FOOTNOTES

[1] Névé is the upper portion of a glacier, the top layers of which are more nearly in the condition of snow, and in the whole of which much air is mingled with the ice. It is rather frozen snow than ice.

[2] Dr Rink gives a list of 25 discharging glaciers. Of these, beginning from the south, the principal ones are:

[3] It takes a very long time for lichens to form. The bones of the ptarmigan which Sir Edward Barry and his party had eaten on Melville Island in 1820 were clean and free from any growth when found 30 years afterwards.

[4] I paid very special attention to the vestiges of these wanderers when I served in those regions. All the articles mentioned were found by myself in 1851.

[5] By Colonel Feilden in 1877.

[6] Found by Dr O. Stolberg. Nansen, 11, 72.

[7] Studies on the Material Culture of the Eskimo in West Greenland (Kjøbenhavn, 1915), Morten P. Porsild.

[8] The work of Pytheas was known to Dicaearchus, a pupil of Aristotle, and the date of the voyage was, therefore, probably not later than the time of Aristotle.

[9] The word Thule, in its forms Thyle, Thull, Tell, means ‘a limit’ in ancient Saxon; and we thus have Telemarken in Norway.

[10] Pliny and Diodorus Siculus.

[11] The name of Viking is derived from Vik, a bay or creek, and the patronymic Ing, i.e. “Children of the bays,” whence they sallied forth as sea rovers.

[12] The mausar, which was highly prized, may have been some kind of maple or birch.

[13] According to the Flatey book, Bjarni, the son of Herjulf, was in Norway when his father left Iceland to settle in Greenland. Hearing this when he came to Iceland, he continued his voyage to join his father. He is said to have discovered a new land before reaching his father’s homestead in Herjulfsfjord. This led to the voyage of Leif to visit the newly-discovered land. The two stories in the Hauk book and the Flatey book are so different that they cannot be fitted together, and it is necessary to adopt one and reject the other. That in the Hauk book is the older, the more coherent, and probably nearer to the truth.

[14] Professor Rafn, and those who have followed him, thought Dagmalastad and Eyktarstad denoted hours of the day, and that the former was 8 a.m. and the latter 4 p.m. This gave nine hours for the duration of the shortest day, which would be in latitude 42° 21′ N. But Dagmal and Eykt were points of the horizon, not hours of the day. The Norsemen had no means of knowing the hours. In 1885 Professor Gustav Storm gave the correct interpretation of the passage, and showed that the position must have been south of 49° N., but not far to the south of that latitude. The inhabitants met with by the Norsemen in Markland and called by them Skrællings are held by Tholbitzer to have been Eskimos. In Vinland the natives appear to have been Algonquin Indians.

[15] The different events which, according to the Hauk book, occurred in Karlsefni’s voyage, are scattered over several voyages in the Flatey book, the companions of Karlsefni being made the leaders of separate expeditions at different times. There is a voyage of Thorstein which failed, a voyage of Thorwald who was killed by Skrællings, a voyage of Karlsefni, and a voyage of Fredis in company with two brothers whom he murdered. The two accounts are contradictory as regards some of the details.

[16] The Kakortak ruin was discovered by Hans Egede in 1723. It was visited by Lieut. Graah in 1827 who first described it, with careful measurements. It was again visited by Sir Leopold M’Clintock in 1860.

[17] These are recorded in the Icelandic annals, which commence in 1260. Another series is appended to the Flatey book and dates from 1395.

[18] A Norse festival which falls on April 28th.

[19] In 1246.

[20] July 25th.

[21] Antiq. Amer. XXXIX.

[22] The sailing directions of Ivar Bardsen were published in English by Purchas, from a copy which had belonged to Henry Hudson. Rafn, in the Antiquitates Americanae, gave the text of an early copy found in the Faroes, with a Latin translation. Mr Major, in his Voyages of the Zeni, gives an English translation of the Latin version.

[23] We learn this from a parchment MS., known as the Skalholt Annals, believed to have been written in 1347.

[24] The drawings by Christianised Eskimos of Godthaab which have been printed, and are supposed to represent traditions about their conquest of the Norsemen, merely represent what the Danes told them.

[25] Vigdis M.d. hvilir her glede gud sal hennar.

[26] Voyages of the Brothers Zeni, by F. W. Lucas (Stevens, 1897).

[27] There are several astrolabes in the British Museum, one of 1280, another of 1342; one at King’s College, Cambridge (1540); two at Gonville and Caius College, one of early 14th century date, the other, rather later, formerly belonged to Caius himself; one at South Kensington (1374); one at Oriel College, Oxford, in rather bad condition; three at Merton College, one of 1350, another 1571, and a third very heavy one. At Merton there is also a very old quadrant of 12-inch radius, and a small disc of brass with pointers. At the Bodleian there is a Persian astrolabe. Mr Hyett’s astrolabe at Painswick House has 21 stars marked and one ring at the back; 36 festivals are marked. The number of English Saints shows it to be English. The interesting astrolabe which belonged to Sir Francis Drake is at Greenwich, its date is 1572. It belonged to the Earl of Chesterfield, who gave it to the Rev. T. Bigsby in 1783. Mr Bigsby gave it to King William IV, who presented it to Greenwich in 1833.

[28] Father of Sir Philip Sidney, and of Robert, 1st Earl of Leicester of that family.

[29] The first wife of Sir Henry Willoughby, Sir Hugh’s father, was Margaret, daughter of Sir Robert Markham of Cotham. His third wife was Ellen, daughter of John Egerton of Winehill in Cheshire. Sir Henry had four wives. His effigy on the monument at Wollaton has two small wives on each side.

[30] Besides Willoughby there were a master and his mate, six merchants, a master gunner, a boatswain and his mate, a carpenter, a purser, two surgeons, and 20 men.

[31] Moxon (1676) places Willoughby Land near the south-east corner of Spitsbergen. On the map in Harris’s voyage (1748) it is an island half-way between Spitsbergen and Novaya Zemlya.

[32] I believe this is now in Lord Salisbury’s collection at Hatfield.

[33] Reproduced by kind permission of the publisher, from Dr A. D. de Vries’s Oud-Holland (Binger, 1882).

[34] Found by Purchas among the papers of Hakluyt, v. ante, p. 51.

[35] An excellent English edition of the voyage of Linschoten to the East Indies in two vols. was printed for the Hakluyt Society in 1885; edited by Mr Arthur C. Burnell and Mr Tiele of Utrecht.

[36] Linschoten wrote a very interesting account of this voyage with Tetgales in 1594.

[37] Linschoten’s narrative of this second voyage was published in 1601, the 3rd edition in 1638. On his return Linschoten settled at Enkhuizen and became Treasurer of the town. Here he was the friend of Lucas Waghenaer, author of the best sailing directions of that time. Linschoten published a translation of the History of the West Indies, by Acosta. He died in 1611, aged 48. De Veer wrote an account of the proceedings of Barentsz’s ship during the second voyage.

[38] In 1603 Stephen Bennet came to the same island and named it Cherrie Island, after his patron Sir Francis Cherrie, an Adventurer of the Russia Company.

[39] The schuit was a larger boat.

[40] The narrative of Gerrit de Veer was translated and edited for the Hakluyt Society by Dr Beke in 1852. A new edition was edited, at my request, by that gallant young Dutch Arctic officer Koolemans Beynen in 1876.

[41] Another Norwegian Captain named Gundersen reached the Ice Haven of Barentsz in August 1875.

[42] These relics were deposited in the model room of the Naval Department at the Hague.

[43] State Paper Office, Holland, lxxvii.

[44] Maldonado, a Spaniard, published an account of a navigable strait, called the Strait of Anian, from the east side of America to the Pacific, coming out north of Cape Mendocino in California.

[45] Chancellor had used the cross-staff. Frobisher had been supplied with a similar instrument called a “ballestilla,” which he used in preference to the astrolabe, both being among the instruments and charts bought at a cost of £47. 0s. 8d. of Humphrey Cole and others. The cross-staff was described by Gemma Frisius, and Gunter’s was a yard long, with a cross-piece of 26½ inches. The staff, which was of wood, was graduated, and the cross-piece was moved along it until, looking through the sight near the eye, the two objects were covered of which the angle was to be measured. In observing for the latitude the two objects were the sun and the horizon, the angle giving the altitude.

[46] The authorities for the Arctic voyages of Frobisher are first the interesting narrative of George Best (Hakluyt, III) and the narrative of Dionise Settle (Hakluyt, III); Christopher Hall’s account in the Harl. MSS. 167, fol. 165; the Journal of the Judith, Harl. MSS. 167, fol 41; Edward Sellman, Narrative of Thomas Ellis (Hakluyt, III); State Papers (Dom., Eliz.). Admiral Sir Richard Collinson edited the Voyages of Frobisher for the Hakluyt Society. There is a well written and painstaking life of Sir Martin Frobisher by the Rev. Frank Jones (Longman, 1878).

[47] Mr Miller Christy very thoroughly investigated the question of the Land of Busse, and wrote an exhaustive monograph on the subject. See Hakluyt Society’s No. XCVI, Appendix B.

[48] The following names were given by Frobisher to places discovered on his voyages:—

[49] It must be remembered that Davis was entirely ignorant of the Norse colony and of the Icelandic Sagas, which were only brought to light by Professor Rafn in our own day.

[50] The narratives of the first and third voyages were written by Mr Janes, those of the second by Davis himself. They are all in Hakluyt, and, with the other writings of Davis, have been edited for the Hakluyt Society by Admiral Sir Albert Markham. The present writer’s life of Davis, which records his great services in much more detail than is here possible, was published in 1889.

[51] An account of the contents of The Seaman’s Secrets is given in the present writer’s life of Davis, and it is printed in extenso in Admiral Sir Albert Markham’s Voyages of John Davis.

[52] This is now in the Museum at Greenwich.

[53] The following names were given by John Davis in the Arctic regions.

[54] A portrait of Sir Thomas Smith was engraved by Simon de Passe, dated 1617. The engraving is bound up in T. Grenville’s copy of the Embassy to Russia and in a book called the Surgeon’s Mate, which is dedicated to Sir Thomas. By his wife Sarah, daughter of William Blunt, who married secondly Robert Sidney Earl of Leicester, Sir Thomas had a son, Sir John Smith, who married a daughter of Sir Philip Sidney’s “Stella” and his son Robert married Waller’s “Sacharissa.”

[55] The works of Leonard Digges were edited and published by his son: Tectonicum, a book on land-surveying (4to, 1556), Pantometria, a geometrical treatise (folio, 1591).

[56] Thomas Digges wrote Alæ sive Scalæ Mathematicæ (4to, 1573), Arithmetical Military Treatise (4to, 1579), Stvatioticos, a geometrical treatise necessary for the practice of soldiers (4to, 1590), with an account of the proceedings of the Earl of Leicester for the relief of Sluys, also Description of the Celestial Orbs (1599), and England’s Defence (folio, 1686).

[57] The eldest son, Thomas Digges, succeeded to Chilham and died in 1687. His son Leonard died in 1718 leaving a son Thomas, whose second son West Digges was a celebrated comedian. Chilham was finished in 1616 and the names of Sir Dudley Digges and his wife Mary Kempe are carved over the door.

[58] See the writer’s volume The Voyages of Sir James Lancaster to the East Indies, edited for the Hakluyt Society in 1877.

[59] Purchas calls her the Frost.

[60] Mount Kakatsiak.

[61] Cape Sophia is Proestefjeld (1170 ft.), just north of Holsteinborg.

[62] Amerdluk Fjord, or Itivdlek, in the opinion of Steenstrup.

[63] In 1881 I first drew attention to a manuscript Report to the King of Denmark in the British Museum, with 4 maps (21 leaves, small 4to). It was printed for the first time in the Hakluyt Society’s volumes on Danish Expeditions. Probably when Hall left Denmark he did not send it in, but took it with him and presented it to James I.

[64] This search was undertaken by the kindness of the late Colonel Chester. In the Parish Register of St Margaret’s, Westminster, Richard, son of John Baffin, was baptised on Sept. 30th, 1603, Joseph, Elizabeth, and William Baffin died of the plague in 1609, and Margaret Baffin, a child, was buried on June 8th, 1612. In the Register of the church of St Thomas Apostle, in the City, there is one entry of the name: Susan, daughter of William Baffin, was baptised on 15th Oct. 1609. This church was burnt in the great fire, and was not rebuilt.

[65] John Gatonby may have been a native of Winestead, for he dedicated his narrative (in Churchill’s Voyages) to Sir Christopher Hildyard of that place. Gatonby was a well-known Hull name. I have failed to find any further trace of young Huntriss, the Scarborough lad, though the name still exists in that town.

[66] Incorrectly called Cocken Sound on old maps.

[67] Navigation Instructor and for many years Map Curator to the Royal Geographical Society.

[68] Andrew Barker was an experienced seaman. He was admitted a younger brother of the Hull Trinity House in 1594, and was three times Warden. He presented one of the lights of the stained glass in the East window of the Chapel of the old Trinity House at Hull, a figure of St James the Less. There still hangs in the hall of the House the kayak presented by Barker.

[69] The names given in Greenland by Hall are as follows; those while with the Danish Expedition are marked (D). The persons after whom the places were named are given in brackets.

[70] See An Historical Enquiry concerning Henry Hudson, by John Meredith Read (Albany, 1856).

[71] See my Life of John Davis, p. 29.

[72] Engroneland.

[73] Purchas, III, p. 464, reprinted by Asher in his Hudson’s Voyages, p. 146. Among some protests of the Muscovy Company against Dutch encroachments, in the State Paper Office, there is one by a Captain Millworth in which Hudson’s Touches is mentioned.

[74] The following were the names of the crew: Henry Hudson (Master), and his son John Hudson, Robert Juet (Master’s Mate), Arnold Ladley (Mate), John Cooke (Boatswain), Philip Stacey (Carpenter), John Braunch (Cook), John Barnes, John Adrey, James Scrutton, Michael Pearce (or Pierce), Thomas Hilles, Richard Tonson, Robert Rayne, and Humphrey Gilby.

[75] “We were against Fair Foreland in 79° N.” [north end of Prince Charles Island]. “The night was very clear with fair weather, also calm, by which I had a very good opportunity to find the sun’s refraction. For beholding it about a north-north-east sun, by a common compass, at which time the sun was at the lowest, it was but one-fifth of his body above the horizon, having about four-fifth parts below, so near as I could guess. His declination for that instant was 10° 35′ N., being at noon in the 2° 7′ of Virgo, his daily motion was 58′ whose half being twenty-nine, to be added to the former, because it was at twelve hours after noon. I say his place at the instant was 2° 26′ of Virgo, whose declination was as before 10° 35′; the latitude of the place was 78° 47′ whose complement was 11° 13′ the declination being subtracted from the complement of the pole’s elevation, leaveth 38′, four-five part of which 12′, which being subtracted from 38 leaveth 26′ for refraction. But I suppose the refraction is more or less according as the air is thick or clear, which I leave for better scholars to discuss; but this I thought good to note for the better help of those who do profess this study.”

[76] In December 1615, Captain Joseph was appointed to command the fleet of the East India Company, consisting of the Charles and Unicorn (the Journal is in the India Office, No. 20). In 1617 he was slain in a fight with a Portuguese carrack. His widow received a pension.

[77] The family of Fotherby was from Grimsby. Martin Fotherby of Grimsby had two sons, Charles, Dean of Canterbury, who died in 1619, and Martin, Bishop of Salisbury. There is an elaborate tomb of the Dean in Canterbury Cathedral. Robert Fotherby was of the same family. His narratives of his three Spitsbergen voyages show that he had received a classical education, was observant, intelligent, and a thorough seaman. He afterwards entered the service of the East India Company, probably made one voyage to India, and was agent to the company at Deptford and in 1621 at Blackwall. He probably died in that employment.

[78] In 1617 Captain Marmaduke proposed to the King that he should be employed to make the north-east passage, but I have failed to discover anything more of his history.

[79] Since found to be three islands; the proper name of the group being Wyche Islands.

[80] For instance Wyche’s Sound, discovered by Baffin and Fotherby in 1614, if not by Marmaduke in 1612, is now called Wijde Bay, a name, as Sir Martin Conway has pointed out, that was never heard of before 1670.

[81] This reverend but mutinous gentleman had previously been in Persia with the Shirleys.

[82] These islands are off Cape Sophia on the Greenland coast, a fact that the writer has good cause to remember, as he was once aground on them, and in some danger.

[83] I found Knight’s Journal among some other papers thrown aside in a very damp place in the tower of the India Office, and printed it at the end of my volume of Sir James Lancaster’s voyages, edited for the Hakluyt Society. A version of it is given by Purchas, but much is omitted.

[84] Brunel was a Dutchman. He had proposed to Christian IV to discover the lost colony of Greenland, and was probably in Hall’s first voyage. A Cape on the Greenland coast was named after him. The story of Oliver Brunel was brought to light by S. Müller and Koolemans Beynen, the very able young editor of the 2nd edition of the Barentsz voyages.

[85] The names and rank of the crew were as follows:

[86] Prince Henry died November 6th, 1613, aged 18 years and a half.

[87] This distance would be greatly in error, unless the declinations of both heavenly bodies were the same.

[88] John Searle, a licensed surgeon, published his ephemeris in 1609. It was from 1609 to 1617, and the book also contained a correction of time in respect of several meridians, a list of places with latitude and longitude in time, and a table for converting degrees and minutes into time. David Origanus was the author of an ephemeris for the years from 1595 to 1650. His meridian was Wittenberg.

[89] I have not been successful in my attempts to discover who Master Herbert was. He was probably a gentleman volunteer.

[90] This map is excessively rare. It is only to be found in one or two copies of Foxe’s book. The British Museum copy has not got it, but a facsimile has been inserted.

[91] The Portuguese Admiral, Ruy Freire de Andrada, and 17 guns were captured when the Kishm fort was taken. Ormuz then surrendered and was handed over to Shah Abbas.

[92] La Peyrère’s account in his Relation du Groenland is unreliable and inaccurate.

Munk’s narrative, Navigatio Septentrionalis (Copenhagen, 1621), has been edited for the Hakluyt Society (1897) by Mr Gosch.

[93] This is the first place in which I have found the use of log and line mentioned, although it had been known for at least 60 years; indeed an obscure passage in Pigafetta seems to suggest its use by Magellan. Bourne, in his Regiment of the Sea, published in 1573, describes the log-ship as so made that it remains where it falls into the water, while the line runs out during a fixed interval by a minute glass. The intervals between the knots on the log line are to a minute as a mile is to an hour. In Bourne’s Inventions or Devices, No. 21, published in 1578, the inventor of the log and line is said to be Humphrey Cole of the Mint in the Tower; the maker of the instruments for Frobisher’s first and second voyages bought in 1576.

[94] It is interesting to note the equipment necessary to enable a mathematical captain to observe efficiently in 1631. Captain James had:—

[95] See [p. 40].

[96] Hans Egede made out half a dozen words to be common to Eskimos and Norsemen. Quan, the word for angelica, is nearly the same in both languages. In Eskimo Kona is a woman, in Norse Kone; in Eskimo Nerriok to eat, in Norse Naere; Nise, the word for porpoise, is the same in both languages. Ashes is Asket in Eskimo, in Norse Aske. In Eskimo a lamp is Kollek, in Norse Kolle.

[97] Count Zinzendorf was the founder of the congregation from Moravia, formed to promote the conversion of the heathen. He built a station on one of his estates in 1728, which was called Herrnhut. From hence missionaries went forth—chiefly to the West Indies, Greenland, and Labrador—known as Moravian missionaries. “Herrnhut” means “the Lord’s keeping.”

[98] Egede was the author of two books, one on the history of the Greenland Mission, the other a description of Greenland.

[99] Paul Egede was afterwards a Professor at Copenhagen, and Provost of the Royal Danish Mission.

[100] “A cruel attack on the reputation of a skilful and intrepid navigator.” John Barrow.

[101] Ledyard was one of those remarkable men that Arctic service so often produces. He had been befriended by Sir Joseph Banks, who encouraged him in his enthusiasm for travel. Having been to Kamschatka by sea, Ledyard resolved to find his way there by land. He crossed to Ostend with no more than ten guineas in his pocket, made his way to Stockholm, and walked thence, round the Gulf of Bothnia, to St Petersburg. There he obtained permission to accompany a party with stores to Yakutsk and thence to Okhotsk. But, for some unknown reason, he was arrested, hurried back across Siberia, and put across the frontier near Königsberg. Quite destitute, he ventured to draw a small cheque on Sir Joseph Banks which enabled him to reach England. The African Association had just been formed, and Sir Joseph selected this resolute and fearless traveller as the best man to execute the instructions of the Association. Ledyard was to make his way from Senaar to the Niger. He set out in June 1788, but his career was brought to a premature close by fever at Cairo.

[102] Philosophical Transactions, LXVIII, p. 1057.

[103] Second edition 1818. Daines Barrington was also the author of Observations on the Statutes, 1766; Naturalist’s Calendar, 1767; Miscellanies, 1781; and of contributions to the Archaeologia and Philosophical Transactions. He died at the Temple on March 11th, 1800, aged 73.

[104] A Voyage towards the North Pole, 1773 (4to, pp. 76 and 177), Bowyer and Nichols, 1774. Sir Albert Markham also published the narrative of a midshipman named Floyd, who was serving on board the Racehorse, in a book entitled Northward Ho (Macmillan, 1879). Sir Albert obtained a correct list of the officers from the Admiralty.

[105] A Corresponding Member of the Royal Geographical Society, 1843. He died in 1876.

[106] F. Martens. Voyage to Spitzbergen. Translation edited for the Hakluyt Society by Adam White (1855).

[107] C. G. Zorgdrager. Bloeyende Opkomst der Aloude en Hedendaagsche Groenlandsche Visscherij (Amsterdam, 1720).

[108] A bentick boom is a long straight spar to which the clews of the foresail are secured.

[109] Spek is the Dutch for blubber.

[110] From the Dutch afmaaken, to finish or adjust.

[111] The Swedish steamer Sophia reached 81° 42′ in 1868.

[112] His life was written by his nephew, Scoresby Jackson.

[113] Commander Buchan again served on the Newfoundland coast in the Grasshopper from 1820 to 1823. Fifteen years afterwards he was lost in the Upton Castle coming home from India, that Indiaman being heard of for the last time on December 8th, 1838.

[114] Sir John Ross was much hurt at the doubting remarks and criticisms respecting the brilliant crimson on his plate of the crimson snow. They still rankled 32 years afterwards when the present writer served with him, and he wrote an article on the subject in our Arctic periodical, the Aurora Borealis. Mr Bauer, of Kew Gardens, it appears, pronounced the crimson snow to be of the genus Uredo, allied to “smut” in wheat, and he grew some in snow. It was first green, then as bright a crimson as in Ross’s plate. Ross called it Uredo nivalis of Bauer in his 2nd edition.

[115] Much attention was given to the provisioning. There were the preserved meats and soups of Donkin and Gamble; Burkitt’s essence of malt, hops, and spruce; lemon juice, vinegar, sauerkraut, pickles, and herbs as antiscorbutics. Coal was used for ballast, 70 chaldrons in the Hecla, 34 in the Griper. The Admiralty supplied warm clothing and wolf-skin blankets for the men without any charge.

[116] Cyrus Wakeman, in the Dorothea with Buchan, and the Griper, 1819–20, was afterwards at the battle of Navarino, where his splendid gallantry is recorded by Lady Bourchier in her Memoirs of Sir Edward Codrington, II, p. 102 (Longman, 1873). He died in the Niger expedition.

Sir Joseph Nias, K.C.B., was in the Alexander, Hecla, and Fury with Parry, 1818–23. He distinguished himself in the Herald during the first China war, at the capture of the forts of the Bocca Tigris and in all the operations in the Canton river, becoming Rear-Admiral in 1857. In 1855 he married Isabella, only child of John Laing of Montagu Square, where he died December 16th 1879.

[117] Bushnan, on his return, was appointed to Franklin’s land journey, but died before starting, in 1825.

[118] All three were with Parry again in his third voyage.

[119] Mr Hooper was with Parry in his third voyage. Afterwards he for some time held the post of Secretary to Greenwich Hospital. He died in 1833.

[120] The Rev. G. Fisher was afterwards Head Master of Greenwich School from 1834 to 1863. He died in 1873.

[121] The instructions for Parry’s second expedition were signed by Sir George Cockburn, Sir Henry Hotham, and Sir George Clerk.

[122] Captain Lyon served on board the Albion at the battle of Algiers. He made an important journey from Tripoli to Mouzourk and wrote an excellent account of a very little known country. In 1825 he married Lucy, daughter of Lord Edward Fitzgerald, who died in 1826. In 1828 he published a journal of travels in Mexico. This accomplished and much beloved officer died in 1832.

[123] Henry Foster, son of the Rev. Henry Foster of Woodplumpton near Preston, was born in 1796. He was a midshipman in the Conway with Captain Basil Hall on the Pacific Station, an excellent school for young officers; then in the Griper with Clavering, Assistant Surveyor in Parry’s third voyage, and in the voyage of 1827, when he explored Hinlopen Strait. His magnetic work was published in the Philosophical Transactions of 1826, for which he received the Copley Medal of the Royal Society. In 1827 he became a Commander, and the Duke of Clarence gave him the command of a discovery ship owing to his exceptionally high scientific attainments. He commissioned the Chanticleer in 1827 with Horatio T. Austin as his first Lieutenant. Foster was chiefly engaged in pendulum observations, going as far south as the South Shetlands and surveying Staten Island. He was drowned in the Chagres river, when engaged in determining the meridian distance between Chagres and Panama on February 5th, 1833. The polar story would be incomplete without a notice of one of the most distinguished of Arctic scientific officers.

[124] Or rather connection. The step-mother of Flinders was Franklin’s aunt on the mother’s side.

[125] The Civil Lord of the Admiralty who signed Parry’s instructions.

[126] This is manifestly an error for 1845–46.

[127] Under the title Versus Tennysoniani no less than 165 renderings of “Not here ...” etc., in Greek, Latin, Sanscrit, Arabic, German, Italian, and French, etc. were published by Canon Wright in 1882 at the Cambridge Press, written by Archbp. Benson, Canon Ainger, Dean Bradley, Prof. Butcher, Dr Haig-Brown, Dr Butler, Master of Trinity, Calverley, Prof. Cowell, Farrar, Gladstone, Jebb, Lord Lyttelton, Dean Merivale, Max Müller, Prof. Palmer, Lord Selborne, Bp. Wordsworth, and others. (Ed.)

[128] Ross died on April 3rd, 1861, after seventeen polar navigable seasons, and nine Arctic winters; Captain Bird retired an Admiral and died in his 83rd year on December 3rd, 1881.

[129] Pemmican is a preparation of beef from which all that is fluid has been evaporated over a wood fire. The fibre is then pounded, and mixed with an equal weight of pounded beef fat.

[130] M’Clintock’s sledge crew in his first great journey deserve a niche in the Arctic temple of fame. James Wilkie, captain of the sledge, aged 33, was a splendid seaman, zealous, cheerful, and humorous. James Hoile, a fine, tall man of 25, excellent in all respects, a sailmaker. James Dawson, aged 23, was a good-looking foretopman. John Salmon, a small, wiry man, who was with M’Clintock in the Enterprise, was really the strongest of all. Hood and Jim Heels were Marines, the former a shoemaker, aged 31, the latter, aged 24, sang a good song.

[131] Captain Austin was afterwards Superintendent of Deptford Dockyard during the Crimean War, a post of great importance at that time, Admiral, K.C.B., and Admiral Superintendent of Malta Dockyard in 1863; he died in 1865. Captain Ommanney, in the Eurydice, commanded the squadron in the White Sea. In 1853 he had the Hawke in the Baltic; and the Brunswick in the West Indies until 1860. He was Captain Superintendent at Gibraltar in 1864, retiring a K.C.B. in 1874. He died in December 1904, aged 91.

[132] Mate in the Resolute, then aged 22, afterwards Sir George Nares, K.C.B., died January, 1915.

[133] Among these was a devotional book which Sir George Back had given to his old shipmate Gore. It was restored to Sir George, who to the day of his death always kept it on his drawing-room table under a glass case.

[134] The Observatory on Pendulum Island was in 74° 32′ 19″ N. and 18° 50′ W.

[135] Clavering’s fate was a sad one. He sailed in command of the Redwing from Sierra Leone in the summer of 1827, and was never heard of again, though some wreckage was found on the coast.

[136] There had been two early attempts to explore the east coast before Graah’s expedition. In 1752 Walloe got as far as 60° 28′, and Giesecke, a German, got to 60° 9′ in 1806.

[137] Captain Graah’s narrative was translated by Gordon Macdougall, and published by the Royal Geographical Society in 1837.

[138] At my request the late Commodore Jansen searched the Dutch archives, and wrote an admirable memoir on the ice years in the Novaya Zemlya and Spitsbergen Seas, with notices of the chief Dutch voyages and discoveries. The same accomplished officer was the author of the chapter on Land and Sea Breezes in Maury’s Physical Geography of the Sea.

[139] The instrument consists of four arcs graduated so as to read to 30 with the verniers. Two of these arcs, representing the altitude and latitude, are moveable. The two others, which represent the declination and hour circle, are fixed. In using it the verniers of the proper arcs are set to the declination, the altitude, and the latitude respectively. The readings on the hour circle will then show the hour angle.

[140] The northern lands which Payer thought he saw from Cape Fligely, and which he named Oscar and Petermann Lands, as well as the north-easterly extension of Kronprinz Rudolf Island from Cape Fligely to Cape Sherard Osborn, have since been found by Captain Cagni to have no existence.

[141] The Franz Josef flora includes the ubiquitous Saxifraga oppositifolia, Cardamine bellidifolia, Arenaria sulcata, Draba alpina, Cerastium alpinum, Papaver nudicaule, and Cochlearia fenestrata. A rare and beautiful grass, Pleuropogon sabinii, was also found, only previously known at Melville Island, at one or two places up Prince Regent’s Inlet, and in Novaya Zemlya, where it is abundant. Only 27 flowering plants have been collected in Franz Josef Land, and 25 mosses.

[142] The price of walrus hides has risen since they have been found to be the best material for burnishing parts of bicycles. The steamer Balaena was, therefore, sent to Franz Josef Land in 1897, and obtained 500 hides, while about 1500 were lost owing to the animals sinking when dead, so that this monstrous slaughter amounted to 2000, not counting the number of young that must also have perished.

[143] The great depth found by the Sophia to the north of Spitsbergen pointed to a deep ocean as existing north of the whole Spitsbergen and Franz Josef system. I formed this deduction in 1876, and Nansen’s discovery afterwards proved it to be correct.

[144] I knew Dr Kane when he served in Grinnell’s relief expedition, of which he wrote the history. His was certainly a charming personality, talented, cheerful, and enthusiastic.

[145] Kane adopted the Danish name of ice-foot (Iis-fod) for this permanent frozen ridge or terrace.

[146] It is a singular fact that the changing of names of Arctic vessels has frequently coincided with misfortune. The names of all the ships but one in the Franklin search were changed, and all were lost except the Fox, and her name was not changed.

[147] Length 160 ft., extreme breadth 33·4 ft., depth of hold 17 ft., tonnage 751, nominal h.-p. 60.

[148] Length 166 ft., extreme breadth 30 ft., depth of hold 18 ft., tonnage 668, nominal h.-p. 43.

[149] Each sledge had its flag, which, at my suggestion, was designed on proper heraldic rules. The cross of St George at the hoist, the fly swallow-tailed, party per fess with the colours of the sledge-commander’s arms, and his crest or principal charge over all, a border or fringe of the colours of the arms. The same pattern was adopted for the sledge flags of Captain Scott’s Antarctic expeditions.

[150] Hans Hendrik was born at the German missionary station of Fiskernäs in Greenland, and had become a good kayaker and hunter when he agreed to join Dr Kane’s expedition, where he was under the protection of Carl Petersen. He was with Morton when he reported having seen the open polar sea. After Kane’s second winter Hans joined the Arctic Highlanders and married a girl named Markut. Hans and his wife later joined Hayes’s expedition, and afterwards settled at Upernivik. In August, 1871, they joined Hall’s expedition, and were left on the floe which drifted down Baffin’s Bay, where, as we have seen, Hans saved the rest of the party by his skill as a huntsman. He was most useful in some of the sledge journeys from the Discovery. In 1877 he wrote his memoirs in Eskimo, which were translated into English by Dr Rink (Trübner, 1878). He afterwards lived at Upernivik.

[151] Rawson was mortally wounded at the battle of Tel-el-Kebir, while serving as naval aide-de-camp to Sir Garnet Wolseley. Admiral Sir George Egerton, K.C.B., became Commander-in-Chief at Devonport.

[152] Tidal observations, under the direction of Lieutenant Archer, were taken in 81° 45′ N., during 7 months; and in 82° 25′ N., for two months. They were reported upon by Professor Houghton (Nares, II, p. 356).

[153] Ivigtut, the cryolite mine, is about 16 miles up the Arsak fjord. Cryolite is a white mineral found on the gneiss of S.W. Greenland and nowhere else—a double hydro-fluorate of soda and alumina. In 1857 a licence was given to a company to work the mine to the amount of about 26 ship-loads yearly.

[154] In 1892 these two young Swedish enthusiasts started with the object of exploring the part of Ellesmere Island between Jones and Smith Sounds. They bought a small cutter of 37 tons at St John’s, Newfoundland, and went up Baffin’s Bay to the Cary Islands. In 1893 a whaler found her driven on shore at one of the Cary Islands and full of ice. There was a record written by Björling asking that, if nothing was heard of them in 1893, relief might be sent to Clarence Point on Ellesmere Island. They went away in an open boat. I appealed for funds and collected £100 as a help to Nordenskiöld’s fund for sending a steamer. She went, but nothing more was ever found or heard of these gallant youths.

[155] Both his sons inherited much of the ability of their father. The eldest died young, but not before he had done valuable ethnographic work. The younger, Erland, now Baron Nordenskiöld, has made two journeys among the Amazonian Indians, with excellent ethnographic and linguistic results.

[156] Sir Fridtjof Nansen, in an Appendix to his Through Siberia, has lately made a record of all voyages across the Kara Sea from the voyage of Burrough in 1556 to the present day, with notes on the state of the ice in each year. His conclusion is that in the great majority of years it is possible to reach the Siberian rivers through the Kara Sea, though there are great variations in the quantity of ice in different years. He thinks it very improbable that these differences are caused by winds and sea currents from the north. His conclusion is that the ice that is met with is formed in the Kara Sea itself, and that the differences of ice conditions are caused by differences in the winters. In a cold winter, with little precipitation, more ice will be formed, and little ice will melt in a cold spring and summer. When there is a warm winter and heavy snow-fall succeeded by a warm spring and summer, the melting of the ice will proceed rapidly, and there will be a fairly ice-free Kara Sea. Nansen’s remarks on the navigation of the Kara Sea are extremely valuable, based on the most complete information and long experience of ice conditions.

[157] Announced in the Morgenblad by Professor Mohn in 1884.

[158] Quite unknown to Nansen I had come to a similar conviction in contemplating the results of the Nares expedition. In my Report on the origin, proceedings, and results of this expedition (R. G. S. Proceedings, 1877), I pointed out that a current flowed across the polar sea from the eastern to the western hemisphere, that Franz Josef Land was part of the Spitsbergen group, rising from the same plateau with a deeper sea to the north, and that to overstep the boundary of the known polar sea, though attended by great difficulties, would reward with important discoveries the future explorer who boldly forced his way north in this direction. My Report came to Nansen’s knowledge after his return home.

[159] Length of keel 102 feet, length of deck 128 feet, beam 36 feet, depth 17 feet, thickness of ship’s side 24 to 28 inches. In the stern the oak beams were 4 feet thick.

[160] The British sledges 1850–9 were 3 feet wide, the runners of metal, 3 inches wide, and slightly convex.

[161] See Nansen’s “Oceanography of the North Polar Basin” in Vol. III of the results of the expedition, the “Bathymetrical Features” in Vol. IV, also The Sea West of Spitsbergen (Christiania, 1912) and the oceanographic observations of the Isachsen Spitsbergen expedition, by Bjørn Helland Hansen and Fridtjof Nansen.

[162] Through Siberia (Heinemann, 1914). Appendix on the navigation of the Kara Sea.

[163] The writer was shipmate with one of them for more than a year, and there could not be a better disposed lad or a more reliable comrade when travelling.

[164] He may have adopted the position fixed by the observations of Lieut. Aldrich. The sun was below the horizon when Peary started.

[165] Commodore Jansen was one of the most active and accomplished of the honorary corresponding members of our Royal Geographical Society of his time and the chief promoter of the revival of Arctic voyages in Holland. He saw much service in the Royal Dutch Navy, joining its surveying branch, and was for several years engaged on a survey in the Riouw Archipelago, the Straits of Sunda, and elsewhere. As a Lieutenant on board the frigate Prins van Oranje he served in the West Indies, and during a visit to Washington in 1851 formed a life-long friendship for Maury, the great American hydrographer. He contributed the chapter on land and sea breezes to Maury’s Physical Geography of the Sea and in 1864 published an important work The Latest Discoveries in Maritime Affairs. In the following year he became a Commodore in the Royal Dutch Navy, and was appointed to superintend the building of the ironclad Prins Hendrik, which he afterwards commanded. In 1868 he retired from active service, after a distinguished naval career of 35 years. At my request Jansen examined the Dutch archives with a view to a study of ice navigation in the Spitsbergen and Barentsz seas, and the results of his researches were published in the R. G. S. Proceedings (Old Series, IX. 9, 163). In 1873 he was appointed a Councillor of State, and attained the rank of Rear Admiral. He died in September 1894, aged 77.

[166] Beynen published De Reis van de Pandora in den Zomer van 1876.

[167] The Committee consisted of the Baron van Wassenaer van Catwyck, Councillor of State Commodore Jansen, Franzen van de Putte, Professor Buys Ballot, Professor Veth, Jonkheer J. K. J. de Jonge (Treasurer).

[168] Lady Markham’s translation of the Life of L. R. Koolemans Beynen by Charles Boissevain was published by Sampson Low in 1885.

[169] Author of Ice-bound on Kolguev.

[170] No Man’s Land, Camb. Univ. Press, 1906.

[171] The Danish Committee for the geographical and geological investigation of Greenland was formed in 1876, and a valuable periodical, the Meddelelser on Grönland, containing the narratives of the explorers and the scientific results of the expeditions, has ever since been published at Copenhagen.

[172] “Botanical Exploration of the East Coast of Greenland between 65° 35′ and 74°30′ N.” by Chr. Kruuse (1904), Meddelelser on Grönland (Heft. 30, Afd. I), Kjöbenhavn, 1907.

[173] Thalbitzer has published papers on the poetry and music of the East Greenlanders, on their angekoks or priests, and on their dialect.

[174] So called after a patriotic brewer named Carlsberg, who left his brewery to a Trust, the profits to be expended on scientific work. As the brewery is a lucrative business, the help to exploration from this source has been very important.

[175] A Swedish expedition under Professor Nathorst in the Antarctic had reached Scoresby Sound in July 1899, and afterwards explored and mapped the previously unknown and complicated system of fjords forming the inner branches of Davy Sound, proving that they were connected with Franz Josef Fjord. In September 1899 Nathorst left the coast, and his ship the Antarctic was used in the following year for the Carlsbergfondet Expedition.

[176] His Royal Highness Philippe Duc D’Orléans made a voyage to that part of the coast on board the Belgica with M. Gerlache as his master in 1905. He stood northwards along the land ice, and succeeded in effecting a landing to the north of Cape Bismarck in 77° 36′ N. On July 31st he was in 78° 16′, the furthest north ever attained by a ship on this coast, and he could see as far as 78° 30′. In August he again landed in 77° 36′, the place receiving the name of Cape Philippe.

[177] Freuchen, who came from Nykjøbing on the island of Falster, went on a voyage to West Greenland as a stoker in order to obtain preliminary training.

[178] The easternmost point is in 81° 24′ N. and 12° W.

[179] Peary’s point at the place he calls “Navy Cliff,” where he says he saw the sea and called it “Independence Bay,” is over a hundred miles from the sea or any bay. He may have seen the end of the long narrow fjord which Erichsen discovered. But his channel across Greenland does not exist, and there is continuous land between the position Peary gives to his Navy Cliff and his Heilprin Land to the north.

[180] Book of the Knowledge of all the Kingdoms, p. 35 (Hakluyt Society, Series II, vol. XXIX, 1912.)

[181] Burney II, 198.

[182] Dalrymple and Burney take it seriously. I included it among the documents in my Voyages of Quiros, but I now quite agree with my old friend Benjamin Vicuña Mackenna that it is a fabrication. (See Vicuña Mackenna’s Historia de Juan Fernandez.)

[183] Cook and Ross searched for this small island in vain, but several of Mr Enderby’s sealing vessels found and visited Bouvet Island.

[184] Elder brother of Madame D’Arblay.

[185] This chronometer is now in the museum of the United Service Institution.

[186] Mr Poynter, Master’s Mate, Mr Blake and Mr Bone, Midshipmen. Blake was eventually Admiral Patrick Blake, who did excellent service in the first China war, and was afterwards Captain of the Juno in the Pacific 1845–49.

[187] The writer’s uncle, John Markham, was an acting Lieutenant on board the Andromache, and he made a copy of Mr Bransfield’s first chart. There are 21 names on it.

[188] Mr Fanning wrote Voyages round the World, containing reports of the voyages of Pendleton and Palmer.

[189] At Pendulum Cove in King George’s Island.

[190] Kendall wrote an account of Deception Island in the first volume of the Journal of the Royal Geographical Society.

[191] The name Australia had not then come into use.

[192] The present writer was personally acquainted with Admiral Bird, Lieutenant Phillips, Mr Tucker, Dr McCormick, Sir Joseph Hooker, Dr Lyall, Admiral Moore, Captain Davis, and Mr Abernethy.

[193] Rossbank Observatory was in latitude 42° 52′ 27″ S. and longitude 147° 27′ 30″ E., 205 feet above the sea.

[194] Gauss’s position was 66° S. and 146° E. Scott’s observations gave 72° 51′ S. and 156° 25′ E.

[195] On January 31st there was “an unaccountable decrease of variation from 96° E. to 77° E., and then an increase of 16°. Ross formed the opinion that they had passed one of those extraordinary magnetic points first observed during Sir Edward Parry’s second voyage, near the eastern entrance of Hecla and Fury Strait.” Sir James Ross, Voyage to the Southern Seas, 1, 229.

[196] Sir Joseph Hooker told me that Sir James was not only an accurate observer, but also a good collector, taking the deepest interest in the geological and biological researches.

[197] The following treat of Ross’s Third Antarctic Voyage:—

(a) A Voyage of Discovery and Research in the Southern and Antarctic Regions 1839–43 (2 vols. 8vo.), by Sir James Clark Ross.

(b) Voyages of Discovery in the Arctic and Antarctic Seas (2 vols., large 8vo.), by R. McCormick.

(c) Captain J. E. Davis: Letter to his sister describing events of Sir James Ross’s voyage, and especially the iceberg collision. Printed for the Royal Societies Antarctic Expedition.

(d) MS letter from C. J. Sullivan, armourer of H.M.S. Erebus, describing Antarctic scenery, the iceberg collision, and other events.

[198] A pupil of Captain Maury, the great American hydrographer.

[199] Quinze Mois dans l’Antarctique, par le Commandant de Gerlache (Hachette, 1902), 106 illustrations and chart, pp. 284.

“Exploration of Antarctic Lands,” by Henryk Arçtowski, in the Antarctic Manual.

[200] Antarctica, or Two Years amongst the Ice of the South Pole, by Dr Otto Nordenskiöld and Dr Gunnar Andersson, 1905.

On the Geology of Graham Land, by Dr Gunnar Andersson. (Uppsala, 1906.)

[201] Die gevidde Formation der Eisgeit (Berlin, 1887), and Grönlands Gletscher und Inlandeis.

[202] Zum Kontinent des eisigen südens, von Erik von Drygalski (Berlin, 1904).

[203] The Committee consisted of the following persons:—

[204] The house flag of the Discovery was made at Dundee:—the cross of St George at the hoist, the fly swallow-tailed, party per fesse, argent and azure (for ice and sea), and bearing the globe of the Royal Geographical Society. Bordure argent and azure.

[205] The sledge flags were of the same pattern as in the Arctic expedition of 1875–6. The cross of St George at the hoist to denote that, whatever family the bearer may belong to, he is first and foremost an Englishman. The fly is divided per fess with colours of the arms of the officer, undivided if one colour, with the crest or principal charge in the arms, swallow-tailed, with a border or fringe of the colours of the arms.

[206] The text of the Bishop’s address was “Behold how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity” (Psalm cxxxiii. 1).

[207] M’Clintock’s sledges were 9 ft. and 11 ft. long, 3 ft. 2 in. wide, 11½ inches high, with 6 uprights and 6 cross bars, the runners were of ½-inch iron, 3 inches wide and slightly convex. All were lashed with strips of hide, put on warm and wet, so that they shrank and made all tight.

[208] The ration adopted by Scott was as follows in ounces per day:—Biscuit 12·0, oatmeal 1·5, pemmican 7·6, bacon and pea-flour 2·6, plasmon 2·0, cheese 2·0, chocolate 1·1, cocoa O·7, sugar 3·8. In addition, ¾ lb. of tea, ½ lb. of onion powder, ¼ lb. of pepper and ⅖ lb. of salt was allowed per week to each unit of three men.

[209] Sir Douglas Mawson was born in 1882, the son of Mr. R. E. Mawson, of Otley, in Yorkshire. He was educated at Sydney University and graduated as Bachelor of Mining Engineering 1901, Bachelor of Science 1904, Doctor of Science 1909. He was Lecturer in Mineralogy at Adelaide University in 1905.

[210] These were Anton and Demetri, the two Russian dog-drivers, and seven men of the Royal Navy:—Edgar Evans, Lashly, and Crean, who had all been on the Discovery, and Keohane, Forde, Hooper, and Clissold, the two latter respectively steward and cook.

[211] For their courageous services in this affair Lashly and Crean received the Albert Medal.

[212] Atkinson, Wright, Cherry Garrard, Gran, Lashly, Crean, Williamson, Nelson, Archer, Hooper, Keohane, and Demetri, formed the search party.

[213] Names in italics represent first discoveries.

[214] Names in italics represent first discoveries.