respectively by Hearne and Mackenzie. It was not till 1821 that Franklin was able to start out from the mouth of. the Coppermine eastward in two canoes, by which he coasted along till he came to the point named by him Point Turn-again. By that time only three days' stores of pemmican remained, and it was only with the greatest difficulty, and by subsisting on lichens and scraps of roasted leather, that they managed to return to their base of operations at Fort Enterprise. Four years later, in 1825, Franklin set out on another exploring expedition with the same object, starting this time from the mouth of the Mackenzie river, and despatching one of his companions, Richardson, to connect the coast between the Mackenzie and the Coppermine; while he himself proceeded westward to meet the Blossom, which, under Captain Beechey, had been despatched to Behring Strait to bring his party back. Richardson was entirely successful in examining the coast-line between the Mackenzie and the Coppermine; but Beechey, though he succeeded in rounding Icy Cape and tracing the coast as far as Point Barrow, did not come up to Franklin, who had only got within 160 miles at Return Reef. These 160 miles, as well as the 222 miles intervening between Cape Turn-again, Franklin's easternmost point by land, and Cape Franklin, J. C. Ross's most westerly point, were afterwards filled in by T. Simpson in 1837, after a coasting voyage in boats of 1408 miles, which Stands as a record even to this day. Meanwhile the Great Fish River had been discovered and followed to its mouth by C. J. Back in 1833. During the voyage down the river, an oar broke while the boat was shooting a rapid, and one of the party commenced praying in a loud voice; whereupon the leader called out: "Is this a time for praying? Pull your starboard oar!"
Meanwhile, interest had been excited rather more towards the South Pole, and the land of which Cook had found traces in his search for the fabled Australian continent surrounding it. He had reached as far south as 71.10°, when he was brought up by the great ice barrier. In 1820-23 Weddell visited the South Shetlands, south of Cape Horn, and found an active volcano, even amidst the extreme cold of that district. He reached as far south as 74°, but failed to come across land in that district. In 1839 Bellany discovered the islands named after him, with a volcano twelve thousand feet high, and another still active on Buckle Island. In 1839 a French expedition under Dumont d'Urville again visited and explored the South Shetlands; while in the following year, Captain Wilkes, of the United States navy, discovered the land named after him. But the most remarkable discovery made in Antarctica was that of Sir J. C. Ross, who had been sent by the Admiralty in 1840 to identify the South Magnetic Pole, as we have seen he had discovered that of the north. With the two ships Erebus and Terror he discovered Victoria Land and the two active volcanoes named after his ships, which he found pouring forth flaming lava amidst the snow. In January, 1842, he reached farthest south, 78°. After the return of the Ross expedition little was attempted toward the exploration of the Antarctic regions for more than half a century.
On the return of the Erebus and Terror from the South Seas the government placed these two vessels at the disposal of Franklin (who had been knighted for his previous discoveries), and on the 26th of May, 1845, he started with one hundred and twenty-nine souls on board the two vessels, which were provisioned up to July, 1848. They were last seen by a whaler on the 26th July, of the former year waiting to pass into Lancaster Sound. After penetrating as far north as 77°, through Wellington Channel, Franklin was obliged to winter upon Beechey Island, and in the following year (September, 1846) his two ships were beset in Victoria Strait, about twelve miles from King William Land. Curiously enough, in the following year (1847) J. Rae had been despatched by land from Cape Repulse in Hudson's Bay, and had coasted along the east coast of Boothia, thus connecting Ross's and Franklin's coast journeys with Hudson's Bay. On 18th April, 1847, Rae had reached a point on Boothia less than 150 miles from Franklin on the other side of it. Less than two months later, on the 11th June, Franklin died on the Erebus. His ships were only provisioned to July, 1848, and remained still beset throughout the whole of 1847. Crozier, upon whom the command devolved, left the ship with one hundred and five survivors to try and reach Back's Fish River. They struggled along the west coast of King William Land, but failed to reach their destination; disease, and even starvation, gradually lessened their numbers. An old Eskimo woman, who had watched the .png)
North polar region—western half.
By this time considerable anxiety had been roused by the absence of any news from Franklin's party. Richardson and Rae were despatched by land in 1848, while two ships were sent on the attempt to reach Franklin through Bering Strait, and two others, the Investigator and the Enterprise, under J. C. Ross, through Baffin Bay. Rae reached the east coast of Victoria Land, and arrived within fifty miles of the spot where Franklin's two ships had been abandoned; but it was not till his second expedition by land, which started in 1853, that he obtained any news. After wintering at Lady Pelly Bay, on the 20th April, 1854, Rae met a young Eskimo, who told him that four years previously forty white men had been seen dragging a boat to the south on the west shore of King William Land, and a few months later the bodies of thirty of these men had been found by the Eskimo, who produced silver with the Franklin crest to confirm the truth of their statement. Further searches by land were continued up to as late as 1879, when Lieutenant F. Schwatka, of the United States army, discovered several of the graves and skeletons of the Franklin expedition.
Neither of the two attempts by sea from the Atlantic or from the Pacific base, in 1848, having succeeded in gaining any news, the Enterprise and the Investigator, which had previously attempted to reach Franklin from the east, were despatched in 1850, under Captain R. Collinson and Captain M'Clure, to attempt the search from the west through Bering Strait. M'Clure in the Investigator, did not wait for Collinson, as he had been directed, but pushed on and discovered Banks Land, and became beset in the ice in Prince of Wales Strait. In the winter of 1850-51 he endeavoured unsuccessfully to work his way from this strait into Parry Sound, but in August and September, 1851, managed to coast round Banks Land to its most north-westerly point, and then succeeded in passing through the strait named after M'Clure, and reached Barrow Strait, thus performing for the first time the north-west passage, though it was not till 1853 that the Investigator was abandoned. Collinson, in the Enterprise, followed M'Clure closely, though never reaching him, and attempting to round Prince Albert Land by the south through Dolphin Strait, reached Cambridge Bay at the nearest point by ship of all the Franklin expeditions. He had to return westward, and only reached England in 1855, after an absence of five years and four months.
From the east no less than ten vessels had attempted the Franklin sea search in 1851, comprising two Admiralty expeditions, one private English one, an American combined government and private party, together with a ship put in commission by the wifely devotion of Lady Franklin. These all attempted the search of Lancaster Sound, where Franklin had last been seen, and they only succeeded in finding three graves of men who had died at an early stage, and had been buried on Beechey Island. Another set of four vessels were despatched under Sir Edward Belcher in 1852, who were fortunate enough to reach M'Clure in the Investigator in the following year, and enable him to complete the north-west passage, for which he gained the reward of £10,000 offered by Parliament in 1763. But Belcher was obliged to abandon most of his vessels, one of which the Resolute, drifted over a thousand miles, and having been recovered by an American whaler, was refitted by the United States and presented to the Queen and people of Great Britain.
Notwithstanding all these efforts, the Franklin remains have not yet been discovered, though Dr. Rae, as we have seen, had practically ascertained their terrible fate. Lady Franklin, however, was not satisfied with this vague information. She was determined to fit out still another expedition, though already over £35,000 had been spent by private means, mostly from her own personal fortune; and in 1857 the steam yacht Fox was despatched under M'Clintock, who had already shown himself the most capable master of sledge work. He erected a monument to the Franklin expedition on Beechey Island in 1858, and then following Peel Sound, he made inquiries of the natives throughout the winter of 1858-59. This led him to search King William Land, where, on the 25th May, he came across a bleached human skeleton lying on its face, showing that the man had died as he walked. Meanwhile, Hobson, one of his companions, discovered a record of the Franklin expedition, stating briefly its history between 1845 and 1848; and with this definite information of the fate of the Franklin expedition M'Clintock returned to England in 1859, having succeeded in solving the problem of Franklin's fate, while exploring over 800 miles of coast-line in the neighbourhood of King William Land.
The result of the various Franklin expeditions had thus been to map out the intricate network of islands dotted over the north of North America. .png)
North polar region—eastern half.
Only Smith Sound promised to lead north of the 80th parallel. This had been discovered as early as 1616 by Baffin, whose farthest north was only exceeded by forty miles, in 1852, by Inglefield in the Isabel, one of the ships despatched in search of Franklin. He was followed up by Kane in the Advance, fitted out in 1853 by the munificence of two American citizens, Grinnell and Peabody. Kane worked his way right through Smith Sound and Robeson Channel into the sea named after him. For two years he continued investigating Grinnell Land and the adjacent shores of Greenland. Subsequent investigations by Hayes in 1860, and Hall ten years later, kept alive the interest in Smith Sound and its neighbourhood; and in 1873 three ships were despatched under Captain (afterwards Sir George) Nares, who nearly completed the survey of Grinnell Land, and one of his lieutenants, Pelham Aldrich, succeeded in reaching 82.48° N, About the same time, an Austrian expedition under Payer and Weyprecht explored the highest known land, much to the east, named by them Franz Josef Land, after the Austrian Emperor.
Simultaneously interest in the northern regions was aroused by the successful exploit of the northeast passage by Professor (afterwards Baron) Nordenskiold, who had made seven or eight voyages in Arctic regions between 1858 and 1870. He first established the possibility of passing from Norway to the mouth of the Yenesei in the summer, making two journeys in 1875-76. These have since been followed up for commercial purposes by Captain Wiggins, who has frequently passed from land to the mouth of the Yenesei in a merchant vessel. As Siberia develops there can be little doubt that this route will become of increasing commercial importance. Professor Nordenskiold, however, encouraged by his easy passage to the Yenesei, determined to try to get round into Bering Strait from that point, and in 1878 he started in the Vega, accompanied by the Lena, and a collier to supply them with coai. On the 19th August they passed Cape Chelyuskin, the most northerly point of the Old World. From here the Lena appropriately turned its course to the mouth of its namesake, while the Vega proceeded on her course, reaching on the 11th September Cape North, within 120 miles of Bering Strait; this cape Cook had reached from the east in 1778. Unfortunately the ice became packed so closely that they could not proceed farther, and they had to remain in this tantalising condition for no less than ten months. On the 18th July, 1879, the ice broke up, and two days later the Vega rounded East Cape with flying colours, saluting the easternmost coast of Asia in honour of the completion of the north-east passage. Baron Nordenskiold has since enjoyed a well-earned leisure from his arduous labours in the north by studying and publishing the history of early cartography, on which he has issued two valuable atlases, containing fac-similes of the maps and charts of the Middle Ages.
General interest thus re-aroused in Arctic exploration brought about a united effort of all the civilised nations to investigate the conditions of the Polar regions. An international Polar Conference was held at Hamburg in 1879, at which it was determined to surround the North Pole for the years 1882-83 by stations of scientific observation, intended to study the conditions of the Polar Ocean. No less than fifteen expeditions were sent forth, some to the Antarctic regions, but most of them round the North Pole. Their object was more to subserve the interest of physical geography than to promote the interest of geographical discovery; but one of the expeditions, that of the United States under Lieutenant A. W. Greely, again took up the study of Smith Sound and its outlets, and one of his men, Lieutenant Lockwood, succeeded in reaching 83.24° N., within 450 miles of the Pole, and up to that time the farthest north reached by any human being. The Greely expedition also succeeded in showing that Greenland was not so much ice-capped as ice-surrounded.
Hitherto the universal method by which discoveries had been made in the Polar regions was to establish a base at which sufficient food was cached, then to push in any required direction as far as possible, leaving successive caches to be returned to when provisions fell short on the forward journey. But in 1888, Dr. Fridjof Nansen determined on a bolder method of investigating the interior of Greenland. He was deposited upon the east coast, where there were no inhabitants, and started to cross Greenland, his life depending upon the success of his journey, since he left no reserves in the rear and it would be useless to return. He succeeded brilliantly in his attempt, and his exploit was followed up by two successive attempts of Lieut. Peary in 1892-95, who succeeded in crossing Greenland at much higher latitude even than Nansen.
The success of his bold plan encouraged Dr. Nansen to attempt an even bolder one. He had become convinced, from the investigations con.png)
Climbing the North Pole.
In July, 1908, Peary left New York in the Roosevelt on his eighth Arctic expedition. After wintering near Cape Sheridan, a party of seven, accompanied by 59 Eskimos, left the Roosevelt in sledges in February, 1909. From 84° most of the Eskimos were sent back, and 16 men, with 12 sledges and 100 dogs, started on the final dash which was to result in the discovery of the Pole. Peary reached the Pole on April 6, 1909. He found surrounding it, as had been surmised for many years, a continuous ice field, and soundings of 9,000 feet failed to reach the sea bottom. The return journey was made without mishap.
Meanwhile interest in Antarctic exploration had been revived. C. E. Borchgrevink, of Norway, explored Victoria Land in 1894-95, and in 1897 made an unsuccessful attempt to reach the Pole, reaching 78.5°. Dr. Otto Nordenskiold, of Sweden, headed an expedition in 1901-4 which reached Cape Seymour, and during the same period a British expedition under Capt. R. F. Scott explored the inland ice of Victoria Land and reached latitude 82° 17'. A British national expedition in 1903-5 explored the region southeast of Cape Horn and drifting along the ice barrier discovered King Edward VII Land.
The quest of the South Pole began in earnest with the sending out of the British national expedition under Lieut. Ernest Shackleton in 1907. In January, 1909, a few days before one of his parties reached the South magnetic pole, Shackleton gained a point within 111 miles of the South Pole and was able to report that the Pole was situated on a high plateau about 10,000 feet above sea level. Capt. Scott left New Zealand on his second expedition in November, 1910, with the intention of taking up the exploration of the Antarctic continent at the point where his former expedition and that of Shackleton had left off. Scott reached the Pole on January 18, 1912, only to find that he had been anticipated by Capt. Roald Amundsen. Amundsen, who was the first to accomplish, in 1903, the complete traverse of the Northwest Passage, had left Norway early in 1911 for an expedition to the Arctic. Suddenly changing his plans to attempt the South Pole, he spent the winter of 1909 on the ice barrier at Bay of Whales, Ross Sea. Leaving his camp on October 20, 1911, he reached the Pole on December 14, by a route about 750 miles in length. Amundsen returned in safety, the whole expedition having been favored by good weather conditions. But Capt. Scott, who had been opposed by storms on his final dash to the Pole, was overtaken by a blizzard on his return journey and perished with cold and hunger with four companions, on March 29, 1912. Thus to the end polar discovery claimed its toll of human lives.