KANE AND HAYES.
Kane sails up Smith’s Sound in the “Advance” (1853).--Winters in
Rensselaer Bay.--Sledge Journey along the Coast of Greenland.--
The Three-brother Turrets.--Tennyson’s Monument.--The Great
Humboldt Glacier.--Dr. Hayes crosses Kennedy Channel.--Morton’s
Discovery of Washington Land.--Mount Parry.--Kane resolves upon a
second Wintering in Rensselaer Bay.--Departure and Return of Part
of the Crew.--Sufferings of the Winter.--The Ship abandoned.--
Boat Journey to Upernavik.--Kane’s Death in the Havana (1857).--
Dr. Hayes’s Voyage in 1860.--He winters at Port Foulke.--Crosses
Kennedy Channel.--Reaches Cape Union, the most northern known Land
upon the Globe.--Koldewey.--Plans for future Voyages to the North
Pole.
In point of dramatic interest, few of the Arctic expeditions can rival
the second and last voyage of Dr. Kane, which, to avoid interrupting
the narrative of the discovery of Franklin’s fate by Dr. Rae and Sir
James M’Clintock, I have refrained from mentioning in chronological
order.
Weak in body, but great in mind, this remarkable man, who had
accompanied the first Grinnell expedition in the capacity of surgeon,
sailed from Boston in 1853, as commander of the “Advance,” with a crew
of 17 officers and men, to which two Greenlanders were subsequently
added. His plan was to pass up Baffin’s Bay to its most northern
attainable point, and thence pressing on towards the pole as far as
boats or sledges could reach, to examine the coast-lines for vestiges
of Franklin.
Battling with storms and icebergs, he passed, on August 7, 1853, the
rocky portals of Smith’s Sound, Cape Isabella and Cape Alexander,
which had been discovered the year before by Inglefield; left Cape
Hatherton--the extreme point attained by that navigator--behind, and
after many narrow escapes from shipwreck, secured the “Advance” in
Rensselaer Bay, from which she Avas destined never to emerge. His diary
gives us a vivid account of the first winter he spent in this haven, in
lat. 78° 38´, almost as far to the north as the most northern extremity
of Spitzbergen, and in a far more rigorous climate.
“_Sept. 10_, +14° F.--The birds have left. The sea-swallows, which
abounded when we first reached here, and even the young burgomasters
that lingered after them, have all taken their departure for the south.
The long “night in which no man can work” is close at hand; in another
month we shall lose the sun. Astronomically, he should disappear
on October 24, if our horizon were free; but it is obstructed by a
mountain ridge; and, making all allowance for refraction, we can not
count on seeing him after the 10th.
“_Sept. 11._--The long staring day, which has clung to us for more
than two months, to the exclusion of the stars, has begun to intermit
its brightness. Even Aldebaran, the red eye of the bull, flared out
into familiar recollection as early as ten o’clock; and the heavens,
though still somewhat reddened by the gaudy tints of midnight, gave us
Capella and Arcturus, and even that lesser light of home memories, the
polar star. Stretching my neck to look uncomfortably at the indication
of our extreme northernness, it was hard to realize that he was not
directly overhead; and it made me sigh as I measured the few degrees of
distance that separated our zenith from the pole over which he hung.
“_Oct. 28._--The moon has reached her greatest northern declination of
about 25° 35´. She is a glorious object; sweeping around the heavens,
at the lowest part of her curve, she is still 14° above the horizon.
For eight days she has been making her circuit with nearly unvarying
brightness. It is one of those sparkling nights that bring back the
memory of sleigh-bells and songs, and glad communings of hearts in
lands that are far away.
“_Nov. 7._--The darkness is coming on with insidious steadiness,
and its advances can only be perceived by comparing one day with its
fellow of some time back. We still read the thermometer at noonday
without a light, and the black masses of the hills are plain for about
five hours, with their glaring patches of snow; but all the rest is
darkness. The stars of the sixth magnitude shine out at noonday. Except
upon the island of Spitzbergen, which has the advantages of an insular
climate, and tempered by ocean currents, no Christians have wintered in
so high a latitude as this.[19] They are Russian sailors who made the
encounter there--men inured to hardships and cold. Our darkness has
ninety days to run before we shall get back again even to the contested
twilight of to-day. Altogether our winter will have been sunless for
one hundred and forty days.
“_Nov. 9._--Wishing to get the altitude of the cliffs on the
south-west cape of our bay before the darkness set in thoroughly, I
started in time to reach them with my Newfoundlanders at noonday,
the thermometer indicating 23° below zero. Fireside astronomers can
hardly realize the difficulties in the way of observations at such
low temperatures. The breath, and even the warmth of the face and
body, cloud the sextant-arc and glasses with a fine hoar-frost. It is,
moreover, an unusual feat to measure a base-line in the snow at 55°
below freezing.
“_Nov. 21._--We have schemes innumerable to cheat the monotonous
solitude of our winter--a fancy ball; a newspaper,’The Ice Blink;’ a
fox-chase round the decks.
“_Dec. 15._--We have lost the last vestige of our midday twilight. We
can not see print, and hardly paper; the fingers can not be counted a
foot from the eyes. Noonday and midnight are alike; and, except a vague
glimmer in the sky that seems to define the hill outlines to the south,
we have nothing to tell us that this Arctic world of ours has a sun.
In the darkness, and consequent inaction, it is almost in vain that we
seek to create topics of thought, and, by a forced excitement, to ward
off the encroachments of disease.
“_Jan. 21._--First traces of returning light, the southern horizon
having for a short time a distinct orange tinge.
“_Feb. 21._--We have had the sun for some days silvering the ice
between the headlands of the bay, and to-day, towards noon, I started
out to be the first of my party to welcome him back. It was the
longest walk and toughest climb that I have had since our imprisonment,
and scurvy and general debility have made me ‘short o’ wind.’ But I
managed to attain my object. I saw him once more, and upon a projecting
crag nestled in the sunshine. It was like bathing in perfumed water.”
Thus this terrible winter night drew to its end, and the time came for
undertaking the sledge journeys, on which the success of the expedition
mainly depended. Unfortunately, of the nine magnificent Newfoundlanders
and the thirty-five Esquimaux dogs originally possessed by Kane, only
six had survived an epizootic malady which raged among them during the
winter: their number was, however, increased by some new purchases from
the Esquimaux who visited the ship at the beginning of April.
Thus scantily provided with the means of transport, Kane, though in a
very weak condition, set out on April 25, 1854, to force his way to the
north. He found the Greenland coast beyond Rensselaer Bay extremely
picturesque, the cliffs rising boldly from the shore-line to a height
of sometimes more than a thousand feet, and exhibiting every freak and
caprice of architectural ruin. In one spot the sloping rubbish at the
foot of the coast-wall led up, like an artificial causeway, to a gorge
that was streaming at noonday with the southern sun, while everywhere
else the rock stood out in the blackest shadow. Just at the edge of
this bright opening rose the dreamy semblance of a castle, flanked with
triple towers, completely isolated and defined. These were called the
“Three-brother Turrets.”
“Farther on, to the north of latitude 79°, a single cliff of
greenstone rears itself from a crumbled base of sandstone, like the
boldly-chiselled rampart of an ancient city. At its northern extremity,
at the brink of a deep ravine which has worn its way among the ruins,
there stands a solitary column or minaret tower, as sharply finished as
if it had been cast for the Place Vendôme. Yet the length of the shaft
alone is 480 feet, and it rises on a pedestal, itself 280 feet high.
I remember well the emotions of my party, as it first broke upon our
view. Cold and sick as I was, I brought back a sketch of it which may
have interest for the reader, though it scarcely suggests the imposing
dignity of this magnificent landmark. Those who are happily familiar
with the writings of Tennyson, and have communed with his spirit in the
solitudes of a wilderness, will apprehend the impulse that inscribed
the scene with his name.”
But no rock formation, however striking or impressive, equalled in
grandeur the magnificent glacier to which Kane has given the name of
Humboldt. Its solid glassy wall, diminishing to a well-pointed wedge in
the perspective, rises 300 feet above the water-level, with an unknown,
unfathomable depth below it and its curved face sixty miles in length--
from Cape Agassiz to Cape Forbes--vanishes into unknown space at not
more than a single day’s railroad travel from the pole.
In spite of the snow, which had so accumulated in drifts that the
travellers were forced to unload their sledges and carry forward the
cargo on their backs, beating a path for the dogs to follow in, Kane
came in sight of the Great Glacier on May 4; but this progress was
dearly earned, as it cost him the last remnant of his strength.
“I was seized with a sudden pain,” says the intrepid explorer, “and
fainted. My limbs became rigid, and certain obscure tetanoid symptoms
of our winter enemy, the scurvy, disclosed themselves. I was strapped
upon the sledge, and the march continued as usual, but my powers
diminished so rapidly that I could not resist the otherwise comfortable
temperature of 5° below zero. My left foot becoming frozen caused
a vexatious delay, and the same night it became evident that the
immovability of my limbs was due to dropsical effusion. On the 5th,
becoming delirious and fainting every time that I was taken from the
tent to the sledge, I succumbed entirely. My comrades would kindly
persuade me that, even had I continued sound, we could not have
proceeded on our journey. The snows were very heavy, and increasing as
we went; some of the drifts perfectly impassable, and the level floes
often four feet deep in yielding snow.
“The scurvy had already broken out among the men, with symptoms like
my own, and Morton, our strongest man, was beginning to give way. It
is the reverse of comfort to me that they shared my weakness. All
that I should remember with pleasurable feeling is that to my brave
companions, themselves scarcely able to travel, I owe my preservation.
“They carried me back by forced marches. I was taken into the brig on
the 14th, where for a week I lay fluctuating between life and death.
Dr. Hayes regards my attack as one of scurvy, complicated by typhoid
fever.”
Fortunately summer was now fast approaching, with his cheering sunbeams
and his genial warmth. The seals began to appear on the coast in large
numbers, and there was now no want of fresh meat, the chief panacea
against the scurvy. The snow-buntings returned to the ice-crusted
rocks, and the gulls and eider-ducks came winging their way to their
northern breeding-places.
Vegetation likewise sprang into life with marvellous rapidity, and the
green sloping banks not only refreshed the eye, but yielded juicy,
anti-scorbutic herbs.
Kane’s health slowly but steadily improved. He was, however, obliged to
give up all further sledge excursions for the season, and to leave the
execution of his plans to his more able-bodied companions.
Thus Dr. Hayes, crossing the sound in a north-easterly direction,
reached the opposite coast of Grinnell Land, which he surveyed as far
as Cape Frazer in lat. 70° 45´.
This journey was rendered uncommonly slow and tedious by the
excessively broken and rugged character of the ice. Deep cavities
filled with snow intervened between lines of hummocks frequently
exceeding twenty or thirty feet in height. Over these the sledge had to
be lifted by main strength, and it required the most painful efforts of
the whole party to liberate it from the snow between them. Dr. Hayes
returned on June 1, and a few days later Morton left the brig, to
survey the Greenland coast beyond the Great Glacier. The difficulties
were great, for, besides the usual impediments of hummocks, the
lateness of the season had in many places rendered the ice extremely
unsafe, or even entirely destroyed the ice-ledge along the shore. Thus
for the last days of his onward journey he was obliged to toil over
the rocks and along the beach of a sea which, like the familiar waters
of the south, dashed in waves at his feet. Morton and his companion
Hans, the Esquimaux, reached on June 26, 1854, Cape Constitution, a
bold headland, where the surf rolled furiously against high overhanging
cliffs, which it was found impossible to pass. Climbing from rock
to rock, in hopes of doubling the promontory, Morton stood at this
termination of his journey, and from a height of 300 feet looked out
upon a great waste of waters, stretching to the unknown north. Numerous
birds--sea-swallows, kittiwakes, brent-geese--mixed their discordant
notes with the novel music of dashing waves; and among the flowering
plants growing on the rocks was found a crucifer (_Hesperis pygmæa_),
the dried pods of which, still containing seed, had survived the wear
and tear of winter. From Cape Constitution the coast of Washington Land
trended to the east, but far to the north-west, beyond the open waters
of the channel, a peak, terminating a range of mountains similar in
their features to those of Spitzbergen, was seen towering to a height
of from 2500 to 3000 feet. This peak, the most remote northern land at
that time known upon our globe, received the name of Mount Parry.
Meanwhile the short summer was wearing on, and, as far as the eye could
reach, the ice remained inflexibly solid. It was evident that many days
must still elapse before the vessel could possibly be liberated--but
then most likely winter would almost have returned--a dismal prospect
for men who knew by experience the long fearful night of the 79° of
latitude, and who, broken in health and with very insufficient supplies
of provisions and fuel, were but ill armed for a second encounter. No
wonder that many of Kane’s companions thought it better to abandon the
vessel than to tarry any longer in those frozen solitudes.
But though it was horrible to look another winter in the face, the
resolution of Kane could not be shaken. On August 24, when the last
hope of seeing the vessel once more afloat had vanished, he called
the officers and crew together, and explained to them frankly the
considerations which determined him to remain. To abandon the vessel
earlier would have been unseemly, and to reach Upernavik so late in
the season was next to impossible. To such of them, however, as were
desirous of making the attempt, he freely gave his permission so to
do, assuring them of a brother’s welcome should they be driven back.
He then directed the roll to be called, and each man to answer for
himself. In result, eight out of the seventeen survivors of the party
resolved to stand by the brig. The others left on the 28th, with every
appliance which the narrow circumstances of the brig could furnish to
speed and guard them. When they disappeared among the hummocks, the
stern realities of their condition pressed themselves with double force
on those whom they left behind.
The reduced numbers of the party, the helplessness of many, the
waning efficiency of all, the impending winter, with its cold, dark
nights, the penury of their resources, the dreary sense of increased
isolation--all combined to depress them. But their energetic leader,
leaving them no time for these gloomy thoughts, set them actively to
work to make the best possible preparations they could for the long
cold night to come.
He had carefully studied the Esquimaux, and determined that their
form of habitations and their mode of diet, without their unthrift
and filth, were the safest and best that could be adopted. The deck
was well padded with moss and turf, so as to form a nearly cold-proof
covering, and, down below, a space some eighteen feet square--the
apartment of all uses--was inclosed and packed from floor to ceiling
with inner walls of the same non-conducting material. The floor itself,
after having been carefully caulked, was covered with Manilla oakum a
couple of inches deep and a canvas carpet. The entrance was from the
hold, by a low moss-lined tunnel, with as many doors and curtains to
close it up as ingenuity could devise. Large banks of snow were also
thrown up along the brig’s sides to keep off the cold wind.
All these labors in the open air wonderfully improved the health of
the exiles, and their strength increased from day to day. A friendly
intercourse was opened with the Esquimaux of the winter settlements of
Etah and Anoatok, distant some thirty and seventy miles from the ship,
who, for presents of needles, pins, and knives, engaged to furnish
walrus and fresh seal meat, and to show the white men where to find
the game. Common hunting-parties were organized, visits of courtesy
and necessity paid, and even some personal attachments established
deserving of the name. As long as the Americans remained prisoners of
the ice, they were indebted to their savage friends for invaluable
counsel in relation to their hunting expeditions, and in the joint hunt
they shared alike.
The Esquimaux gave them supplies of meat at critical periods, and they
were able to do as much for them. In one word, without the natives,
Kane and his companions would most likely have succumbed to the winter,
and the Esquimaux on their part learned to look on the strangers as
benefactors, and mourned their departure bitterly.
On December 12 the party which had abandoned the ship returned, having
been unable to penetrate to the south, and was received, as had been
promised, with a brotherly welcome. They had suffered bitterly from the
cold, want of food, and the fatigues of their march among the hummocks.
“The thermometer,” says Kane, “was at -50°; they were covered with
rime and snow, and were fainting with hunger. It was necessary to use
caution in taking them below; for, after an exposure of such fearful
intensity and duration as they had gone through, the warmth of the
cabin would have prostrated them completely. They had journeyed three
hundred and fifty miles; and their last run from the bay near Etah,
some seventy miles in a right line, was through the hummocks at this
appalling temperature. One by one they all came in and were housed.
Poor fellows! as they threw open their Esquimaux garments by the stove,
how they relished the scanty luxuries which we had to offer them! The
coffee, and the meat-biscuit soup, and the molasses, and the wheat
bread, even the salt pork, which our scurvy forbade the rest of us to
touch--how they relished it all! For more than two months they had
lived on frozen seal and walrus meat.”
Thus Kane, by his determination not to abandon the ship, proved the
saviour of all his comrades; for what would have become of them had he
been less firm in his resolution, or if his courage had failed him
during the trials of that dreadful winter?
“February closes,” says the heroic explorer; “thank God for the lapse
of its twenty-eight days! Should the thirty-one of the coming March
not drag us farther downward, we may hope for a successful close to
this dreary drama. By April 10 we should have seals; and when they
come, if we remain to welcome them, we can call ourselves saved. But
a fair review of our prospects tells me that I must look the lion
in the face. The scurvy is steadily gaining on us. I do my best to
sustain the more desperate cases, but as fast as I partially build up
one, another is stricken down. Of the six workers of our party, as I
counted them a month ago, two are unable to do out-door work, and the
remaining four divide the duty of the ship among them. Hans musters his
remaining energies to conduct the hunt. Petersen is his disheartened,
moping assistant. The other two, Bonsall and myself, have all the daily
offices of household and hospital. We chop five large sacks of ice,
cut six fathoms of eight-inch hawser into junks of a foot each, serve
out the meat when we have it, hack at the molasses, and hew out with
crowbar and axe the pork and dried apples; pass up the foul slop and
cleansings of our dormitory, and, in a word, cook, _scullionize_, and
attend the sick. Added to this, for five nights running I have kept
watch from 8 P.M. to 4 A.M., catching such naps as I could in the day
without changing my clothes, but carefully waking every hour to note
thermometers.”
With March came an increase of sufferings. Every man on board was
tainted with scurvy, and there were seldom more than three who could
assist in caring for the rest. The greater number were in their bunks,
absolutely unable to stir. Had Kane’s health given way, the whole
party, deprived of its leading spirit, must inevitably have perished.
To abandon the ship was now an absolute necessity, for a third winter
in Rensselaer Bay would have been certain death to all; but before
the boats could be transported to the open water, many preparations
had to be made, and most of the party were still too weak to move.
The interval was employed by Kane in an excursion with his faithful
Esquimaux to the Great Glacier.
At length on May 20, 1855, the entire ship’s company bade farewell to
the “Advance,” and set out slowly on their homeward journey. It was
in the soft, subdued light of a Sunday evening, June 17, that after
hauling their boats with much hard labor through the hummocks, they
stood beside the open sea-way. But fifty-six days had still to pass
before they could reach the port of Upernavik. Neither storms nor
drift-ice rendered this long boat-journey dangerous, but they had
to contend with famine, when they at length reached the open bay,
and found themselves in the full line of the great ice-drift to the
Atlantic, in boats so unseaworthy as to require constant bailing to
keep them afloat. Their strength had decreased to an alarming degree;
they breathed heavily; their feet were so swollen that they were
obliged to cut open their canvas boots; they were utterly unable to
sleep, and the rowing and bailing became hourly more difficult.
It was at this crisis of their fortunes that they saw a large seal
floating--as is the custom of these animals--on a small patch of
ice, and seemingly asleep. “Trembling with anxiety,” says Kane, “we
prepared to crawl down upon him. Petersen, with a large English rifle,
was stationed in the bow, and stockings were drawn over the oars as
mufflers. As we neared the animal, our excitement became so intense
that the men could hardly keep stroke. He was not asleep, for he reared
his head when we were almost within rifle-shot; and to this day I can
remember the hard, careworn, almost despairing expression of the men’s
thin faces as they saw him move; their lives depended on his capture. I
depressed my hand nervously, as a signal for Petersen to fire. M’Gary
hung upon his oar, and the boat slowly, but noiselessly surging ahead,
seemed to me within certain range. Looking at Petersen, I saw that the
poor fellow was paralyzed by his anxiety, trying vainly to obtain a
rest for his gun against the cut-water of the boat. The seal rose on
his fore flippers, gazed at us for a moment with frightened curiosity,
and coiled himself for a plunge. At that instant, simultaneously
with the crack of our rifle, he relaxed his long length on the ice,
and, at the very brink of the water, his head fell helpless to one
side. I would have ordered another shot, but no discipline could have
controlled the men. With a wild yell, each vociferating according to
his own impulse, they urged their boats upon the floes. A crowd of
hands seized the seal and bore him up to safer ice. The men seemed half
crazy. I had not realized how much we were reduced by absolute famine.
They ran over the floe, crying and laughing, and brandishing their
knives. It was not five minutes before every man was sucking his bloody
fingers, or mouthing long strips of raw blubber. Not an ounce of this
seal was lost.”
Within a day or two another seal was shot, and from that time forward
they had a full supply of food.
When Kane, after an absence of thirty months, returned on October 11,
1855, to New York, he was enthusiastically received. Well-deserved
honors of all sorts awaited him on both sides of the Atlantic; but
his health, originally weak, was completely broken by the trials of
his journey, and on February 16, 1857, he died at the Havana, in the
thirty-seventh year of his age. In him the United States lost one of
her noblest sons, a true hero, whose name will ever shine among the
most famous navigators of all times and of all nations.
In 1860, Dr. Hayes, who had accompanied Kane on his journey, once
more sailed from America for the purpose of completing the survey
of Kennedy’s Channel, and, if possible, of pushing on to the pole
itself. After several narrow escapes from ice-fields and icebergs,
his schooner, the “United States,” was at length compelled to take
up her winter-quarters at Port Foulke, on the Greenland coast, about
twenty miles in latitude to the south of Rensselaer Harbor. Thanks to
an abundant supply of fresh meat (for the neighborhood abounded with
reindeer), and also no doubt to the inexhaustible fund of good-humor
which prevailed in the ship’s company, they passed the winter without
suffering from the scurvy; but most of the dogs on which Dr. Hayes
relied for his sledge expeditions in the ensuing spring were destroyed
by the same epidemic which had been so fatal to the teams of Dr. Kane.
Fortunately some fresh dogs could be purchased and borrowed of the
friendly Esquimaux, and thus, early in April, 1861, Dr. Hayes left
the schooner, to plunge into the icy wilderness. Having previously
ascertained that an advance along the Greenland shore was utterly
impossible, he resolved to cross the sound, and to try his fortunes
along the coast of Grinnell Land. Of the difficulties which he had to
encounter his own words will give the best idea.
“By winding to the right and left, and by occasionally retracing our
steps when we had selected an impracticable route, we managed to get
over the first few miles without much embarrassment, but farther on
the tract was rough past description. I can compare it to nothing
but a promiscuous accumulation of rocks closely packed together and
piled up over a vast plain in great heaps and endless ridges, leaving
scarcely a foot of level surface. The interstices between these closely
accumulated ice-masses are filled up, to some extent, with drifted
snow. The reader will readily imagine the rest. He will see the sledges
winding through the tangled wilderness of broken ice-tables, the men
and dogs pulling and pushing up their respective loads. He will see
them clambering over the very summit of lofty ridges, through which
there is no opening, and again descending on the other side, the sledge
often plunging over a precipice, sometimes capsizing and frequently
breaking. Again he will see the party baffled in their attempt to cross
or find a pass, breaking a track with shovel and handspike, or again,
unable even with these appliances to accomplish their end, they retreat
to seek a better track; and they may be lucky enough to find a sort of
gap or gateway, upon the winding and uneven surface of which they will
make a mile or so with comparative ease. The snow-drifts are sometimes
a help, and sometimes a hinderance. Their surface is uniformly hard,
but not always firm to the foot. The crust frequently gives way, and
in a most tiresome and provoking manner. It will not quite bear the
weight, and the foot sinks at the very moment when the other is lifted.
But, worse than this, the chasms between the hummocks are frequently
bridged over with snow in such a manner as to leave a considerable
space at the bottom quite unfilled; and at the very moment when all
looks promising, down sinks one man to his middle, another to the neck,
another is buried out of sight; the sledge gives way, and to extricate
the whole from this unhappy predicament is probably the labor of hours.
It would be difficult to imagine any kind of labor more disheartening,
or which would sooner sap the energies of both men and animals. The
strength gave way gradually; and when, as often happened after a long
and hard day’s work, we could look back from our eminence and almost
fire a rifle-ball into our last snow-hut, it was truly discouraging.”
No wonder that after thus toiling on for twenty-five days they had not
yet reached half-way across the sound, and that they were all broken
down. But their bold leader was fully determined not to abandon his
enterprise while still the faintest hope of success remained, and,
sending the main party back to the schooner, he continued to plunge
into the hummocks with three picked companions--Jensen, M’Donald,
Knorr--and fourteen dogs. After fourteen days of almost superhuman
exertion the sound was at length crossed, and now began a scarcely
less harassing journey along the coast. On the fifth day Jensen, the
strongest man of the party, completely broke down, and leaving him to
the charge of M’Donald, Dr. Hayes now pushed on with Knorr alone,
until, on May 18, he reached the border of a deep bay, where farther
progress to the north was stopped by rotten ice and cracks. Right
before him, on the opposite side of the frith, rose Mount Parry, the
lofty peak first seen by Morton in 1854 from the shores of Washington
Land; and farther on, a noble headland, Cape Union--the most northern
known land upon the globe--stood in faint outline against the dark sky
of the open sea. Thus Dr. Hayes divides the honor of extreme northern
travel with Parry.
On July 12 the “United States” was released from her icy trammels, and
Dr. Hayes once more attempted to reach the opposite coast and continue
his discoveries in Grinnell Land, but the schooner was in too crippled
a state to force her way through the pack-ice which lay in her course,
and compelled her commander to return to Boston.
Thus ended this remarkable voyage; but having done so much, Dr. Hayes
is eager, and resolved, to do still more. Fully convinced by his own
experience that men may subsist in Smith’s Sound independent of support
from home, he proposes to establish a self-sustaining colony at Port
Foulke, which may be made the basis of an extended exploration. Without
any second party in the field to co-operate with him, and under the
most adverse circumstances, he, by dint of indomitable perseverance,
pushed his discoveries a hundred miles farther to the north and west
than his predecessors; and it is surely not over-sanguine to expect
that a party better provided with the means of travel may be able to
traverse the 480 miles at least which intervene between Mount Parry
and the pole. The open sea which both Morton and himself found beyond
Kennedy Channel gives fair promise of success to a strong vessel that
may reach it after having forced the ice-blocked passage of Smith’s
Sound, or, should this be impracticable, to a boat transported across
the sound and then launched upon its waters.
Captain Sherard Osborne, who is likewise a warm partisan of this route,
has been endeavoring to interest Government in its favor; but in the
opinion of other scientific authorities an easier passage seems open to
the navigator who may attempt to reach the pole by way of Spitzbergen.
To the east of this archipelago the Gulf Stream rolls its volume
of comparatively warm water far on to the north-east, and possibly
sweeps round the pole itself. It was to the north of Spitzbergen that
Parry reached the latitude of 82° 45´; and in 1837 the “Truelove,” of
Hull,[20] sailed through a perfectly open sea in 82° 30´ N., 15° E.,
and, had she continued her course, might possibly have reached the pole
as easily as the high latitude which she had already attained.
The distinguished geographer, Dr. Augustus Petermann, who warmly
advocates the route between Spitzbergen and Greenland, has, by dint
of perseverance, succeeded in collecting among his countrymen the
necessary funds for a reconnoitring voyage in this direction. Thanks
to his exertions, May 24, 1868, witnessed the departure of a small
ship of eighty tons, the “Germania,” Captain Koldewey, from the port
of Bergen, for Shannon Island (75° 14´ N. lat.), the highest point
on the east coast of Greenland attained by Sabine in 1823. Here the
attempt to explore the unknown Arctic seas beyond was to begin; but,
meeting with enormous masses of drift-ice on her repeated endeavors to
penetrate to the north-east, the “Germania” has been obliged to return,
after reaching the high latitude of 81° 5´, and accurately surveying a
small part of the Greenland coast hitherto but imperfectly explored. An
expedition on a more extensive scale is to renew the attempt in 1869.
A third route to the pole is no less strenuously recommended by M.
Gustave Lambert, a French hydrographer, who, having sailed through
Bering’s Strait in a whaler in 1865, is persuaded that this is
the right way to reach the problematical open North Sea, which,
once attained, promises a free passage to the navigator. Liberal
subscriptions have been raised in Paris for the accomplishment of his
plan, and an expedition under his command will most probably set out in
1869.
Thus, after so many illustrious navigators have vainly endeavored to
reach the pole, sanguine projectors are still as eager as ever to
attain the goal; nor is it probable that man will ever rest in his
efforts until every attainable region of the Arctic Ocean shall have
been fully explored.