Arctic exploration.
During almost four hundred years efforts have been made by
European navigators to discover a passage for vessels through the
Arctic seas to
India.
The stories of Marco Polo
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of the magnificent countries in
Eastern Asia and adjacent islands —
Cathay and Zipangi,
China and
Japan--stimulated desires to accomplish such a passage.
The Cabots [
John Cabot;
Sebastian Cabot (q. v.)] went in the direction of the pole, northwestward, at or near the close of the fifteenth century, and penetrated as far north as 67° 30′, or half-way up to (present)
Davis Strait.
The next explorers were the brothers Cortereal, who made three voyages in that direction, 1500-02.
In 1553
Sir Hugh Willoughby set out to find a northwest passage to
India, but was driven back from
Nova Zembla, and perished on the shore of
Lapland.
In 1576-78
Martin Frobisher made three voyages to find a northwest passage into the
Pacific Ocean, and discovered the entrance to
Hudson Bay.
Between 1585 and 1587
John Davis discovered the strait that bears his name.
The
Dutch made strenuous efforts to discover a northeast passage.
Willem Barentz (q. v.) made three voyages in that direction in 1594-96, and perished on his third voyage.
Henry Hudson tried to round the north of
Europe and
Asia in 1607-08, but failed, and, pushing for the lower latitudes of the
American coast, discovered the river that bears his name.
While on an expedition to discover a northwest passage, he found
Hudson Bay, and perished (1610) on its bosom.
In 1616
Baffin explored the bay called by his name, and entered the mouth of
Lancaster Sound.
After that, for fifty years, no navigator went so far north in that direction.
In 1720 the Hudson Bay Company sent
Captains Knight and
Barlow to search for a northwest passage to
India.
They sailed with a ship and sloop, and were never heard of afterwards.
In 1741
Vitus Bering discovered the strait that bears his name, having set sail from a port in Kamtchatka.
In that region
Bering perished.
Russian navigators tried in vain to solve the problem.
Between 1769 and 1772
Samuel Hearne made three overland journeys in
America to the
Arctic Ocean.
The British government having, in 1743, offered $100,000 to the crew who should accomplish a northwest passage, stimulated efforts in that direction.
Captain Phipps (Lord Mulgrave) attempted to reach the north pole in 1773; and before setting out on his last voyage (1776),
Captain Cook was instructed to attempt to penetrate the polar sea by
Bering Strait.
He went only as far as 70° 45′. In 1817
Captain Ross and
Lieutenant Parry sailed for the polar sea from
England; and the same year
Captain Buchan and
Lieutenant (Sir John)
Franklin went in an easterly direction on a similar errand, namely, to reach the north pole.
At this time the chief object of these explorations was scientific, and not commercial.
Buchan and
Franklin went by way of Spitzbergen; but they only penetrated to 80° 34′.
Ross and
Parry entered
Lancaster Sound, explored its coasts, and
Ross returned with the impression that it was a bay.
Parry did not agree with him in this opinion, and he sailed on a further exploration in 1819.
He advanced farther in that direction than any mariner before him, and approached the magnetic pole, finding the compass of little use. On Sept. 4, 1819,
Parry announced to his crew that they were entitled to $20,000 offered by Parliament for reaching so westerly a point in that region, for they had passed the 110th meridian.
There they were frozen in for about a year.
Parry sailed again in 1821.
Meanwhile an overland expedition, led by
Franklin, had gone to co-operate with
Parry.
They were absent from home about three years, travelled over 5,000 miles, and accomplished nothing.
They had endured great suffering.
Parry, also, accomplished nothing, and returned in October, 1823.
Other English expeditions followed in the same direction, by land and water.
Sir John Franklin and others went overland, and
Parry by sea, on a joint expedition, and
Captain Beechey was sent around
Cape Horn to enter
Bering Strait and push eastward to meet
Parry.
Franklin explored the
North American coast, but nothing else was accomplished by these expeditions.
Mr. Scoresby, a whaleman.
and his son, had penetrated to 81° N. lat, in 1806.
His experience led him to advise an expedition with boats fixed on sledges, to be easily dragged on the ice. With an expedition so fitted out.
Captain Parry sailed for the polar waters in 1827.
This expedition was a failure.
Captain Ross was in the polar waters again from May, 1829, until the midsummer of 1833.
The party had been given up as
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lost.
Another party had started in search of
Ross, explored the north coast of
America, and discovered Victoria Land.
Other land expeditions followed; and one, under
Dr. John Rae, completed a survey of the north coast of the
American continent in the spring of 1847.
Sir John Franklin yet believed a northwest passage possible.
With two vessels — the
Erebus and
Terror--each fitted with a small steam-engine and screw-propeller, he sailed from
England May 19, 1845.
They were seen by a whale-ship, in July, about to enter
Lancaster Sound, and were never heard of afterwards.
The British government despatched three expeditions in search of them in 1848. One of them was an overland expedition under
Sir John Richardson, who traversed the northern coast of
America 800 miles, in 1848, without finding
Franklin.
The sea expedition was equally unfortunate.
Dr. Rae failed in an overland search in 1850. Three more expeditions were sent out by the
British government in search in 1850; and from
Great Britain five others were fitted out by private means.
One was also sent by the United States government, chiefly at the cost of
Henry Grinnell, a New York merchant.
It was commanded by
Lieutenant De Haven, of the navy.
There were two ships, the
Advance and
Rescue.
Dr. E. K. Kane was surgeon and naturalist of the expedition.
It was unsuccessful, and returned in 1851.
Lady Franklin, meanwhile, had been sending out expeditions in search of her husband, and the
British government and British navigators made untiring efforts to find the lost explorers, but in vain.
Another American expedition, under
Dr. Kane, made an unsuccessful search.
In a scientific point of view,
Dr. Kane's expedition obtained the most important results.
It is believed that he saw an open polar sea; and to find that sea other American expeditions sailed under
Dr. I. I. Hayes, a member of
Kane's expedition, and
Capt. Chas. F. Hall.
The latter returned to the
United States in 1860, and
Dr. Haves in 1861.
Hall sailed again in 1864, and returned in 1869.
The
Germans and
Swedes now sent expeditions in that direction.
In 1869
Dr. Haves again visited the polar waters.
The same year.
and for some time afterwards, several expeditions were sent out from the continent of
Europe.
Finally, by the help of Congress,
Captain Hall was enabled to sail, with a well-furnished company, in the ship
Polaris, for the polar seas, in June, 1871.
In October
Hall left the vessel, and started northward on a sledge expedition.
On his return he suddenly sickened and died, and the
Polaris returned without accomplishing much.
The passage from the coast of
western Europe, around the north of that continent and of
Asia, into the
Pacific Ocean, was first accomplished in the summer of 1879, by
Professor Nordenskjold, an accomplished
Swedish explorer, in the steamship
Vega.
She passed through
Bering Strait into the
Pacific Ocean, and reached
Japan in the first week in September.
Thus the great problem has been solved.
the
Jeannette,
Lieutenant De Long, an American exploring vessel, was lost on the coast of
Siberia, in 1881.
The most important of the recent expeditions into Arctic legions by
Americans are those of
Lieut. (now
Brig.-Gen.)
Adolphus W. Greely and of
Lieut. Robert E. Peary (
qq.
v.), who has made several voyages into northern waters, and in 1900 was still there.
Lieutenant Greely was sent from the
United States in 1881, by the government, charged with establishing a series of stations about the pole for the purpose of observation.
Lieutenants Lockwood and
Brainard, of his force, succeeded in establishing a station on a small island in 83° 24′ N., and until 1896 this was the most northern point ever reached by an explorer.
Greely's vessel became icebound, and for two years the members of the expedition passed a miserable existence.
Many died.
The survivors were rescued just as the last six of the expedition were dying of hunger, by
Lieutenant Peary, in charge of two government vessels, sent by the
United States to the relief of
Greely in 1882.
Lieutenant Peary made other voyages to the
Arctic waters in 1895 and 1897.
Dr. Fridtjof Nansen, of
Norway, in 1896, succeeded in getting within 200 miles of the north pole, and returned in safety with all of his companions.
He sailed from Christiania in 1893, and his plan differed much from that of others.
He thought that if he could get his vessel caught in the ice the
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current would carry him to the pole.
He reached lat, 86° 15′ N. In 1896 a Swedish explorer,
Major Andree, planned to reach the pole in a balloon, but after making elaborate plans gave up the venture.
On July 12, 1897, however, he embarked again on his enterprise, all conditions being favorable for his success; but up to the end of 1900 nothing reliable had been heard of the expedition, and it was generally believed that the bold voyager had been lost.
In 1889-1900 the
Duke of
Abruzzi reached lat, 86° 33′ N.
