THE GREAT POLAR CURRENT
A short time after the flights of birds became more and more numerous.
Petrels, puffins, and mates, inhabitants of those desolate quarters,
signalled the approach of Greenland. The _Forward_ was rapidly
nearing the north, leaving to her leeward a long line of black smoke.
On Tuesday the 17th of April, about eleven o'clock in the morning,
the ice-master signalled the first sight of the ice-blink; it was
about twenty miles to the N.N.W. This glaring white strip was
brilliantly lighted up, in spite of the presence of thick clouds in
the neighbouring parts of the sky. Experienced people on board could
make no mistake about this phenomenon, and declared, from its
whiteness, that the blink was owing to a large ice-field, situated
at about thirty miles out of sight, and that it proceeded from the
reflection of luminous rays. Towards evening the wind turned round
to the south, and became favourable; Shandon put on all sail, and
for economy's sake caused the fires to be put out. The _Forward_,
under her topsails and foresails, glided on towards Cape Farewell.
At three o'clock on the 18th they came across the ice-stream, and
a white thick line of a glaring colour cut brilliantly the lines of
the sea and sky. It was evidently drifting from the eastern coast
of Greenland more than from Davis's Straits, for ice generally keeps
to the west coast of Baffin's Sea. An hour afterwards the _Forward_
passed in the midst of isolated portions of the ice-stream, and in
the most compact parts, the icebergs, though welded together, obeyed
the movements of the swell. The next day the man at the masthead
signalled a vessel. It was the _Valkirien_, a Danish corvette, running
alongside the _Forward_, and making for the bank of Newfoundland.
The current of the Strait began to make itself felt, and Shandon had
to put on sail to go up it. At this moment the commander, the doctor,
James Wall, and Johnson were assembled on the poop examining the
direction and strength of the current. The doctor wanted to know if
the current existed also in Baffin's Sea.
"Without the least doubt," answered Shandon, "and the sailing vessels
have much trouble to stem it."
"Besides there," added Wall, "you meet with it on the eastern coast
of America, as well as on the western coast of Greenland."
"There," said the doctor, "that is what gives very singular reason
to the seekers of the North-West passage! That current runs about
five miles an hour, and it is a little difficult to suppose that it
springs from the bottom of a gulf."
"It is so much the more probable, doctor," replied Shandon, "that
if this current runs from north to south we find in Behring's Straits
a contrary current which runs from south to north, and which must
be the origin of this one."
"According to that," replied the doctor, "we must admit that America
is totally unconnected with the Polar lands, and that the waters of
the Pacific run round the coasts of America into the Atlantic. On
the other hand, the greater elevation of the waters of the Pacific
gives reason to the supposition that they fall into the European
seas."
"But," sharply replied Shandon, "there must be facts to establish
that theory, and if there are any," added he with irony, "our
universally well-informed doctor ought to know them."
"Well," replied the above-mentioned, with amiable satisfaction, "if
it interests you, I can tell you that whales, wounded in Davis's
Straits, are caught some time afterwards in the neighbourhood of
Tartary with the European harpoon still in their flanks."
"And unless they have been able to double Cape Horn or the Cape of
Good Hope," replied Shandon, "they must necessarily have rounded the
septentrional coasts of America--that's what I call indisputable,
doctor."
"However, if you were not convinced, my dear fellow," said the doctor,
smiling, "I could still produce other facts, such as drift-wood, of
which Davis's Straits are full, larch, aspen, and other tropical trees.
Now we know that the Gulf Stream hinders those woods from entering
the Straits. If, then, they come out of it they can only get in from
Behring's Straits."
"I am convinced, doctor, and I avow that it would be difficult to
remain incredulous with you."
"Upon my honour," said Johnson, "there's something that comes just
in time to help our discussion. I perceive in the distance a lump
of wood of certain dimensions; if the commander permits it we'll haul
it in, and ask it the name of its country."
"That's it," said the doctor, "the example after the rule."
Shandon gave the necessary orders; the brig was directed towards the
piece of wood signalled, and soon afterwards, not without trouble,
the crew hoisted it on deck. It was the trunk of a mahogany tree,
gnawed right into the centre by worms, but for which circumstance
it would not have floated.
"This is glorious," said the doctor enthusiastically, "for as the
currents of the Atlantic could not carry it to Davis's Straits, and
as it has not been driven into the Polar basin by the streams of
septentrional America, seeing that this tree grew under the Equator,
it is evident that it comes in a straight line from Behring; and look
here, you see those sea-worms which have eaten it, they belong to
a hot-country species."
"It is evident," replied Wall, "that the people who do not believe
in the famous passage are wrong."
"Why, this circumstance alone ought to convince them," said the
doctor; "I will just trace you out the itinerary of that mahogany;
it has been floated towards the Pacific by some river of the Isthmus
of Panama or Guatemala, from thence the current has dragged it along
the American coast as far as Behring's Straits, and in spite of
everything it was obliged to enter the Polar Seas. It is neither so
old nor so soaked that we need fear to assign a recent date to its
setting out; it has had the good luck to get clear of the obstacles
in that long suite of straits which lead out of Baffin's Bay, and
quickly seized by the boreal current came by Davis's Straits to be
made prisoner by the _Forward_ to the great joy of Dr. Clawbonny,
who asks the commander's permission to keep a sample of it."
"Do so," said Shandon, "but allow me to tell you that you will not
be the only proprietor of such a wreck. The Danish governor of the
Isle of Disko----"
"On the coast of Greenland," continued the doctor, "possesses a
mahogany table made from a trunk fished up under the same
circumstances. I know it, but I don't envy him his table, for if it
were not for the bother, I should have enough there for a whole
bedroom."
During the night, from Wednesday to Thursday, the wind blew with
extreme violence, and driftwood was seen more frequently. Nearing
the coast offered many dangers at an epoch in which icebergs were
so numerous; the commander caused some of the sails to be furled,
and the _Forward_ glided away under her foresail and foremast only.
The thermometer sank below freezing-point. Shandon distributed
suitable clothing to the crew, a woollen jacket and trousers, a
flannel shirt, wadmel stockings, the same as those the Norwegian
country-people wear, and a pair of perfectly waterproof sea-boots.
As to the captain, he contented himself with his natural fur, and
appeared little sensible to the change in the temperature; he had,
no doubt, gone through more than one trial of this kind, and besides,
a Dane had no right to be difficult. He was seen very little, as he
kept himself concealed in the darkest parts of the vessel.
Towards evening the coast of Greenland peeped out through an opening
in the fog. The doctor, armed with his glass, could distinguish for
an instant a line of peaks, ridged with large blocks of ice; but the
fog closed rapidly on this vision, like the curtain of a theatre
falling in the most interesting moment of the piece.
On the morning of the 20th of April the _Forward_ was in sight of
an iceberg a hundred and fifty feet high, stranded there from time
immemorial; the thaws had taken no effect on it, and had respected
its strange forms. Snow saw it; James Ross took an exact sketch of
it in 1829; and in 1851 the French lieutenant Bellot saw it from the
deck of the _Prince Albert_. Of course the doctor wished to keep a
memento of the celebrated mountain, and made a clever sketch of it.
It is not surprising that such masses should be stranded and adhere
to the land, for to each foot above water they have two feet below,
giving, therefore, to this one about eighty fathoms of depth.
At last, under a temperature which at noon was only 12 degrees, under
a snowy and foggy sky, Cape Farewell was perceived. The _Forward_
arrived on the day fixed; if it pleased the unknown captain to come
and occupy his position in such diabolical weather he would have no
cause to complain.
"There you are, then," said the doctor to himself, "cape so celebrated
and so well named! Many have cleared it like us who were destined
never to see it again. Is it, then, an eternal adieu said to one's
European friends? You have all passed it. Frobisher, Knight, Barlow,
Vaughan, Scroggs, Barentz, Hudson, Blosseville, Franklin, Crozier,
Bellot, never to come back to your domestic hearth, and that cape
has been really for you the cape of adieus."
It was about the year 970 that some navigators left Iceland and
discovered Greenland. Sebastian Cabot forced his way as far as
latitude 56 degrees in 1498. Gaspard and Michel Cotreal, in 1500 and
1502, went as far north as 60 degrees; and Martin Frobisher, in 1576,
arrived as far as the bay that bears his name. To John Davis belongs
the honour of having discovered the Straits in 1585; and two years
later, in a third voyage, that bold navigator and great whaler reached
the sixty-third parallel, twenty-seven degrees from the Pole.
Barentz in 1596, Weymouth in 1602, James Hall in 1605 and 1607, Hudson,
whose name was given to that vast bay which hollows out so profoundly
the continent of America, James Poole, in 1611, advanced far into
the Strait in search of that North-West passage the discovery of which
would have considerably shortened the track of communication between
the two worlds. Baffin, in 1616, found the Straits of Lancaster in
the sea that bears his own name; he was followed, in 1619, by James
Munk, and in 1719 by Knight, Barlow, Vaughan, and Scroggs, of whom
no news has ever been heard. In 1776 Lieutenant Pickersgill, sent
out to meet Captain Cook, who tried to go up Behring's Straits, reached
the sixty-eighth degree; the following year Young, for the same
purpose, went as far north as Woman's Island.
Afterwards came Captain James Ross, who, in 1818, rounded the coasts
of Baffin's Sea, and corrected the hydrographic errors of his
predecessors. Lastly, in 1819 and 1820, the celebrated Parry passed
through Lancaster Straits, and penetrated, in spite of unnumbered
difficulties, as far as Melville Island, and won the prize of 5,000
pounds promised by Act of Parliament to the English sailors who would
reach the hundred and seventeenth meridian by a higher latitude than
the seventy-seventh parallel.
In 1826 Beechey touched Chamisso Island; James Ross wintered from
1829 to 1833 in Prince Regent Straits, and amongst other important
works discovered the magnetic pole. During this time Franklin, by
an overland route, traversed the septentrional coasts of America from
the River Mackenzie to Turnagain Point. Captain Back followed in his
steps from 1823 to 1835, and these explorations were completed in
1839 by Messrs. Dease and Simpson and Dr. Rae.
Lastly, Sir John Franklin, wishing to discover the North-West passage,
left England in 1845 on board the _Erebus_ and the _Terror_; he
penetrated into Baffin's Sea, and since his passage across Disko
Island no news had been heard of his expedition.
That disappearance determined the numerous investigations which have
brought about the discovery of the passage, and the survey of these
Polar continents, with such indented coast lines. The most daring
English, French, and American sailors made voyages towards these
terrible countries, and, thanks to their efforts, the maps of that
country, so difficult to make, figured in the list of the Royal
Geographical Society of London. The curious history of these
countries was thus presented to the doctor's imagination as he leaned
on the rail, and followed with his eyes the long track left by the
brig. Thoughts of the bold navigators weighed upon his mind, and he
fancied he could perceive under the frozen arches of the icebergs
the pale ghosts of those who were no more.