I left Fort Conger, Discovery Harbor, April 3d, 1882 with party of twelve men and equipment consisting of one dog-sledge and team and four Hudson Bay sledges. Four of the party broke down in crossing the straits and were sent back. Two of the sledges also became useless and another, a large sledge, was substituted for them. Thus equipped the party left the base of supplies (which we had in mean time established at the Boat Camp, Newman Bay) April 16th and reached Cape Bryant April 27th. Near the Black Horn Cliffs the large sledge referred to broke a runner, and at Cape Bryant the two remaining Hudson Bay sledges were unable to go farther, being worn out. Here the rest of the party turned back while I continued on with the dog team. Sergeant David L. Brainard, General Service, U. S. Army, and Frederik Christiansen (Eskimo).
Cape Britannia was reached May 4th and this cape May 13th, 1882. Here I turn back starting tomorrow, the 15th instant. All well at this date.
J. B. Lockwood
2d Lieutenant 23d Infantry
U.S. Army.
Cobb then detailed all the circumstances attending the fit-out of the Greely expedition, and his personal acquaintance with Brainard and Lockwood. He narrated that they had reached this memorable spot on the 13th of May, 1882, and could go no farther, as a great sea washed the shore in front of them—the time being summer. Opening the letter which he had taken from the meat-can, he read to his astonished friends:
“Now!” he exclaimed, as he raised the letter aloft; “now, in honor to the men who suffered, and to Lockwood, who perished, the record of their search for the pole shall not rest here, but shall continue its journey, even to the pole itself, and be laid upon the pivotal axis of this mighty globe.”
An hour later the Orion was bearing due north, and the three officers were sitting in the warm cabin discussing the cairn, the letter, and the Greeley expedition of 1880.
Higher and higher rose Polaris to the zenith; onward, mile after mile, flew the ship. The cold outside had become intense, and the spirit thermometer registered 86 degrees F. The aurora filled the heavens about them as if a huge, circular tent of brilliantly colored stripes of fire had been pitched above them. No moisture in the air, no sound, save the whir of the propeller, as it rapidly revolved and sent the vessel forward. Below was ice—ice—and nothing more.
So intense was the cold that, as Cobb unthinkingly touched his bare moist hand to the sextant which had been brought in by the boy, the skin and flesh were burnt as by a red-hot iron.
“It was 18 dial when we left the cairn, in latitude 83 degrees 24 minutes,” said Cobb, after a pause in the conversation, “and the distance to the pole was just 458 miles. Our speed has been uniform, and at the rate of forty-three and-a-half miles per hour, we should cover the distance in ten hours thirty-one minutes and forty-eight seconds, and at thirty-one minutes forty-eight seconds past 4 dial ought to be directly over the pole.”
Indeed, Cobb was perfectly correct in his reckoning, for at the hour mentioned the Orion was brought to a standstill, and then gently dropped to the earth below. Excitedly jumping down the ladders, the three men sprang out upon the snow, and, in one voice, exultingly exclaimed: “The pole! the pole! the north pole!”