On reaching Advent Bay, which he proposed to make his starting-place, he was surprised to find an inn in the process of erection by an enterprising Norwegian company. An inn in an uninhabited country like Spitzbergen might seem de trop, but the explanation was that a series of trips had been organised thither, and a steamer was bringing out tourists once a week, most of whom were probably attracted by Andrée’s balloon, then waiting at the north end of the island for a chance to start on its hazardous voyage.
Leaving three members of his party to prosecute their scientific researches near the coast, Conway and Mr Garwood set off on their journey across the island on June 20. It was not long before they discovered that their sledges and ponies were nothing but a handicap. They had expected, of course, to find the interior covered by a great ice-sheet like that of North-East Land. They actually discovered it to be a land of temperate climate, intersected by green mountains and boggy valleys, which were kept in a condition of perpetual stickiness by the constant rain. In the mud thus formed the ponies were always sinking, and many arduous hours were spent every day in digging or pulling them out.
Conway had meant to make a hurried scamper across the island and back again. He found, however, that the island was in a process of mountain manufacture, and that the cañons in which the interior abounded, slowly eating their way into the ridges, were converting them by degrees into isolated peaks. This process he found so interesting that he determined to change his plans, and he accordingly travelled slowly on, over the magnificent Ivory Glacier, down to Fouls Bay, and then back by a route that differed slightly from that of his outward journey.
IN THE SLUSH
On reaching Advent Bay he learnt that a tourist steamer had succeeded in advancing without difficulty or danger to lat. 81° 32´ N., an amazing record for such a boat. Fired by this, he promptly hired the 12 ton steamer Expres, and started off on a trip round the coast, during the course of which he paid a visit to Wellmann’s hut and Andrée’s balloon. He would have liked to have done more, but there was a dangerous ice-blink in the sky, and the captain refused point-blank to venture any further in such a tin-kettle of a boat.
Sir Martin Conway paid another visit to Spitzbergen in the following year, on which he was again accompanied by Mr Garwood. On this occasion the two explorers occupied themselves chiefly with studying the formation of the glaciers.
As we have just seen, while Conway was making the first crossing of Spitzbergen, Andrée was waiting for an opportunity to start on the daring but ill-fated Expedition for the discovery of the North Pole, by which his name will always live in the annals of Arctic exploration. Andrée was a Swedish engineer and an æronaut of unusual skill and enterprise, and it was the success of his attempt to cross the Baltic in a balloon that led him to think seriously of embarking upon that project which was to cost him his life. The idea was, it must be confessed, exceedingly tempting, and sounded feasible enough. A steady south wind would waft a balloon in a few hours to a point which a traveller over the ice could only reach after weeks of strenuous labour, and Andrée had every reason to hope that within a very short time of his departure from Spitzbergen he would be hanging suspended over the Pole itself.
The project, though its extreme rashness was not to be denied, commended itself to many, and the æronaut had little difficulty in obtaining the necessary funds, among those who contributed to them being the King of Sweden, the late Alfred Nobel, and Baron Dickson. The construction of the balloon was entrusted to Lachambre of Paris. The material used was Chinese Pongee silk, cemented together in double, threefold, and fourfold layers, and covered with a coating of special varnish. Its cubical contents were 158,294 feet.
It was to be guided by a sail fitted with guide ropes which would drag along the ground and prevent the balloon from being driven at the full force of the wind. The difference between the velocity of the wind and of the retarded balloon was to be utilised for steering. On trial the plan was found to answer very well.