Livingstone, Stanley, Peary, Nansen and Other Great
Discoverers and Explorers.
[=Ignorance of the Earth's Surface at the Beginning of the
Century=]
At the beginning of the nineteenth century, long as man had previously
existed upon the earth, much more than half its surface was unknown
to the most civilized nations. Of the extensive continent of Africa,
for instance, only the coast regions had been explored, while the vast
interior could fairly be described as the "Great Unknown." The immense
continent of Asia was known only in outline. With its main features
men had some acquaintance, but its details were as little known as the
mountains of the moon. With America men were little better acquainted
than with Africa. The United States itself had been explored only
as far west as the Mississippi, and that but imperfectly. The vast
space between that great stream and the Pacific almost wholly awaited
discovery. The remainder of the continent was divided into national
domains, which were thinly inhabited and very imperfectly known. Of
the continental island of Australia only a few spots on the border had
been visited, and still less was known of the broad region of the North
Polar zone.
[=Great Activity of Explorers in the Nineteenth Century=]
At the end of the century a very different tale could be told.
The hundred years had been marked by an extraordinary activity in
travel, adventure, and discovery; daring men had penetrated the
most obscure recesses of continents and islands, climbed the most
difficult mountains, ventured among the most savage tribes, studied the
geographical features and natural productions of a thousand regions
before unknown, and learned more about the conditions of the earth
than had been learned in a thousand years before. The work of the
century has no parallel in history except the fifteenth and sixteenth
centuries, when America was discovered and the East Indies were
explored, and the horizon of human knowledge was immensely extended.
The great achievements of the century with which we have to deal were
performed by a large number of adventurous men, far too numerous even
to be named in this review.
[=The Notable Fields of Nineteenth Century Travel=]
In fact it would need a volume, and one of considerable extent, to
tell, even in epitome, the story of travel and exploration within
the nineteenth century. Such a story, given in any fulness, would
far transcend our purpose, which is confined to the description of
the great events of the century, those of epoch-making significance,
and which played leading parts in the progress of the period with
which we are concerned. In this review, therefore, we may fairly
confine ourselves to records of travel in two regions of the earth,
the continent of Africa and the Arctic Zone, of both of which little
was known at the opening of the century, while the story of their
exploration has been of startling interest and importance. The interior
of Asia and America, while presenting problems to be solved, were not
unknown in the sense in which we speak of Africa, over which rested
a pall of darkness as black as the complexion of its inhabitants.
Australia alone was unknown in a similar sense. But the interior
of that great island is practically a desert, and its exploration
possesses nothing of the interest which attaches to that of Africa,
a land which for many centuries has attracted the active attention
and aroused the vivid curiosity of mankind, while a satisfactory
acquaintance with it has been left for the latter half of the
nineteenth century.
Of the great travelers to whom we are indebted for our present
knowledge of this continent two stand pre-eminent, David Livingstone
and Henry M. Stanley, and we may deal with their careers as the pivots
around which the whole story of African exploration revolves.
[=Famous African Travelers=]
The first of modern travelers to penetrate the interior of western
Africa to any considerable depth was the justly celebrated Mungo Park,
whose first journey to the Niger was made in 1795-96, and the second in
1805. He traced that important stream through a large part of its upper
course--finally losing his life as a result of his intrepid daring. On
the east coast, at a somewhat earlier date (1768-73) the equally famous
James Bruce penetrated Abyssinia to the head-waters of the Blue Nile,
which he looked upon as the source of the great river of Egypt. About
the same time the French traveler Vaillant entered the continent at
Cape Town and journeyed north for more than three hundred miles, into
the country of the Bushmen.
Such was the state of African exploration at the beginning of the
century under consideration. The travelers named, and others of minor
importance, had not penetrated far from the coast, and the vast
interior of the continent remained almost utterly unknown. In fact
the century was half gone before anything further of consequence was
discovered, the first journey of Dr. Livingstone being made in 1849.
[=Dr. Livingstone's Missionary Labors=]
David Livingstone, an enterprising man, of Scotch birth, left England
in 1840 to devote his life to missionary work in Africa. He had studied
medicine and theology, and was well equipped in every way for the
arduous and difficult work he had undertaken. Landing at Port Natal,
he became associated with the Rev. Robert Moffat, a noted African
missionary, whose daughter he afterwards married, and for years he
labored perseveringly as an agent of the London Missionary Society.
He studied the languages, habits, and religious beliefs of a number
of tribes, and became one of the most earnest and successful of
missionaries, his subsequent journeys being undertaken largely for the
advance of his religious labors.
His experience in missionary work convinced him that success in this
field of duty was not to be measured by the tale of conversions--of
doubtful character--which could be sent home every year, but that
the proper work for the enterprising white man was that of pioneer
research. He could best employ himself in opening up and exploring new
fields of labor, and might safely leave to native agents the duty of
working these out in detail.
[=Discovery of Lake Ngami=]
This theory he first put into effect in 1849, in which year he set
out on a journey into the unknown land to the north, the goal of his
enterprise being Lake Ngami, on which no white man's eyes had ever
fallen. In company with two English sportsmen, Mr. Oswell and Mr.
Murray, he traversed the great and bleak Kalahari Desert,--which he
was the first to describe in detail,--and on the 1st of August the
travelers were gladdened by the sight of the previously unknown liquid
plain, the most southerly of the great African lakes.
Two hundred miles beyond this body of water lived a noted chief named
Sebituane, the chief of the Makololo tribe, whose residence Livingstone
sought to reach the following year, bringing with him on this journey
his wife and children. But fever seized the children and he was obliged
to stop at the shores of the lake. Nothing daunted by this failure, he
set out again in 1851, once more accompanied by his family, and with
his former companion, Mr. Oswell, his purpose being to settle among the
Makololos and seek to convert to Christianity their great chief. He
succeeded in reaching the tribe, but the death of Sebituane, shortly
after his arrival, disarranged his plans, and he was obliged to return.
But before doing so he and Mr. Oswell made an exploration of several
hundred miles to the northeast, their journey ending at the Zambesi,
the great river of South Africa, which he here found flowing in a broad
and noble current through the centre of the continent.
[=Livingstone's Journey from the Zambesi to the West
Coast=]
The subsequent travels of Livingstone were performed more for purposes
of exploration than for religious labors, though to the end he
considered himself a missionary pioneer. Sending his family to England,
he left Capetown in June, 1852, and reached Linyanti, the capital of
the Makololo, in May, 1853, being received in royal style by the chief
and his people, by whom he was greatly esteemed. He next ascended the
Zambesi, in search of some healthy high land for a missionary station.
But everywhere he found the tsetse fly, an insect deadly to animals,
and, annoyed by the ravages of this insect among his cattle, he
determined to leave that locality and enter upon the greatest journey
ever yet undertaken in Africa, one through the unknown interior to the
west coast.
The start was made from Linyanti on November 11, 1853, the party
ascending the Leeba to Lake Dilolo, which was reached in February,
1854. Finally, on the 31st of May, they came to the coast town
of St. Paul de Loanda, in Portuguese West Africa. Their long and
dangerous journey had been attended by numberless hardships, and
Livingstone reached the coast nearly worn out by fever, dysentery and
semi-starvation. But nothing could deter the indefatigable traveler. He
set out again after a few months, reached Lake Dilolo on June 13, 1855,
and Linyanti in September. After a brief interval of rest he left this
place with a determination to follow the broad-flowing Zambesi to its
mouth in the eastern sea.
[=The Discovery of the Great Victoria Falls=]
A fortnight after his start he made the most notable of his
discoveries, the one with which his name is most intimately associated
in popular estimation, that of the great Victoria Falls of the Zambesi,
a cataract which has no rival upon the earth except the still mightier
one of the Niagara. Here an immense cleft or fissure in the earth cuts
directly across the channel of the river, which pours in an enormous
flood down into the cavernous abyss, whence "the smoke of its torrent
ascendeth forever." The country surrounding seems to be a great
basin-shaped plateau, surrounded by a ring of mountains, the depression
having probably at one time been filled with an immense lake whose
waters were drained off when the earth split asunder across its bed.
[=The First Crossing of the Continent=]
On went the untiring traveler, and on May 20, 1856, he reached the
east coast at the Portuguese town of Quillimane, at the mouth of the
Zambesi, in a frightfully emaciated condition. He had, in two and a
half years of travel, performed one of the most remarkable journeys
ever made up to that time. First proceeding north from the Cape to
Loanda, through twenty-five degrees of latitude, he had for the first
time in history, crossed the continent of Africa from ocean to ocean,
through as many degrees of longitude, while his discoveries in the
geography and natural history of the region traversed had been immense.
Livingstone returned to England in the latter part of the year and
was received with the highest enthusiasm, being welcomed as the first
to break through that pall of darkness which had so long enveloped
the interior of Africa. The Royal Geographical Society had already
conferred upon him its highest token of honor, its gold medal, and now
honors and compliments were showered upon him until the modest traveler
was overwhelmed with the warmth of his reception.
[=Livingstone Discovers Lake Nyassa=]
The desire to complete his work was strong upon him, and after
publishing an account of his travels, in a work of modest simplicity,
he returned to Africa, reaching the mouth of the Zambesi in May, 1858.
In 1859 his new career of discovery began in an exploration of the
Shire, a northern affluent of the Zambesi, up which he journeyed to
the great Lake Nyassa, another capital discovery. For several years
he was engaged in exploring the surrounding region and in furthering
the interests of missionary enterprise among the natives. In one of
his journeys his wife, who was his companion during this period of
his travels, died, and in 1864 he returned home, worn out with his
extraordinary labors in new lands and desiring to spend the remainder
of his days in quiet and repose.
But at the suggestion of Murchison, the famous geologist and his
staunch friend, he was induced to return to Africa, one of his main
purposes being to take steps looking to the suppression of the Arab
slave trade, whose horrors had long excited his deepest sympathies.
Landing at the mouth of the Rovuma River--a stream he had previously
explored--on March 22, 1866, he started for the interior, rounded Lake
Nyassa on the south, and set off to the northeast for the great Lake
Tanganyika--which had meanwhile been discovered by Barton and Speke, in
1857.
[=Stanley in Search of Livingstone=]
[=The Death of the Great Explorer=]
After his departure Livingstone vanished from sight and knowledge, and
for five years was utterly lost in the deep interior of the continent.
From time to time vague intimations of his movements reached the world
of civilization, but the question of his fate became so exciting a one
that in 1871 Henry M. Stanley was dispatched, at the expense of the
proprietor of the _New York Herald_, to penetrate the continent and
seek to discover the long-lost traveler. Stanley found him at Ujiji,
on the northeast shore of Tanganyika, on October 18, 1871, the great
explorer being then, in his words, "a ruckle of bones." Far and wide
he had traveled through Central Africa, discovering a host of lakes
and streams, and finding many new tribes with strange habits. Among
his notable discoveries was that of the Lualaba River--The Upper
Congo--which he believed to be the head-waters of the Nile. His work
had been enormous, and the "Dark Continent" had yielded to him a host
of its long hidden mysteries. Not willing yet to give up his work,
he waited at Ujiji for men and supplies sent him by Stanley from the
coast, and then started south for Lake Bangweolo, one of his former
discoveries. But attacked again by his old enemy, dysentery, the iron
frame of the great traveller at length yielded, and he was found, on
May 1, 1873, by his men, dead in his tent, kneeling by the side of his
bed. Thus perished in prayer the greatest traveler in modern times.
For more than thirty years Livingstone had dwelt in Africa, most of
that time engaged in exploring new regions and visiting new peoples.
His travels had covered a third of the continent, extending from the
Cape to near the equator, and from the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean,
his work being all done leisurely and carefully, so that its results
were of the utmost value to geographical science. He had also aroused a
sentiment against the Arab slave-trade which was to give that frightful
system its death-blow.
The work of Livingstone stirred up an enthusiasm for African travel,
and many adventurous explorers set out for that continent during
his career. After the discovery of Lake Tanganyika by Burton and
Speke, in 1857, the latter started to the northeast, and reached the
head-waters of the great Victoria Nyanza, the largest body of water on
the continent. Subsequently this traveler, accompanied by Mr. Grant,
journeyed to the White Nile, north of this lake, while Samuel Baker,
another adventurous traveler, accompanied by his heroic wife, reached
in 1864 a great lake west of the Victoria, which he named the Albert
Nyanza.
[=Other African Travelers=]
Further north Dr. Barth, as early as 1850, set out on a journey across
the Sahara to the Soudan, and at a later date various travelers
explored this northern section of the continent, while in 1874-75
Lieutenant Cameron repeated Livingstone's feat of crossing the
continent from sea to sea. But the greatest of African travelers after
Livingstone was Henry M. Stanley, with whose work we are next concerned.
While a reporter in the _New York Herald_, this enterprising man had
been sent to Crete to report upon the revolution in that island,
to Abyssinia during the British invasion, and to Spain during the
revolution in that country. While in Spain, in 1869, James Gordon
Bennett sent him the brief order to "find Livingstone." This was
enough for Stanley, who proceeded at once to Zanzibar, organized an
expedition, and did "find Livingstone," as above stated.
[=Stanley's Journey to the Victoria Nyanza=]
[=The Descent of the Great Congo River=]
Next, filled with the spirit of travel, Stanley set out to "find
Africa," now as joint agent for the _Herald_ and the London _Daily
Telegraph_. Setting out from Zanzibar in November, 1874, he
proceeded, with a large expedition, to the Victoria Nyanza, which he
circumnavigated; and then journeyed to Tanganyika, whose shape and
dimension he similarly ascertained. From these he proceeded westward to
the Lualaba, the stream which Livingstone had supposed to be the Nile.
How Stanley made his way down this great stream, overcoming enormous
difficulties and fighting his way through hostile tribes, is too long a
story to be told here. It must suffice to say that he soon found that
he was not upon the Nile, but upon a westward flowing stream, which he
eventually identified as the Congo--a great river whose lower course
only had been previously known. For ten months the daring traveler
pursued his journey down this stream, assailed by treachery and
hostility, and finally reached the ocean, having traversed the heart of
that vast "unexplored territory" which long occupied so wide a space on
all maps of Africa. He had learned that the interior of the continent
is a mighty plateau, watered by the Congo and its many large affluents
and traversed in all directions by navigable waters. Politically this
remarkable journey led to the founding of the Congo Free State, which
embraces the central region of tropical Africa, and which Stanley was
sent to establish in 1879.
In 1887 he set out on another great journey. The conquest of the
Egyptian Soudan by the Mahdi, described in a preceding chapter, had not
only greatly diminished the territory of Egypt, but had cut off Emin
Pasha (Dr. Edward Schnitzler), governor of the Equatorial Province of
Egypt, leaving him stranded on the Upper Nile, near the Albert Nyanza.
Here Emin maintained himself for years, holding his own against his
foes, and actively engaging in natural history study. But, cut off as
he was from civilization, threatened by the Mahdi, and his fate unknown
in Europe, a growing anxiety concerning him prevailed, and Stanley was
sent to find him, as he had before found Livingstone.
[=Stanley Goes to the Rescue of Emin Pasha=]
Organizing a strong expedition at Zanzibar, the traveler sailed with
his officers, soldiers and negro porters for the mouth of the Congo,
which river he proposed to make the channel of his exploration. Setting
out from this point on March 18, 1887, by June 15th the expedition had
reached the village of Yambuya, 1,300 miles up the stream. Thus far he
had traversed waters well known to him. From this point he proposed to
plunge into the unknown, following the course of the Aruwimi, a large
affluent of the Congo which flowed from the direction of the great
Nyanza lake-basins.
It was a terrible journey which the expedition now made. Before it
spread a forest of seemingly interminable extent, peopled mainly by
the curious dwarfs who form the forest-folk of Central Africa. The
difficulties before the traveler were enormous, but no hardship or
danger could daunt his indomitable courage, and he kept resolutely on
until he met the lost Emin on the shores of Albert Nyanza, as he had
formerly met Livingstone on those of Lake Tanganyika.
[=A Terrible Forest Journey=]
Three times in effect Stanley crossed that terrible forest, since
he returned to Yambuya for the men and supplies he had left there
and journeyed back again. Finally he made an overland journey to
Zanzibar, on the east coast, with Emin and his followers, who had been
rescued just in time to save them from imminent peril of overthrow and
slaughter by the fanatical hordes of the Mahdi. This second crossing
of the continent by Stanley ended December 4, 1889, having continued
little short of three years. The discoveries made were great and
valuable, and on his return to Europe the explorer met with a reception
almost royal in its splendor. Among the large number of travelers who
during the latter half of the century have contributed to make the
interior of Africa as familiar to us as that of portions of our own
continent, Livingstone and Stanley stand pre-eminent, the most heroic
figures in modern travel: Livingstone as the missionary explorer, who
won the love of the savage tribes and made his way by the arts of peace
and gentleness; Stanley as the soldierly explorer, who fought his way
through cannibal hordes, his arts being those of force and daring.
They and their successors have performed one of the greatest works of
the nineteenth century, that of lifting the cloud which for so many
centuries lay thick and dense over the whole extent of interior Africa.
[=The Exploration of the Arctic Zone=]
Leaving this region of research, we must now seek another which has
been the seat of as earnest efforts and terrible hardships and has
aroused as ardent a spirit of investigation, the Arctic Zone. At no
point in the story of the nineteenth century do we find a greater
display of courage and resolution, a more patient endurance of
suffering, and a more unyielding determination to extend the limits
of human knowledge, than in this region of ice and snow, the delving
into whose secrets has actively continued during the latter half of the
century.
[=Early Expeditions to the Far North=]
A number of voyages were made to the Arctic regions in former
centuries, and Henry Hudson as early as 1607 sailed as far north as the
latitude of 81 degrees 30 minutes in the vicinity of Spitzbergen. With
the opening of the nineteenth century exploration grew more active,
and voyage after voyage was made; but the distance north reached by
Hudson two centuries before was not surpassed until 1827, when Parry
reached 82 degrees 40 minutes north latitude in the same region of
the sea. Beyond these efforts to penetrate the ice barrier, and the
discovery of some islands in the Arctic Ocean, nothing of special
interest occurred until the date of Sir John Franklin's expedition,
which left England in 1845 and disappeared in the icy seas, every soul
on board perishing. This expedition was made famous by the many search
parties which were sent out in quest of the lost mariners.
By one of these parties the northwest passage from ocean to ocean,
around the Arctic coast of America, was traversed in 1854. The fate of
Franklin and his men was not fully solved until 1880, when an American
expedition, under Lieutenant Schwatka, found the last traces left by
the unfortunate explorers.
As famous and as disastrous as the Franklin expedition was the "Lady
Franklin Bay Expedition," conducted by Lieutenant Greely, of the United
States army, which set out in 1881. This expedition was not sent for
purposes of polar research, but in pursuance of a plan to conduct a
series of circumpolar meteorological observations. The relief party of
1883, dispatched to the rescue of the explorers, was unfortunately put
under the control of military men, who not only failed to reach their
destination, but even to leave a supply of food where Greely and his
men might justly expect to find one.
[=The Dreadful Fate of the Greely Party=]
As a result of this failure, the explorers were obliged to abandon
their ships and make their way southwards over almost impassable ice.
In October they reached Cape Sabine, one of the bleakest spots in the
Arctic zone. If food had been left there for them all would have been
well. But they looked in vain for the expected supplies, and when,
in June, 1884, Commodore Schley reached them with a new relief ship,
starvation had almost completed its work. Of the whole party only six
men survived, and a day or two more of delay would have carried them
all away. Among the survivors was their leader, Lieutenant Greely.
[=The Fatal "Jeannette" Expedition=]
A disaster as fatal in character attended the _Jeannette_ expedition,
sent out by the _New York Herald_, in 1879, under Commander DeLong,
to push north by way of Bering Strait. The vessel was crushed by the
ice in 1882, and the crew made their way over the frozen surface past
the New Siberian Islands to the mouth of the Lena River, on the north
coast of Siberia. Here starvation attacked them, and DeLong and many
of his men miserably perished, their bodies being found by Engineer
Melville, one of their companions, who had pushed south to the Siberian
settlements and secured aid, with which he heroically returned for the
rescue of the unfortunate mariners.
[=Expedition of Prof. Nordenskjöld=]
Another expedition calling for attention was that of Adolf Erik
Nordenskjöld, a Swedish scientist. The purpose of this enterprise was
to discover, if possible, a practical commercial route through the
waters north of Europe and Asia, the long sought-for Northeast Passage.
In 1878 Nordenskjöld set out in the _Vega_, commanded by Captain
Pallander, of the Swedish Navy. The party succeeded in making the long
journey round the northern coasts of Europe and Asia, wintering in
Bering Strait and reaching Japan in 1879. This vessel was the first one
to round the northernmost point of Asia, and Nordenskjöld was rewarded
by being made a baron and a commander of the order of the Pole Star in
his own country, and by marks of distinction from several others of the
courts of Europe.
[=Land Journeys in Greenland=]
Since 1890 the work of polar exploration has taken new forms. In 1870
Nordenskjöld made a journey into Greenland, and a second one in 1883,
penetrating that island more than 100 miles and reaching a snow-clad
elevation of 7,000 feet. In 1886 Lieutenant Robert E. Peary, of the
United States Navy, made a similar journey, and in 1888 Dr. Frithjof
Nansen, a Norwegian explorer, crossed the southern part of the island
on snowshoes from east to west.
[=Peary Crosses North Greenland=]
In 1891 Peary proceeded with a small party to McCormick Bay, a locality
far up on the west coast of Greenland, whence he set out in the
following spring with a single companion for a sledge journey over the
northern section of the island. After a remarkable journey of 650 miles
he reached the northeast coast of Greenland, at 81°, 37" N. latitude,
but the appearance of an area of broken stones impassable by sledges
cut off his progress to the far north. In 1895 Peary repeated this
journey, but failed to make farther progress northward.
During the final decade of the century polar expeditions became
numerous. Walter Wellman, a young American journalist, attempted in
1894 to reach the pole by sledge and boat over the Spitzbergen route,
but his supporting vessel was crushed in the ice, and he was forced to
retreat when near the 81st parallel. He made a second "dash for the
pole" in 1898-99, but was disabled by an accident, and again obliged
to return without success. In 1894 Frederick G. Jackson, an English
explorer, visited Franz Joseph Land, an island region discovered by an
Austrian expedition in 1872-74, and whose northern extension was not
known. He remained on this island three years, carefully exploring it,
and in 1896 stood on its northern extremity, near the 81st parallel,
and in view of an open expanse of polar waters. Jackson's most notable
service to science was the rescue of the daring explorer Nansen, whose
expedition needs next to be described.
[=Nansen and His Enterprise=]
Frithjof Nansen, whose crossing of Greenland has been mentioned, soon
after projected an enterprise of a new character. There was excellent
reason to suppose that a strong ocean current crossed the polar area,
flowing from the coast of the Eastern hemisphere across to Greenland
and down both shores of that island. By trusting to the drift influence
of this current a vessel might be carried past the pole and the long
baffling mystery solved. Nansen accordingly had a vessel constructed
adapted to resist the most powerful crushing force, and so formed that
a severe ice pressure would lift it to the surface of the floe. In
this vessel, the _Fram_, he set out in June, 1893, sailed east to the
vicinity of the New Siberia Islands, and there made fast his ship to
an ice floe, with the hope that the current would slowly carry ice and
ship across the polar area.
[=Nansen's "Farthest North"=]
For three years Nansen and his crew were lost to all knowledge of
man, in these frozen seas, and all hopes of his return had nearly
vanished when he triumphantly reappeared, having achieved a marvelous
success, even though short of that which he had desired. For more than
a year the _Fram_ had drifted slowly northward, and on Christmas eve,
1894, the latitude of 83 degrees 24 minutes, reached by the Greely
expedition, and the highest yet attained, was passed. In March, 1895,
Nansen left the ship, dissatisfied with its slow progress, and with one
companion started on a sledge journey to the north. But the ice grew
so difficult to cross and his dog teams so depleted in number, that,
after a desperate effort, he was obliged to give up the enterprise on
April 7th. He had then reached latitude 86 degrees 14 minutes, being
200 miles nearer the pole than former explorers had gone, and within
300 miles of that "farthest north" point. The vessel which he had left
continued to drift north until it reached 85 degrees 57 minutes, when
it turned southward. Here the sea was found to be deep, and the belief
that the pole might be surrounded by a land area was disproved. It lies
probably in a sea region of over 10,000 feet in depth.
[=The Rescue of Nansen=]
Nansen and Johansen, his companion, finally reached the coast of Franz
Joseph Land, where they drearily spent the winter of 1895-96, living on
the flesh of bears and walrusses, which they shot. In the spring they
set out to cross the ice to Spitzbergen, and after two unsuccessful
attempts had the good fortune to meet Dr. Jackson on the shores of
Franz Joseph Land. The incident was one of the most notable in the
history of research, it seeming next to impossible that almost the
only human beings in the vast area of the frozen north should have
the remarkable fortune to come together. The voyagers completed their
journey home in Jackson's supply ship, the _Windward_, their arrival
in the realms of civilization being one of the most striking events of
the century. In 1897 Jackson returned, having explored and mapped Franz
Joseph Land.
[=Andrée's Fatal Balloon Venture=]
The final years of the century were very active in polar research. A
new explorer of Swedish birth, S. A. Andrée, devised a plan of reaching
the pole as original as that of Nansen, and thought by many to be more
hopeful. This was the taking advantage of the currents of air, instead
of those of water. Mr. Andrée was an aëronaut of experience, and found
it possible, by aid of a rope drag and a rubber sail, to direct the
motion of a balloon somewhat aside from the course of the wind. A
balloon seemingly suitable for his enterprise was constructed, and in
the summer of 1897 he set out for the north with two companions, and
with ardent hopes of returning successful in a few months. Unhappily,
accident or miscalculation interfered with the plans of the adventurous
aëronaut, and he and his companions have failed to return. They have
in all probability fallen victims to the terrible conditions of the
northern zone.
In 1898 Lieutenant Peary set out again for the scene of his former
triumph, now equipped for a continued effort to solve the problem of
the pole. He proposed to establish depots of provisions at successive
points in the north, and to continue the enterprise for years if
necessary, finally dashing polar-ward from his farthest north station.
In the same year the Norwegian Captain Sverdrup proceeded to the same
locality in the famous _Fram_, with purposes analogous to those of
Peary. In 1899 the adventurous Italian Prince Luigi, set out for Franz
Joseph Land, well equipped for a journey north, and proposing to devote
several years to the enterprise.
Thus there is room for hope that the pole may be reached by the end
of the nineteenth century, or before the twentieth century is many
years advanced. Meanwhile the enterprise of South Polar exploration,
long neglected, has been actively revived. Several expeditions have
recently visited that region, and active steps are being taken for its
exploration on a larger scale.