GREENLAND
Hans Egede—The house of Eric the Red—Nansen's crossing of
Greenland—Nansen and Sverdrup row to Ny Herrnhut—Nordenskiöld's
journeys—Berggren's discovery—Nordenskiöld on the inland
ice—Glaciers and icebergs—Diatoms and whales—Edward Whymper's
expedition—Greenland in Miocene times—Graah—Scoresby—Ryder—The
_Germania_ and _Hansa_—The Duke of Orleans—The Eskimos of
Clavering Island—Franz Josef Fiord—The drift of the _Hansa_—The
Greely expedition—The International Polar stations—Voyage of the
_Proteus_—Lockwood reaches 83° 24´—Greely's wagon—The Eskimo house
at Lake Hazen—Greely Relief expeditions—The rescue of
Greely—Peary—His journey to Independence Bay—His four years'
expedition—Reaches 84° 17´—His Polar expedition of 1905—The
_Roosevelt_—The voyage to Cape Sheridan—Plan of the northern
advance—Peary reaches 87° 6´—Moxon's mariner.
Hans Egede, aged twenty-two, priest of the parish of Vaagen, in the
north of Norway, reading, in 1710, about the Norse colonists of the
west—and apparently knowing nothing of Thiodhilda—was led to think that
some of their descendants might still be living in heathenism. Writing
to the Bishop of Trondhjem, he proposed to go out to these as a
missionary. The good father rather astonished him by the reply that
"Greenland was undoubtedly part of America, and could not be very far
from Cuba and Hispaniola, where there was found such abundance of gold,"
and, as those who went to Greenland might bring home "incredible
riches," he approved of the suggestion.
Unfortunately, however, Egede had written his letter without the
knowledge of his wife, who by no means thought with the Bishop until
seven years afterwards, when she changed her mind. Trying in vain
locally, Egede applied for support to Frederick IV of Denmark, who
finding him an earnest, honest, interesting man, gave him his patronage,
the result being that a company was formed at Bergen for the development
of trade and the propagation of the gospel; and, on the 3rd of May,
1721, the _Hope_ set sail from there for Greenland with forty-six
intending colonists, including the missionary and his wife and family.
His landing-place was on an island at the mouth of Godthaab Fiord, or
Baal's River. He found the Greenlanders very different from what he had
supposed; and also that the Dutch were carrying on a profitable trade
with them and keeping it quiet. To begin with they were nothing like
Vikings in appearance; and their language, instead of being a
Scandinavian dialect, was of the same character as that of the Eskimos
of Labrador—and not at all easy to learn. Learn it, however, he and his
family did; and among the Greenlanders they remained and laboured with
truly admirable energy and devotion, battling hard for life amid much
disaster until, with the help of his son Paul, who succeeded him as
superintendent of the mission with the title of bishop, the settlement
became permanent, and other settlements arose from it up the western
coast as they are found to-day.
[Illustration: GREENLANDERS]
_From a photo by Dr. H. Rink_
Though there were no Norsemen, there were many traces of them, the most
interesting being the house of Eric the Red, near Igaliko. Here, close
to Erik's Fiord and overlooking Einar's Fiord, on one of the prettiest
sites in Greenland, was Brattelid—"the steep side of a rock"—one side of
it a natural cliff, the walls of the other sides, more than four feet
thick, built of blocks of red sandstone from four to six feet in length
as well as in breadth and thickness, reminding the visitor of those of
Stonehenge, and evoking similar wonderment as to how they were got into
place. And in his first colony, now called Igdluernerit, Egede seems to
have followed the Norsemen—at an interval—in their architecture, to
judge by the large stones in the walls of his house, which, like Eric's,
is now in ruins.
Twelve years after Egede, came the Moravians to take up their quarters
at Ny Herrnhut, also at the mouth of Godthaab (that is, Good Hope)
Fiord. It was here that Nansen and Sverdrup landed in October, 1888,
having rowed up from Ameralik Fiord in their "half a boat," as the
Eskimos called it.
"Are you Englishmen?" they were asked.
"No," said Nansen, in good Norse, "we are Norwegians."
"May I ask your name?"
"My name is Nansen and we have just come from the interior."
"Oh, allow me to congratulate you on taking your doctor's degree!"
From which it is clear that Godthaab is not so much out of the world as
one would suppose.
Nansen with his three Norsemen and two Lapps had reached the east coast
in the _Jason_, and on the 17th of July had left the ship in their boats
to make their way to the shore; but they had been caught in the floes,
and on them and among them they had drifted for twelve days—an
experience they had not bargained for. Getting ashore at last near Cape
Tordenskiold, they worked their way back northwards along the coast,
spending a short time at an Eskimo encampment at Cape Bille, until on
the 15th of August they hauled their two boats up near Umivik and
started to cross Greenland over the inland ice.
The country is now in its glacial period, and for days they toiled
across its glacial desert; each day alike in its wearisome monotony.
"Flatness and whiteness were the two features of this ocean of snow,"
says Nansen; "in the day we could see three things only, the sun, the
snowfield and ourselves. We looked like a diminutive black line feebly
traced upon an infinite expanse of white. There was no break or change
in our horizon, no object to rest the eye upon, and no point by which to
direct the course. We had to steer by a diligent use of the compass, and
keep our line as well as possible by careful watching of the sun and
repeated glances back at the four men following and the long track which
the caravan left in the snow. We passed from one horizon to another, but
our advance brought us no change."
By the 2nd of September they had all taken to their skis on which they
made great progress alone, but when it came to hauling the sledges there
was a difference. Sometimes the snow proved to be very heavy going,
particularly when it was wind-packed, and then it was no better than
sand. One entry in Nansen's journal will suffice: "It began to snow in
the middle of the day, and our work was heavier than ever. It was worse
even than yesterday, and to say it was like hauling in blue clay will
scarcely give an idea of it. At every step we had to use all our force
to get the heavy sledges along, and in the evening Sverdrup and I, who
had to go first and plough a way for ourselves, were pretty well done
up."
[Illustration: ON LEVEL GROUND]
When at last the wind became favourable they hoisted sail, and off they
went over the waves and drifts of snow at a speed that almost took their
breath away; and when they reached the western slopes they slid down
them using the sledges as toboggans. At first they had intended making
for Christianshaab, but the route had to be changed for that to
Godthaab, and the sea was reached some distance to the south. Here they
stitched the floor-sheet of their tent over a framework of withies, and
with oars made of canvas stretched across forked willows and tied to
bamboo shafts, Nansen and Sverdrup boldly trusted themselves to the
waves and with much hard labour pulled into Ny Herrnhut on the 3rd of
October. Such was the first crossing of Greenland, a really remarkable
instance of daring endeavour.
Further north, Nordenskiöld, in 1883, had attempted to cross over the
ice-cap from near Disco on the west coast, but, hindered and finally
stopped by crevasses and other obstacles, could do no more than send his
Lapps to try their best on their skis, and they returned after their
journey eastwards of a hundred and forty miles reporting similar
monotonous conditions all along their track. Thirteen years before, he
had, also from Auleitsivik Fiord, started out with Berggren; and
deserted by their followers, they had gone on by themselves for some
thirty miles east of the northern arm of the fiord. It was on this
occasion that Berggren discovered _Ancylonema_, that small poly-cellular
alga forming the dark masses that absorb a far greater amount of heat
than the white ice and thus cause the deep holes that aid in the process
of melting.
"The same plant," says Nordenskiöld, "has no doubt played the same part
in our country; and we have to thank it, perhaps, that the deserts of
ice which formerly covered the whole of Northern Europe and America have
now given place to shady woods and undulating cornfields."
Nordenskiöld looked upon Greenland and its icefield as a broad-lipped,
shallow vessel with chinks in the lip, the glacier being viscous matter
within it. As more is poured in, the matter runs over the edges, taking
the lines of the chinks, that is, of the fiords and valleys, as that of
its outflow. In other words, the ice floats out by force of the
superincumbent weight of snow just as does the grain on the floor of a
barn when another sackful is shot on to the top of the heap already
there. When the glacier reaches the sea it makes its way along the
bottom under water for a considerable distance, in some cases, as near
Avigait, for more than a mile. This is where the water is too shallow
for it to affect the mass, which forms a breakwater; though as a rule
the shore deepens more suddenly and the projection is less. It was long
supposed that the berg broke from the glacier by force of gravity, but
this is not generally so. The berg is forced off from the parent glacier
by the buoyant action of the sea from beneath; the ice groans and
creaks; then there is a crashing, then a roar like the discharge of
artillery; and with a great regurgitation of the waves the iceberg is
launched into life. These huge floating islands of ice are the most
conspicuous exports of Greenland; and their true magnitude is not
realised until it is remembered that only about an eighth of their bulk
appears above the water. Bergs as large as liners we frequently hear
of—one such is shown in our illustration—but sometimes they are of much
greater freeboard, though the very large ones reported as extending
along the horizon are invariably groups of several crowded together.
[Illustration: THE ALLAN LINER "SARDINIAN" AMONG ICEBERGS]
_Ancylonema_ has evidently plenty to do. Another instance of the
important part played by the insignificant in these regions is suggested
by the colour of the sea. This varies from ultramarine blue to
olive-green, from the purest transparency to striking opacity; and the
changes are not transitory but permanent. These patches of dark water
abound with diatoms, while the bluer the water the fewer are the
diatoms; and where they are most numerous, there the animals that feed
on them assemble in their greatest numbers. And these animals are
jellyfish, entomostracans, and, to a greater extent, pteropods, their
chief representative being _Clio borealis_. In short, the animals that
feed on the diatoms are food of the Greenland whale, and where the
waters are dark the whale-fishers thrive. "I know nothing stranger than
the curious tale I have unfolded," says Dr. Robert Brown, who worked out
this remarkable chain, "the diatom staining the broad frozen sea, again
supporting myriads of living beings which crowd there to feed on it, and
these again supporting the huge whale. Thus it is no stretch of the
imagination to say that the greatest animal depends for its existence on
a being so minute that it takes thousands to be massed together before
they are visible to the naked eye."
Cold as Greenland is, there was a time when matters were different. In
token of this we have the Miocene fossils collected by Edward Whymper
during his expedition from near Jakobshavn in 1867, which were described
and illustrated by Oswald Heer in the _Philosophical Transactions_ for
1869. A look at these is a welcome relief after such a surfeit of ice.
Here, as well preserved as in the leaf beds of Alum Bay, are the leaves
and fruits of an unmistakable temperate flora. Magnolias, maples,
poplars, limes, walnuts, water-lilies; myrica, smilax, aralia; sedges
and grasses, conifers and ferns: these at the least were all growing in
Greenland in its Miocene age. And even a thousand years ago the climate
must have been milder than now, to judge by the farming reports of the
colonists who seem to have been quite at home along the coast, which,
with its innumerable islands and fiords, is as intricate as that of
Norway.
Searching for the ancient eastern settlement of the Norsemen, W. A.
Graah, in 1829, wintered at Julianehaab, which in all likelihood is the
site, although he knew it not. Possessed with the idea that it must be
on the south-eastern coast, he devoted his attention to that region
only, finding Eskimos who had never seen a white man and starting a
trading intercourse which led to most of them migrating to the less
inclement west. His work linked up with that of Scoresby, who in 1822
charted the main features of the sea-front from 69° to 75°. Ryder,
seventy years afterwards, filled in the details of much of Scoresby's
work, and found Eskimos further north, as Clavering had done in 1823,
when in the _Griper_ during Sabine's observations at Pendulum Island.
[Illustration: THE "GERMANIA" IN THE ICE]
It was to Pendulum Island, in 74° 32´, that Karl Koldewey, after his
preliminary run to 81° 5´ in 1868, took the _Germania_ to winter during
the German expedition of 1869. The two vessels, the _Germania_, a small
two-masted screw steamer of one hundred and forty-three tons, built
specially for Arctic service, and the _Hansa_, only half her size, which
had been strengthened for the voyage, reached Jan Mayen on the 9th of
July, and, hidden from each other by fog, sailed northwards for five
days. On the fifth evening the wind rose, the fog cleared, and a hundred
yards in front of them lay the ice like a rugged line of cliffs.
For a few days they sailed along it endeavouring to find an opening to
the north. Then, on the 20th, the _Germania_ ran up a signal to approach
and communicate, which was misunderstood, and, instead of repeating it
and making sure, the _Hansa_ put up her helm, fell off, crowded on all
sail, and disappeared in the fog. Koldewey, persisting in his efforts to
get through the pack, found an opening on the 1st of August. Nine days
afterwards he was again blocked, and finally, on the 27th, he reached
Pendulum Island, where he made the _Germania_ snug for the winter, which
proved to be remarkably mild.
The first sledge party travelling up one of the fiords met with abundant
vegetation and herds of reindeer and musk oxen, and were visited by
bears who had not learnt to be wary of man; and when the bears came back
with the sun in February they were as troublesome as those of Ice Haven
to the Dutchmen. Several sledge parties went out in the spring, and,
notwithstanding inadequate equipment, did excellent work. In April,
1870, Koldewey reached 77° 1´, almost up to Lambert Land, otherwise the
Land of Edam. Here, looking out over the ice-belt, they agreed that it
was "a bulwark built for eternity," and hoisting sails on their sledges
they ran back to the ship. But in 1905 the Duke of Orleans arrived on
the coast to reach 78° 16´ and discover that their Cape Bismarck was on
an island and their Dove Bay a strait.
In the neighbourhood of their winter quarters the glaciers and mountains
were well explored, and an attempt was made to measure an arc of the
meridian, which proved to be rather rough work among such surroundings.
The snowstorms were particularly pitiless and heavy, and the travelling
decidedly bad. The thaw began about the middle of May, and there was
more sledging through pools than usual, so that they did not want
variety in their occupations. On the 14th of July boating became
practicable, and a voyage was made to the Eskimo village found by
Clavering in 1823, on the island named after him, but the village proved
to be deserted and the huts in ruins—an unwelcome discovery, for, as
M'Clintock says in reference to it: "It is not less strange than sad to
find that a peaceable and once numerous tribe, inhabiting a coast-line
of at least seven degrees of latitude, has died out, or has almost died
out, whilst at the same time we find, by the diminution of the glaciers
and increase of animal life, that the terrible severity of the climate
has undergone considerable modification. We feel this saddening interest
with greater force when we reflect that the distance of Clavering's
village from the coast of Scotland is under one thousand miles. They
were our nearest neighbours of the New World."
[Illustration: THE REGION ROUND MOUNT PETERMANN]
A little north of the seventy-third parallel Koldewey discovered on his
way home the magnificent Franz Josef Fiord. Here the grandest scenery in
Greenland is to be found along its deep branches winding among the
mountains, one of which, Mount Petermann, is over eleven thousand feet
high. As the _Germania_ entered this remarkable inlet, which extends
inland for some five degrees of longitude, a fleet of icebergs were
sailing out of it with the current; the farther she advanced the warmer
seemed the temperature of the air and surface water, and the wilder and
more impressive became the grouping of the mighty cliffs and peaks with
their lofty waterfalls and raging torrents and deep glacier-filled
ravines. It was the great geographical discovery of the expedition.
Meanwhile Hegemann, trying to pass to the north more to the westward,
got the _Hansa_ beset on the 9th of September some twenty-four miles
from Foster Bay. As the ice-pressure threatened to become too great for
the vessel to resist, an elaborate house was planned and built on the
floe. Briquettes were used for the walls, the joints were filled up with
dry snow on which water was poured, and in ten minutes it hardened into
a compact mass. The house was twenty feet long, fourteen feet wide, and
four feet eight inches high at the sides, with a rising roof consisting
of sails and mats covered with deep snow. Into this house, which took a
week to build, provisions for two months were carried, besides wood and
fuel. The boats were put out, a flagstaff was set up, and quite a little
settlement was started on the ice; and no sooner was it completed than a
violent snowstorm, lasting for five days, buried both the ship and the
house. The ice increased around, and, the pressure of the accumulation
lifting the _Hansa_ seventeen feet above her original level, everything
of value was removed from her on to the ice and into the house. On the
22nd of October she sank, having drifted below the seventy-first
parallel; and all through the winter the floe, which was about two miles
across, leisurely made its way to the south.
Off Knighton Bay Christmas was kept with all possible honour. The
briquette house was decorated with coloured-paper festoons, and, by the
light of the sole remaining wax candle, the genial Germans made
themselves merry around a stubby Christmas tree devised out of an old
birch broom. Three weeks afterwards the floe cracked beneath the
dwelling. There was barely time to take refuge, but all hands were saved
in the boats. For two days they remained in them, poorly sheltered from
the storm and unable to clear out the snow. Then a smaller house was
built of the ruins of the old one, but it was only large enough for half
the party; and as the spring advanced the floe decreased, breaking away
at the edges as did that on which the _Polaris_ people drifted to
Labrador.
[Illustration: THE LAST DAYS OF THE "HANSA"]
At the end of March it entered Nukarbik Bay and there it stayed four
weeks, caught in an eddy, slowly moving round and round just far enough
from the shore to render an attempt at escape impossible; twice a day
they went in with the tide and out with the tide, the ice too bad for
the boats and never promising enough for a dash to the land. Having
become thoroughly acquainted with this portion of the coast with its
bold range of hills, its deep bays, its inlets, headlands, and islands,
a storm came on which cleared them out of the eddy and drove them
further south. Three weeks after that the floe had become so diminished
by the lashing of the surge that it was hardly a hundred yards across,
and large fragments were slipping off every hour.
They had been on it for two hundred days and drifted eleven hundred
miles when, on the 7th of May, water-lanes opening shorewards, they took
to the boats and ventured among the masses of ice, making for the south.
At first they had their difficulties in being compelled to haul up on
the floes to pass the night or wait for a favourable wind, which meant
severe work in unloading and reloading. Once during their painful
progress of more than a month they were kept on a floe for six days by
gales and snow-showers. Finally, after a long desperate effort, they
reached Illuilek Island, and thence proceeded close inshore among rocks
and ice to Frederiksdal, a couple of hours' walk from the southernmost
point of the Greenland mainland, Cape Farewell being part of an island
twenty-eight miles further to the south-east. On the 21st of June, eight
days afterwards, they were at Julianehaab, whence they sailed to be
landed at Copenhagen on the 1st of September, just ten days before the
_Germania_ steamed into Bremen. Thus the expedition, by its two
divisions, ice-borne and ship-borne, had skirted nearly all that was
then known of the east coast from end to end.
On the north coast, Beaumont's discoveries were extended by Lieutenant
James B. Lockwood for ninety-five miles, the trend of the shore taking
him up to 83° 24´, three minutes and thirty-four seconds nearer the
North Pole than Markham reached out on the sea. This was on the 13th of
May, 1882, during the ill-fated A. W. Greely expedition. Like most
American expeditions up to then this began well and ended badly, worse,
in fact, than any; and unlike them, and all others, it consisted
entirely of soldiers—as if a detachment of Royal Engineers had been sent
north on ordnance survey work. It was, however, more miscellaneous, for
among its twenty-three members were representatives of three cavalry
regiments, six infantry regiments, and an artilleryman.
This was to be the garrison of the International Circumpolar Station at
Lady Franklin Bay. The idea of a ring of stations round the Pole for the
study of the natural phenomena for which the Arctic regions afford so
wide and important a field was not new, but it was first reduced to
definiteness and its adoption secured by Karl Weyprecht of the
Austro-Hungarian expedition of 1872. At a meeting of German scientific
men at Gratz, in September, 1875, he procured assent to his general
principle that the best results in Arctic inquiry were to be obtained by
subordinating geographical discovery to physical investigation. It had
long been evident that the most valuable results had been obtained by
the ships and fixed observatories, and that the toilsome work of the
sledges in their successive approaches by a few more miles towards a
mathematical point, though most interesting to read about, had really
been of very little practical use owing to the necessarily light
equipment. Instead, therefore, of a number of isolated attempts at
irregular intervals, Weyprecht suggested that the better way would be to
attack the subject systematically by a group of expeditions at permanent
stations working together long enough at the same time for their
observations to be dealt with as part of a general scheme; and the
suggestion was approved although he did not live long enough to see the
stations occupied.
[Illustration: GREENLAND]
Three International Polar Conferences were held, in 1879 and the two
following years, at Hamburg, Berne, and St. Petersburg, at the last of
which it was arranged that the stations should be fourteen in number,
two in the south and twelve in the north, these twelve being—(1) The
Austrian at Jan Mayen; (2) the Danish at Godthaab; (3) the Finnish at
Sodankyla in Uleaborg; (4) the German at Kingua in Cumberland Sound; (5)
the British at Fort Rae on the northern arm of the Great Slave Lake; (6)
the Dutch at Dickson Harbour at the mouth of the Yenesei; (7) the
Norwegian at Bosekop at the head of Alten Fiord; (8) the Russian at
Little Karmakul Bay in Novaya Zemlya; (9) the second Russian on Sagastyr
Island in the Lena Delta; (10) the Swedish at Mossel Bay in Spitsbergen;
(11) the American at Point Barrow under Lieutenant P. H. Ray, who met
with marked success and brought his men all home in safety; and (12) the
second American at Lady Franklin Bay, the winter quarters of H.M.S.
_Discovery_, which Greely renamed Fort Conger.
In direct opposition to the guiding idea of the scheme, Greely's work
was complicated by having tacked on to it Howgate's proposal of another
dash for the Pole, his instructions requiring him to send out "sledging
parties in the interests of exploration and discovery." Further, his
expedition was fitted out in a way that almost invited disaster. Let one
instance suffice. "In speaking of this instrument," he explains, "it is
necessary to say that a dip-circle was especially made for the Lady
Franklin Bay Expedition, but it was by error shipped to the United
States Coast Survey. On calling for it, when the duplicate instrument
ordered could not be had in time, the late Mr. Carlisle Patterson, then
Superintendent, promptly promised that it should be sent on to me at New
York. On the day of my sailing, a dip-circle, carefully boxed, was
received; but on opening it at St. John, an old, rusty, unreliable
instrument was found in the place of the new circle. This resulted in
unsatisfactory and incomplete observations at Conger, for the old circle
having upright standards instead of transverse ones, as in the new, but
one end of the needle could be read. It must always be a matter of
regret that this unwarrantable and unauthorised substitution by some
person was made, which materially impaired, if not effectually
destroyed, the value of our two-years' dip-observations." This sort of
thing reduced International Polar Research to a farce, and the same
spirit appeared in other departments, more seriously than all in the
relief proceedings, which were conducted in a way that could only lead
to starvation.
In August, 1881, the _Proteus_, with the expedition on board, made her
way up Smith Sound and Kennedy Channel without serious hindrance until
she entered the south-eastern part of Lady Franklin Bay, where the
close, heavy pack brought her to a stop within eight miles of her
destination. She had come seven hundred miles from Upernivik in less
than a week, and, faced by ice twenty to fifty feet thick, she had to
wait another seven days before she got into Discovery Harbour. Here the
party landed and a house was built, and dissension arose which ended in
one of the company returning in the ship and another endeavouring to do
so and being too late, so that he had to remain as a sort of tolerated
volunteer. Two others were sent away as being physically unfit; but,
making up for these, were two Eskimos engaged at Upernivik.
Preliminary sledging began at once, and in the spring the two great
efforts were made. The doctor's, towards the Pole, left on the 19th of
March and got adrift on a floe from which the party escaped with the
loss of their tent, provisions, and some of their instruments. According
to Greely's report: "The farthest latitude attained by this party is
given by Dr. Pavy as 82° 56´, it being estimated, as no observations for
time, magnetic declination, or latitude were made at any period during
his absence."
On the 3rd of April, Lockwood with twelve men left for the coast of
Greenland. Up to Newman Bay four men had been sent back as unfit for
field-work. On the 16th, when the party started from here for the
north-east, Lockwood and Christiansen, the Eskimo, were in advance
hauling about eight hundred pounds with a team of eight dogs, a
three-men sledge following, and then two two-men sledges; at Cape Bryant
the men-sledges were sent back, and Lockwood, Brainard, and the Eskimo
went on with the dog-sledge. Cape Britannia was reached on the 5th of
May, and on the 13th they camped at Lockwood Island, and there, for the
first time, Americans reached a farthest north.
"I decided to make this cape my farthest," reported Lockwood, "and to
devote the little time we could stay to determining accurately my
position, if the weather would allow, which seemed doubtful. We built a
large, conspicuous cairn, about six feet high and the same width at the
base, on the lower of two benches. After repitching the tent Sergeant
Brainard and I returned to the cairn, and collected in that vicinity
specimens of the rocks and vegetation of the country, the sergeant
making almost all the collection. We ascended without difficulty to a
small fringe of rocks, which seemed from below to form the top. The
ascent, at first very gradual, became steeper as we went up, but we had
no difficulty, as for some distance below the summit the surface is
covered with small stones, as uniform in size, position, etc., as those
of a macadamised road. Reached the top at 3.45 p.m. and unfurled the
American flag (Mrs. Greely's) to the breeze in latitude 83° 24´ N.
(according to last observation). The summit is a small plateau, narrow,
but extending back to the south to broken, snow-covered heights. It
commanded a very extended view in every direction. The barometer, being
out of order, was not brought along, so I did not get the altitude. The
horizon on the land side was concealed by numberless snow-covered
mountains, one profile overlapping another, and all so merged together,
on account of their universal covering of snow, that it was impossible
to detect the topography of the region. To the north lay an unbroken
expanse of ice, interrupted only by the horizon."
On Midsummer Day Greely started with a four-wheel wagon to explore
Grinnell Land. The wagon, in the men's vernacular, was a man-killer, and
was abandoned after they had dragged it a hundred miles. On this journey
much exploring work was done in the unknown country, the most
interesting find being that of the Eskimo house at Lake Hazen. In this,
according to Greely's description, there were two fireplaces, one in the
east and the other in the south, both of which had been built outward so
as to take up no part of the space of the room, which was over seventeen
feet long and nine feet wide. The sides of the entire dwelling were low
walls of sodded earth, lined inside with flat thin slates, the tops of
which were about two feet above the level of the interior floor, and the
bench was covered with flat slabs of slate. Near by was a smaller house
of the same character, and around were a large number of relics,
including walrus-ivory toggles for dog-traces, sledge-bars and runners,
an arrow head, skinning knife, and articles of worked bone. Next year
further explorations of the back country were undertaken, so that some
six thousand miles of the interior were viewed, disclosing many fertile
valleys with their herds of musk ox.
Meanwhile the _Neptune_, with supplies for Fort Conger, had in August,
1882, been vainly endeavouring to get north, and, a few miles from Cape
Hawks, had turned back with the pack piling the ice as high as her rail.
Six attempts she made before she gave up and retreated, after making
several deposits of stores at Cape Sabine and elsewhere. In July, 1883,
the _Proteus_, making a similar attempt to reach Greely, was crushed in
the ice off Cape Albert, her side opening with a crash while the men
were working in the hold, the ice forcing its way into the coal-bunkers
and then pouring in so that as soon as the pressure slackened she went
down, escape to the south being effected in the boats.
Next year, matters having become serious, a naval expedition consisting
of the _Thetis_, the _Bear_, and Nares's old ship the _Alert_, presented
by the British Government, was placed in the capable hands of Commander
Winfield Schley, who had with him George Melville of _Jeannette_ fame as
engineer of the _Thetis_, and matters were conducted in quite a
different way under much more favourable circumstances. Schley intended
to find Greely, at all costs, and he did so. First he found a cairn at
Brevoort Island, in which were the papers deposited by Greely relating
how he had had to come south owing to shortness of supplies, and how his
party were then—21st of October, 1883—encamped on the west side of a
small neck of land distant about equally from Cape Sabine and Cocked Hat
Island.
As it was then the 22nd of June, 1884, and they had had only forty days'
complete rations to live upon, Schley hurried off at once. Had he been
two days later he would have been too late. There was a tent wrecked by
the gale, with its pole toppling over and only kept in place by the guy
ropes. Ripping it up with a knife, a sight of horror was disclosed. On
one side, close to the opening, with his head towards the outside, lay
what was apparently a dead man. On the opposite side was a poor fellow,
alive but without hands or feet, and with a spoon tied to the stump of
his right arm. Two others, seated on the ground, were pouring something
out of a rubber bottle into a tin can. Directly opposite, on his hands
and knees, was a dark man with a long matted beard, in a dirty and
tattered dressing-gown with a little red skull cap on his head, and
brilliant staring eyes. As Colwell appeared, he raised himself a little,
and put on a pair of eyeglasses.
"Who are you?" asked Colwell.
The man made no answer, staring at him vacantly.
"Who are you?" again.
One of the men spoke up. "That's the Major—Major Greely."
Colwell crawled in and took him by the hand, saying to him, "Greely, is
this you?"
"Yes," said Greely in a faint, broken voice, hesitating with his words;
"yes—seven of us left—here we are—dying—like men. Did what I came to
do—beat the best record."
Near at hand were ten graves. The bodies, despite Greely's
remonstrances, were taken up and removed for burial in the United
States. "Little could be seen of the condition of the bodies, as they
had been clothed, and all that appeared was intact. In preparing them
subsequently," says Schley, "it was found that six had been cut and the
flesh removed." One of these, that of a cavalryman serving under the
assumed name of Henry, had a bullet in it. He had been shot, at Greely's
written order, "for stealing sealskin thongs, the only remaining food."
The next to add to our knowledge of the northern coast of Greenland was
Robert E. Peary, of the American Navy, who seems to have devoted his
life to Arctic exploration. On his first expedition in 1886, he
penetrated with Maigaard for some distance into the country in the
neighbourhood of Jakobshavn as a sort of pioneering venture. In 1891,
accompanied by his wife, when outward bound in the _Kite_ in the
Melville Bay pack, he had his leg broken. The ship had been butting a
passage through the spongy sheets of ice which had imprisoned her, when
in going astern a detached cake struck the rudder, jamming the tiller
against the wheel-house where Peary was standing, and pinned his leg
long enough to snap it between the knee and the ankle. In spite of this
he insisted on being landed with the rest of the party at McCormick Bay,
a little to the north of Whale Sound, where a house was built and the
winter spent.
Making a good recovery, he set off in May to sledge across North
Greenland through snow and over it, and over snow-arched crevasses,
often, in cloudy weather, travelling in grey space with nothing visible
beyond a foot or two around him. After fifty-seven days' journey to the
north-east and along Peary Channel, the northern boundary of the
mainland, he left the inland ice for a strange country dotted with
snowdrifts and mostly of red sandstone, in which murmuring streams,
roaring waterfalls, and the song of snow-buntings formed an agreeable
change from the silence of the desert of snow. Four days' hard labouring
through this brought him on the 4th of July to Independence Bay on the
north-east coast, where from Navy Cliff, nearly four thousand feet high,
he looked across to Academy Land on the other side of the bay and beyond
it over the region leading down to the farthest north of the Duke of
Orleans. "It was almost impossible," he says, "to believe that we were
standing upon the northern shore of Greenland as we gazed from the
summit of this bronze cliff, with the most brilliant sunshine all about
us, with yellow poppies growing between the rocks around our feet, and a
herd of muskoxen in the valley behind us. Down in that valley I had
found an old friend, a dandelion in bloom, and had seen the bullet-like
flight and heard the energetic buzz of the humble-bee."
[Illustration: R. E. Peary, U. S. N.]
Next year he and his wife were out again to take up their quarters at a
house they built at Bowdoin Bay, where, in September, their daughter was
born. In March, 1894, he started for another journey across Greenland,
with twelve sledges and over ninety dogs, but severe weather drove him
back after travelling some two hundred miles. Staying over that winter
instead of returning in the _Falcon_, he set out in the spring, and
under almost desperate circumstances managed to reach and return from
Independence Bay.
Following this came his expedition of 1898, in which he spent four
winters in the Arctic regions and almost met with Petersen's fate by a
venturesome winter sledge journey, which resulted in the freezing of his
feet and the loss of eight of his toes. Travelling in Grinnell Land he
proved beyond doubt that it was continuous with Ellesmere Land, as had
been admitted by those who named it. Following Lockwood's track, he
continued it up to 83° 54´, along Hazen Land, practically completing the
coast-line to Cape Henry Parish, its furthest east, thus rounding the
north of the Greenland archipelago, and even there finding traces of
Eskimos and a fauna similar to that of other Arctic lands hundreds of
miles further south. And striking northwards over the sea from Cape
Hecla, with seven men and six dog-sledges, into the breaking, drifting
pack, he made a dash for the Pole which ended at 84° 17´.
His next northern venture, though not more remarkable, is destined,
perhaps, to be remembered longer. On it he sighted the new land away out
in the sea north-west of Grinnell Land, nearer to the Pole than any
other land discovered up to then, and where it was expected to be. And
out over the ice he went to eclipse his 1902 record by nearly two
hundred miles, in the best planned of all his journeys.
In July, 1905, he had left New York in the _Roosevelt_, a steamship of
over six hundred tons and more than a thousand horse-power, rigged
complete as a three-masted coasting schooner, able to hold her own
almost anywhere in the event of her engines becoming useless. One
hundred and eighty-two feet in length, thirty-five and a half in beam,
and sixteen and a quarter in depth; sharp in the bow and rounded
amidships; treble in framing and double in planking, with sides thirty
inches thick, twelve feet of deadwood in her bow, and six feet of false
keels and kelsons, she was specially built for the expedition as the
strongest and most powerful vessel ever sent on Arctic service, and was
launched on the 23rd of May, 1905, Mrs. Peary naming her by smashing a
block of ice against her ironclad stem.
A month out from New York, the _Roosevelt_ left Etah laden deep with
coal from the _Eric_ that had awaited her there, and having on board
over fifty Eskimos, of both sexes and all sizes, and some two hundred
Eskimo dogs. Leaving a reserve of provisions at Bache Peninsula, she
worked up through open water and occasional ice to Richardson Bay, where
the pack looked so threatening that Peary literally rammed his way
across to the eastern side, and so continued northwards. When off Cape
Lupton the ship received such rough treatment that the rudder was
twisted and the head-bands and tiller-rods broken, as she ground along
the face of the ice-foot "with a motion and noise like that of a
railway-car which has left the rails"; but this was the only time she
was in serious danger during her most fortunate run. Resting for six
days in Newman Bay to repair damages and make ready for a final effort,
she was headed westward to Grinnell Land through the floes, and after a
continuous battle of thirty-five hours, reached the ice-foot at Cape
Sheridan, a little north of the old winter quarters of the _Alert_, and
found her wintering place, like her, just as the Polar pack closed in
against the shore. The endeavour had been to lay up in Porter Bay,
twenty-seven miles further north, but the state of the ice made this
impossible.
Provisions were plentiful, as no less than two hundred and fifty musk
oxen had been shot by the 1st of November, and there were numbers of
hares and several herds of the white reindeer first mentioned by Hudson
in his second voyage three hundred years ago. During the very mild
winter eighty of the dogs died, and when sledging began only twenty
teams of six each were available. The plan of the northern advance over
the ice was to divide it into sections of about fifty miles each, with
snow houses at each station, the nearest station being supplied from the
base and supplying the next, and so on, thus keeping up an unbroken line
of communication gradually extending nearer to the Pole, the sledges
working backwards and forwards, outwards laden and inwards empty,
between station and station along the line.
The land was left at Point Moss, north-west of Cape Joseph Henry. At 84°
38´ a lead in the pack stopped the way for six days until the young ice
was thick enough to bear, and forty miles further north the vanguard
drifted east some seventy miles during a storm for another six days. On
the 20th of April a region of much open water was reached, and from
midnight to noon next day the last effort was made by Peary, Henson, and
a small party of Eskimos, the farthest north, 87° 6´, being attained and
immediately left in a rapid retreat for safety.
Thus Peary went nearer to the Pole than Cagni by thirty-two minutes or
thirty-seven statute miles, both being stopped by water with apparently
similar conditions ahead of them. What the conditions may be along the
intervening two hundred miles from Peary's farthest nobody knows; but
although a good many things may happen between London and York, which is
about the same distance, there is good reason for supposing that, even
if there be land somewhere, the road is over a sea more or less packed
with ice which is never without its channels.
One thing is clear: the attainment of the Pole is a matter of money.
Given the funds, the men and the dogs, and the ships, boats, sledges,
and other things will be forthcoming, and the journey accomplished, not
by a rush, but on some systematic station-to-station plan; though it is
not impossible that it may be done by chance in some exceptional year,
for the climate of the north is variable and has a wider range of
temperature than that of Britain in its good years and its bad years.
Let us hope there may be land at the exact spot, for then the position
can be checked at leisure, and there will be no doubt of its having been
reached. Joseph Moxon, Hydrographer to the King, in 1652 met at
Amsterdam a sailor of a Greenland ship which "went not out to fish that
summer, but only to take in the lading of the whole fleet to bring it to
an early market"—in other words, to act as a carrier—which ship, before
the whaling fleet had caught enough to lade her, had by order of the
Company sailed to the North Pole and back again, and even two degrees
beyond it; no land seen, no ice, and the weather as it was in
summer-time at Amsterdam.
A sailor's yarn told in a tavern? Only this and nothing more, perhaps;
though a good many things were kept dark in the whaling trade as in
other trades. But if there had been an island at the Pole we might
eventually have been able to verify that ancient mariner's tale.
INDEX
Abruzzi, Duke of, The, 76
Academy Land, 281
Actinia Haven, 87
_Advance_, The, 183, 236
_Aid_, The, 218, 219
Akaitcho, 150, 156, 160
Alaska, 134
Aldrich, Pelham, 255
_Alert_, H.M.S., 248, 278
_Alexander_, The, 179
Alexander, Cape, 234, 235
Alexandra Land, 75
_Alexandria_, H.M.S., 179
Alfred Ernest, Cape, 257
Ameralik Fiord, 261
America, The Norse discovery of, 3
Amundsen, Roald, 178, 214
_Ancylonema nordenskioeldii_, 264
Anderson Falls, The, 163
Andrée, S. A., 104
Anjou, P. F., 108
_Ann Frances_, The, 220
Antelope, 126
Archangel, 6
Archer, Colin, 91
Archer Fiord, 250, 257
Archer, R., 257
_Arctic_, The, 247
Arctic Search Expedition, The first, 7
_Assistance_, H.M.S., 183, 184
Atlassof, 128
Augustus the Eskimo, 157, 159, 160
Auk, Cape, 69
Auleitsivik Fiord, 263
Aurora Borealis, The, 67
Austin, Horatio, 183
Austria Sound, 68
Avigait, 264
Baal's River, 260
Back, George, 38, 149, 151, 156, 160, 203
Baden-Powell, Sir George, 105
Baffin, William, 15, 233
Baffin Land, 233
Banks Land, 172, 176, 182
Baranoff Cape, 85
Barents Bay, 49
Barents, Willem, 9, 49
Barnacle Goose, The, 12
Barren Grounds, The, 156, 159
Barrington, The Hon. Daines, 29
Barrow Point, 137, 167, 273
Barrow, Sir John, 178
Barrow Strait, 180
Bathurst Island, 180, 206
Bear, Black, 110
Bear Island, 12
Bear, Polar, 11, 12, 23, 27, 28, 52, 73, 74, 88, 99, 186, 238, 267
_Bear_, The, 278
Beaufort Sea, The, 173
Beaumont, Lewis Anthony, 257
Beechey, Cape, 159
Beechey, Frederick William, 35, 137
Beechey Island, 180, 183, 186, 206
Belanger, 151
Belcher, Edward, 184
Bellot, Joseph René, 183, 207
Bellot Strait, 197
Bennet, Stephen, 12
Bennett Island, 107, 117, 126
Bering Strait, 85, 127
Bering, Veit, 130
Berry, Captain, 141
Bessels, Emil, 245
Best, George, 220
Best's Bulwark, 219
Bille, Cape, 262
Bird Cape, 12
Birds, 12, 88, 113, 114, 141, 160, 172, 181, 228, 239, 258, 280
Bismarck, Cape, 268
Bjarni discovers America, 2
Bjelkof Island, 107
_Blossom_, H.M.S., 137
Boat Extreme, 167
Bolscheretzkoi, 131
_Bona Confidentia_, The, 5
_Bona Esperanza_, The, 5
Booth, Felix, 194
Boothia, 190
Borough, Steven, 6
Borough, William, 8
Bosekop, 273
Bounty Cape, 180
Bowdoin Bay, 281
Bowen, Port, 193
Bradley, Thomas, 4
Brainard, D. L., 276
Brattelid, 261
Brentford Bay, 197, 207
British Channel, 75, 99
Brorok, Cape, 82
Brown, Robert, 265
Brunel, Olivier, 9
Brunn, Mount, 71
Buchan, David, 33, 157
Buchan Island, 211
Buddington, J. M., 245
Bulun, 124
Bunge, A., 126
Burrough Strait, 7
Bush, Henry, 129
Butcher's Island, 217
Byam Martin Island, 180
Bylot, Robert, 233
Cabot, Sebastian, 4, 5
Cagni, Umberto, 77, 284
Cambridge Bay, 177
Camden Bay, 177
_Carcass_, H.M.S., 29
Carlsen, Elling, 44, 58
Carlsen, Olaf, 65
_Castor_, The (boat), 166
Castor and Pollux River, 169, 208
Cathay Company, The, 218
Catherine, The Empress, 130
Cator, Lieutenant, 183
Cavendish thermometer, The, 30
Chamisso Island, 138
Chancellor, Richard, 5
Char, 44, 258
Charing Cross, 220
Charles's Foreland, Prince, 14
Chelagskoi, Cape, 108
Chelyuskin, Cape, 84
Cherie Island, 12
Chippewyan, Fort, 147, 152, 166
Christian Land, King, 185
Chukches, The, 89, 115, 127
Chvoinof, 106
Clavering Island, 268
Clerke, Charles, 136
_Clio borealis_, 268
Coal, 45, 249, 258
Collinson, Richard, 171, 175
Columbia, Cape, 257
Columbus visits Iceland, 3
Colwell, J. C., 279
Commander Islands, The, 135
Conferences, The Polar, 273
Confidence, Fort, 167
Conger, Fort, 273
Constitution, Cape, 236
Conway, William Martin, 47
Cook, James, 90, 136
Cookery-of-Haarlem, 25
Coppermine River, 147, 153, 159, 167
Cornwall, North, 185
Cornwallis Island, 180, 206
Coronation Gulf, 155
Countess of Warwick Island, 219, 222
Crow's Nest, The, 30
Crozier, F. R. M., 205, 212
Cumberland Gulf, 227
Dall, W. H., 142
Danes Island, 104
Danish Sound, 185
Davis, John, 9, 223
Davis Strait, 227
Dealy Island, 174, 180
Dease, Peter Warren, 158, 165
Dease River, 158, 159
Dease Strait, 168
Dee, Dr. John, 223
De Haven, Lieutenant, 183
De Long, G. W., 116
Deschnef, 85
Des Vœux, C. F., 212
Devon, North, 180
_Diana_, The, 44
Dickson Harbour, 85, 273
_Discovery_, H.M.S. (Cook), 136
_Discovery_, H.M.S. (Nares), 248
_Discovery_, The (Hudson), 233
Discovery Harbour, 250
Distillation apparatus, The, 30
_Dolphin_, The (boat), 157, 158
Dolphin and Union Strait, 159
_Dorothea_, H.M.S., 33
Dove Bay, 268
Drummond, Thomas, 157, 160
Dudley, Ambrose, 216
Dudley Digges Cape, 234
Durfourth, Captain, 5
Dyer, Cape, 227
East Cape, 132
Ebierbing and Tookoolito, 244
Edam, Land of, 268
Edge, Thomas, 15
Edge's Island, 15
_Edward Bonaventure_, The, 5
Egede, Hans, 259
Egede, Paul, 260
_Eira_, The, 72
_Elizabeth_, The, 232
_Ellen_, The, 231
Ellesmere Land, 235, 281
Ellis, John, 225
Elmwood, 103
Elson, Thomas, 137, 159
Elson Bay, 137
_Endeavour_, The (boat), 41
English Chief, 147
Entada bean, The, 44
Enterprise, Fort, 150
_Enterprise_, H.M.S., 171, 175
_Enterprise_, The (boat), 41
_Erebus_, H.M.S., 171, 183, 205
_Eric_, The, 283
Eric the Red, 2, 261
Ermine, 188
Eskimo relics, 277
Eskimos first met with, 217
Eskimos, Migration of the, 3
Eskimos, 3, 139, 140, 145, 152, 154, 157, 158, 159, 167, 168, 176, 192,
198, 200, 207, 211, 217, 222, 225, 229, 237, 244, 246, 258, 260,
277, 282, 283
Etah, 283
Evensen, Captain, 83
Exeter Sound, 227
_Express_, The, 87
_Falcon_, The, 281
Farewell, Cape, 271
Fedotof, 129
Felix Harbour, 197
_Felix_, The, 182
Fern, The first Spitsbergen, 43
Finlay Island, 185
Finlayson Islands, 177
Fish River, The Great, 160, 169
Fishes, 153, 176, 258
FitzJames, James, 212
Fligely, Cape, 70, 76
Floeberg Beach, 250
Flora, Cape, 72, 75, 103
Forsyth, C. C., 183
Fossils, 43, 107, 126, 173, 266
Foulke Harbour, 239
Fox, Arctic, 23, 53
Fox, Black, 144
Fox, Silver-grey, 144
_Fox_, The, 208
_Fram_, The, 91, 185
Franklin, Fort, 158
Franklin, John, 33, 149, 156, 195, 205
Franklin, Lady, 209, 235
Franklin Record, The, 212
Franklin Strait, 206
Franz Josef Fiord, 269
Franz Josef Land, 62, 64
_Fraser_, The, 87
Frazer, Cape, 236
Frederick Jackson Island, 99
Frederiksdal, 271
Frobisher Bay, 216
Frobisher, Martin, 215
Frozen Strait, 190
Fur-seal, The, 135
Fury Beach, 193, 202
Fury and Hecla Strait, 193
_Fury_, H.M.S., 191
_Gabriel_, The (Bering), 132
_Gabriel_, (Frobisher), 216, 218
Gabriel Islands, The, 221
Gardiner, Charles, 59
Garry, Fort, 165
_George_, The, 8
_Germania_, The, 267
Gibraltar Bay, Battle of, 58
Giffard, G. A., 255
Gilbert, Adrian, 223, 229
Gilbert, Humphrey, 215, 221
Gilbert Sound, 225
Gjöa, The, 214
Gjöahaven, 214
Glaciers, 16, 46, 68, 189, 242, 237, 244, 264
_Glow-worm_, The, 59
Godfrey, William, 236
Godthaab, 91, 225, 273
Godthaab Fiord, 260
Gore, Graham, 206, 212
Graah, W. A., 266
Graham Island, 185
Greely, A. W., 272
Greenland, 2, 14, 259
Greenland Archipelago, The, 282
Greenland, East, 12
_Greyhound_, The, 10
Griffith Island, 180
Grinnell Land, 236, 277, 281
_Griper_, H.M.S., 179, 202, 267
Gulf Stream, The, 13, 26, 44
Gundersen, Captain, 59
Gunnbiörn discovers Greenland, 2
Hakluyt Headland, 14
Hall Basin, 245
Hall, C. F., 213, 222, 244
Hall, Christopher, 216
Hall, James, 233
Hall Island, 68
Hall's Rest, 246
Hamilton, Cape, 174
Hans Hendrik, 237, 245, 249
_Hansa_, The, 267
Hare, 172, 176, 181, 186, 188, 283
Hare Fiord, 186
Hartstene Bay, 241
Hayes, I. I., 237
Hazen, Lake, 277
Hazen Land, 281
Hearne, Samuel, 147
Hecla, Cape, 282
_Hecla_, H.M.S., 40, 179, 191
Hedenström, 107
Heemskerck, Jacob van, 10, 49
Heer, Oswald, 266
Hegemann, Captain, 269
Heiberg Land, Axel, 185
Helluland, 3
Hendon, North, 197
Hendrik, Hans, 237, 245, 249
Hendriksen Sound, 185
Henrietta Island, 107
Henson, C., 284
Hepburn, John, 156, 207
_Herald_, H.M.S., 138
Herald Island, 116, 141
Herschel, Cape, 169, 212
Himkoff, Alexis, 26
Hinlopen Strait, 17
Hobson, W. R., 208, 212
Hohenlohe Island, 68
Hood River, The, 155
Hood, Robert, 149
Hooper, William Hulme, 140
Hope, Fort, 204
_Hope_, The (Young), 75
_Hope_, The (Egede), 260
Howgate, H. W., 274
Hudson Bay, 62
Hudson, Henry, 13, 15, 60
Hudson River, The, 61
Hudson Strait, 4, 62, 221, 232
Hudson's Bay Company, The, 146
Hudson's Touches, 14
Humboldt Glacier, The, 237
Hyaqua shell, The, 145
Icebergs, 35, 230, 264
Ice-drill, The, 30
Ice Haven, 49
Iceland, 2
Icy Cape, 136, 137
Igloolik, 193
Igloos, 198, 211
Ikmallik, 200
Independence Bay, 280
Inglefield, E. A., 235
Ingolf lands in Iceland, 2
Insects, 192, 281
International Polar Stations, The, 272
_Intrepid_, H.M.S., 183
_Investigator_, H.M.S., 171
Irkaipii, 89, 136
Irving, John, 212, 213
_Isabel_, The, 235
Isabella, Cape, 235
_Isabella_, The, 179, 202
Isachsen, Cape, 186
_Isbjörn_, The, 64
Jackman, Charles, 8, 60
Jackson, Frederick G., 75, 103
Jakobshavn, 266, 280
Jan Mayen, 14, 273
Japanese, The, 129, 133
_Jason_, The, 261
_Jeannette_, The, 91, 116, 141
Jeannette Island, 107
Jenkinson, Anthony, 7, 215
Jesup Land, 185
Joe and Hannah, 244
Johansen, F. H., 96
_John_, The, 196
Jones Sound, 234
Joseph Henry, Cape, 284
Journal, The, introduced, 5
_Judith_, The, 219
Julianehaab, 266
Kalutunah, 237
Kamchatka, 129
Kane, E. K., 236
Kane Sea, The, 235
Kara Sea, The, 7
Karmakul Bay, 273
Kay, E. C. Lister, 59
Kellett, Henry, 138, 174, 184
Kendall, E. N., 156
Kennedy Channel, 236
Kennedy, Port, 211
Kennedy, William, 183, 207
King, Richard, 160
Kingua, 273
King William Land, 163, 214
_Kite_, The, 280
Knight, John, 146
Kod-lun-arn, 223
Kola, 9, 12, 57
Koldewey, Karl, 267
Kolguiev, 8
Kolyuchin Bay, 90
Kompakova, The, 129
Kotelnoi Island, 106, 117
Kraechoj, 127
_Krusenstern_, The, 196
Kruzof Island, 134
Ku Mark Surka, 122
Kuriles, The, 133
Kutchins, The, 145
Labrador, Discovery of, 4
Labrets, 145
Lady Franklin, 183
Lady Franklin Bay, 250, 272
Lambert Land, 268
Lamont, James, 44
Lancaster Sound, 179, 180, 234
Lands Lokk, 186
Laptef, Dmitri, 85
Laptef, Khariton, 84
Leif lands in America, 3
Lemming, 188
_Lena_, The, 87
Lena Delta, The, 106
Liakhoff, 89, 106
Liakhoff Island, 89, 126
Lichens, 156
Lifeboat Cove, 247
Linschoten, Van, 10
_Lion_, The (boat), 157, 158
Little Table Island, 41
Lock, Michael, 61, 216
Lockwood, James B., 272, 275
Lockwood Island, 276
Log, The, introduced, 5
Long, G. W. De, 116
Long, Thomas, 141
Loschkin, S., 62
Louis Napoleon, Cape, 235
Ludlow, 62
Lunar at sea, The first, 17
Lundstrom, 85
Lütke, 63
Lutwidge, Skeffington, 29
Lyon, George Francis, 191, 202
Mackenzie, Alexander, 147
Mackenzie River, Discovery of, 148
Macintoshes, The first, 157
M'Clintock, F. L., 184, 208, 248, 268
M'Clintock, Cape, 99
M'Clure, Robert Le M., 171, 177
McCormick Bay, 280
McKay, James, 161
_Magnet_, The (boat), 204
Magnetic North Pole, 214
Mahlemut labret, The, 145
Mammals, Fossil, 126
Mammoth, 107, 115, 126
Markham, A. H., 247, 249
Markland, 3
Marten skins, 144
Martens, F., 25
Mary Harmsworth, Cape, 75
_Mary Margaret_, The, 15
Matiuschkin, 108
_Matthew_, The, 4
Matty Island, 201
Matyushin Shar, 60
May, William H., 256
Melville Bay, 234
Melville, G. W., 117
Melville Island, 174, 176, 180
Melville Peninsula, 192, 205
Merchant Adventurers, The, 5
_Mercury_, The, 9
Mercy Bay, 174
_Mermaid_, The, 229
Meta Incognita, 219
_Michael_, The, 216
Middendorf Glacier, The, 68
Middleton, Christopher, 190
Mistaken Streight, 221
Moloi, 106
Montreal Island, 162, 169, 206, 212
Moons, Mock, 151
_Moonshine_, The, 224, 229
Moore, Thomas E. L., 138
Moose-hunting, 144
Moravians, The, 261
Morton, William, 236, 245
Moss, E. L., 254
Moss Point, 284
Mossel Bay, 44, 45, 273
Moxon, Joseph, 285
Murchison, Cape, 197
Murchison River, 208
Muscovy Company, The, 6, 13, 15, 17, 60, 233
Musk ox, 126, 172, 181, 188, 248, 267, 283
Nai, Cornelis, 9
_Nancy Dawson_, The, 139
Nansen, Fridtjof, 91, 261
Nares, G. S., 248
Narwhal, 31, 188, 219
Nassau, Cape, 9
Navy Cliff, 280
Nelson, Horatio, 29
_Neptune_, The, 277
Newfoundland, Discovery of, 4
Newman Bay, 283
New Siberian Islands, The, 88, 106
Nindemann, 118
Nordenskiöld, Adolf Erik, 43, 44, 85, 263
Noros, 118
Norsemen discover America, 2
Northbrook Island, 100
North Cape, The, 6, 89, 136
North East Land, 26
North-East Passage, The, 5, 85
Northern Passage, The, 5
_North Pole_, The (boat), 204
North Pole, Magnetic, 214
_North Star_, The, 229
North Water, The, 234
North-West Fur Company, The, 147
North-West Passage, The, 5
Norton Sound, 142
Nova Kholmogory, 9
Novaya Zemlya, 7, 9, 49
Nulato, 142
Ny Herrnhut, 261
Obi, The, 85
Observation, Mount, 172
Ochotsk, 129
Ommanney, Erasmus, 183
Omoki, The, 115
Ooligbuck the Eskimo, 157, 158, 168
Oraefa, Mount, 2
Orleans, Duke of, 268
Osborn, Sherard, 183
Ostiaks, The, 115
_Otaria_, The, 105
Pachtussoff, 63
_Pandora_, The, 116
Parhelia, 152
Parker Bay, 171
Parr, Alfred A. C., 255
Parry, William Edward, 40, 178, 179, 191, 234
Parry Falls, The, 163
_Patience_, The, 233
Patrick Island, Prince, 174, 184
Pavy, O., 275
Payer, Julius, 64
Peary Channel, 280
Peary, Robert E., 185, 186, 280
Peel Sound, 206
Pellham, Edward, 18
Pelly Bay, 207
Pelly Point, 171
Pendulum Island, 267
Penny Strait, 206
Penny, William, 183
Pet, Arthur, 7, 60
Pet Strait, 8
Peter the Great, 130
Petermann Fiord, 248
Petermann, Mount, 269
Petersen Bay, 214
Petersen, C., 208
Petropaulovsk, 134
Phipps, The Hon. Constantine John, 29
Pim, Bedford, 174
_Pioneer_, H.M.S., 183
Plants, 43, 88, 91, 113, 114, 156, 192, 248, 264, 266, 281
_Plover_, H.M.S., 138
Point Lake, 153
Point Victory, 206
Polar Stations, The International, 272, 273
_Polaris_, The, 245
_Polhem_, The, 44
_Pollux_, The (boat), 166
Poole, Jonas, 13, 15
Porcupine River, The, 142
Pospeloff, 62
Pribylov Islands, The, 135
_Prince Albert_, The, 183, 207
Prince of Wales, Cape, 136
Prince of Wales Strait, 172, 176
_Proeven_, The, 85
Pronchistschef, 85
_Proteus_, The, 274, 278
_Protococcus nivalis_, 192
Prudhoe Land, 234
Pullen, W. J. S., 139
Quennerstedt, A., 43
_Racehorse_, H.M.S., 29
_Racer_, The, 183
Rae, Fort, 273
Rae, John, 170, 204, 207
Rae Strait, 208, 214
Raleigh, Mount, 227
Rat River, The, 142
_Ravenscraig_, The, 247
Rawlings Bay, 241
Rawson, Wyatt, 257
Red snow, 192
Regent Inlet, Prince, 180
_Regina_, The, 59
Reikjavik founded, 2
Reindeer, 10, 18, 23, 27, 28, 60, 109, 150, 169, 172, 174, 176, 181,
188, 267, 283
Reindeer, White, 61, 283
Reliance, Fort, 160
_Reliance_, The (boat), 158
Rensselaer Harbour, 235, 236
Repulse Bay, 191, 204, 207
_Resolute_, H.M.S., 175, 183, 184
_Resolution_, H.M.S., 136
_Resolution_, The (whaler), 31
Return Reef, 159, 166
Rhinoceros, 126
Richardson, John, 149, 156, 170
Richthofen Peak, 71
Rijp, Jan Corneliszoon, 11, 57
Ringnes Islands, The, 185
Ritenbenk, 249
Robeson Channel, 245
Rocky Mountains first crossed, 149
_Rodgers_, The, 141
_Roosevelt_, The, 282
Rosmysslof, 62
Ross, James Clark, 41, 181, 201
Ross, John, 179, 182, 194, 234
Rudolf Island, Prince, 75, 76, 82
Hudson's Point, 14
Russell, Cape, 235
Ryder, Lieut., 266
Sabine, Edward, 181, 267
Sabine, Cape, 235
Sable, The, 135
Sagastyr Island, 273
St. Elias, Cape, 134
St. Elias, Mount, 136
St. Lawrence Bay, 141
St. Lawrence Island, 132
_St. Paul_, The, 134
_St. Peter_, The, 134
_Salmo arcturus_, 258
Salmon trout, 176
_Salutation_, The, 18
Samoyeds, The, 10, 115
Sanderson's Hope, 232
Sanderson, William, 224
Sannikof, 107
Schley, Winfield S., 278
Schonau Island, 70
Schwatka, Frederick, 213
Scoresby, William, the elder, 30
Scoresby, William, the younger, 31, 129, 266
Seal, The Fur, 135
Seals, 31, 88
Sea-otter, The, 135
_Searchthrift_, The, 7
Semonovski Island, 117
Serdze Kamen, Cape, 90, 132, 136
Seven Islands, The, 40
Shackleton, Cape, 233
Shantar Islands, The, 130
Sheathing for ships introduced, 5
Shedden, Robert, 139
Sheridan, Cape, 283
Siberia, 84, 106
Siberian Islands, The, 88, 106
Silver Bay, 63
Simmons Peninsula, 188
Simpson, Sir George, 165
Simpson, Thomas, 165
Simpson Strait, 168, 206, 214
Sinclair, George, 166
Sirovatskof, 107
Sitka Sound, 134
Sledges and sledge-work, 184, 252
Smeerenberg, 24
Smith, Benjamin Leigh, 44, 72
Smith Sound, 234, 235
Snow, William Parker, 183
Snow houses, 198, 211
Sodankyla, 273
_Sofia_, The, 44
Somerset House, 202
Somerset, North, 180
Sonntag, August, 242
_Sophia_, The, 183
Spangberg, Martin, 131
Spinks, Robert, 37, 158
Spitsbergen, 12, 15, 16, 18, 24, 104
Steamship, The first Arctic, 194
_Stella Polare_, The, 76
Sterlegof, Cape, 85
Stoat, 188
Stolbovoi, 107
Stuxberg, 85
_Sunshine_, The, 224, 229, 232
Sverdrup, Otto, 104, 185, 261
Svjatoi Nos, 89
Tanana, The, 144
Tananas, The, 145
_Tegetthoff_, The, 64
Teplitz Bay, 69, 77
_Terror_, H.M.S., 171, 183, 203, 205
Thaddeus Island, 107, 117
_Thames_, The, 87
Thermometer, The deep-sea, 30
_Thetis_, The, 278
Thirkill, Launcelot, 4
_Thomasine_, The, 16
Thorne, Robert, 5
Tiger, 126
_Tigress_, The, 247
Toll, Baron E., 126
Torell, Otto, 43
_Trent_, H.M.S., 33
Treurenberg Bay, 40
Tripe-de-roche, 156
Tschirikof, Alexei, 131
Tundra, The, 86, 113
Turnagain, Point, 155, 167
Tyndall Glacier, 244
Umivik, 262
_Union_, The (boat), 157, 158
_United States_, The, 239
Upernivik, 232
_Valorous_, H.M.S., 248
Veer, Gerrit de, 10, 49
_Vega_, The, 87
Victoria, Cape, 211
Victoria Land, 168
Victoria Sea, Queen, 75
Victoria Strait, 206
_Victory_, The, 194
Victory, Point, 212
Vinland, 3
Vlamingh, Willem de, 62
Vrangel', Ferdinand, 108
Wager River, 190
Waigatz Island, 7
Wainwright Inlet, 139
Walden Island, 40
Walker Bay, 176
_Walnut Shell_, The (boat), 157, 159
Walrus, 12, 13, 20, 31, 34, 57, 73, 82, 88, 93, 101
Walsingham, Francis, 224, 229, 231
Washington Irving Island, 250
Welden, Captain, 13
Wellington Channel, 180
Wentzel, 150, 151, 154
West England, 220
Weyprecht, K., 64, 272
Whale fishery, The, 15, 17
Whale, Greenland, 14, 15, 31, 265
Whale Island, 148
Whale, White, 88, 148, 188
Whaling trade begins, 15
White Man's Island, 223
White Sea, The, 6
White Shirt, 2
Whymper, Edward, 266
Whymper, Frederick, 142
Wiggins, Joseph, 87
Wijde Bay, 17
Wilberforce Falls, The, 155
Wilczek Island, 66
William Land, King, 163, 214
_William_, The, 8
Willoughby, Sir Hugh, 5
_Windward_, The, 76, 103
Winter Harbour, 174, 181
Winter Island, 192
_Winthont_, The, 10
Wollaston Land, 158
Wolstenholme, Cape, 234
Wolverine, 144
Women Islands, The, 233
Wrangell, Ferdinand Von, 108
Wrangell Island, 116, 141
Yakuts, The, 115
Yalmal, 85
Yenesei, The, 85
_Ymer_, The, 87
Young, Allen, 75, 116, 208, 213
Young's Foreland, 14
Yugor Strait, 8
Yukon, Fort, 142, 144
Yukon, The, 142
PLYMOUTH
WILLIAM BRENDON AND SON, LTD.
PRINTERS
TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES
1. Silently corrected simple spelling, grammar, and typographical
errors.
2. Retained anachronistic and non-standard spellings as printed.
3. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.
4. Superscripts are denoted by a carat before a single superscript
character or a series of superscripted characters enclosed in curly
braces, e.g. M^r. or M^{ister}.
End of Project Gutenberg's Round About the North Pole, by W. J. Gordon