THE “POLAR STAR” UNDER ICE PRESSURE
It was in 1894 that the American paper, the New York Herald, sent out Mr Walter Wellmann to search for Nansen and to make for the North Pole if conditions permitted. Leaving Tromsö on the first of May in the Ragnald Jarl, he set his course for Spitzbergen, which he proposed to make the base of his sledge expedition, and his ship was soon lying off Walden Island. A fortnight later Wellmann set off north with a party of thirteen men and an equipment of the most improved design. He had only been travelling for about four days, however, when a sailor brought him the unpleasant tidings his ship had been crushed to pieces by the ice, and that but little had been saved. Wellmann, however, was not to be deterred from carrying on his plans, and he sent back orders to the captain to build himself a hut out of the wreckage, while he himself pushed pluckily forward. Unfortunately for him the ice soon became so rough that further progress was out of the question, and he was obliged to abandon the attempt when six miles north of the east of the Platen Islands. Eventually the whole party made its way back to America in safety.
Undiscouraged by his first experiences, Wellmann started out again in 1898 with a view to completing the exploration of Franz Josef Land. Reaching Cape Flora on July 28, he found Jackson’s houses still in perfect condition, and, acting with Sir Alfred Harmsworth’s permission, he proceeded to transfer one of them to Cape Tegetthoff, which he proposed to make his headquarters. During the next few months he succeeded in mapping out much of that part of Franz Josef Land which was still unknown, and he would doubtless have accomplished more had he not unfortunately fallen down a small crevasse and injured his leg so severely that he was obliged to order a retreat.
At the present moment Mr Wellmann is considering a plan for reaching the North Pole by airship, in which he hopes to have the co-operation of M. Santos-Dumont.
Profiting by the advance of science and the experiences of their predecessors, Arctic explorers have, of course, reduced the danger of travelling in the frozen regions to a minimum, and it is very rarely that an expedition ends in tragedy. In recent years, indeed, with the exception of Captain Cagni and his party who perished during the Duke of the Abruzzi’s expedition, only four men, Baron Toll, F. G. Seeberg, and their two hunters, have lost their lives in the cause of science in the Arctic regions.
The principal field of Baron Toll’s Arctic investigations lay among the islands of the Siberian Ocean, whither, from the year 1885 onwards, he conducted a series of brilliantly successful expeditions, all of which added greatly to the world’s knowledge of the geology, meteorology, botany, and palæontology of these unexplored lands. He started out on his last journey on July 22, 1900, in the splendidly equipped laboratory ship Sarya, which was provisioned for four years, with the object of continuing the work by which his name had already become famous. The first winter was spent at Taimur, at the mouth of the Khatanga, and in the following summer he rounded Cape Chelyuskin, paid a visit to Bennett Island, and was ultimately frozen into Nerpchya Bay, where he met an auxiliary expedition sent out under Volossovich. On June 20 he set out with the astronomer, F. G. Seeberg, and two hunters on a journey of exploration. From a record subsequently found on Bennett Island by Lieutenant Kolchak, we know that the party followed the north coast of Kotelnyi and Thadeef Islands, keeping their course towards New Siberia. Here the ice broke up, and, taking to their boats, they reached Bennett Island on August 26. The record ends with these words: “To-day we are going southwards. We have provisions for 14 to 20 days. All in good health.” That is all we shall ever know of the fate of Baron Toll and his companions.
M. Brusneff is of opinion that they must have perished on their way across from Bennett Island to New Siberia. Before they could have reached the end of that journey the weather was becoming cold and ice must have been forming upon the sea, making it impossible for them to cross it in their boats. They had only provisions for a fortnight or three weeks, and little prospect of adding to their supplies, while, to make matters worse, they had no warm clothing with them. It is to be feared that the latest victims claimed by the Arctic regions must have suffered severely before death brought them release from their troubles and robbed the world of two of its ablest and most enthusiastic men of science.
So ends the story of Arctic exploration up to the present time. Those who have read these pages cannot fail to have been impressed by the gallantry with which generations of brave men have willingly faced, in the cause of science, the terrible privations and sufferings only to be met with in the frozen North, or to have felt proud of the part which Great Britain has played in solving the secrets of the Polar regions. Yet, dangerous though the service unquestionably is, it is a fact that at no time in the whole of its history has the death-rate among those engaged in it exceeded the average death-rate of the navy, while so immense has been the advance made in the science of Arctic travel during recent years that the risks attending it have now been reduced to a minimum.
Much has been accomplished, but much still remains to be done. There is around the Pole a tract of over two million square miles which have never yet been visited by a human being, and there can be no doubt that if this tract can be made to give up its secrets the world of science will profit immensely. The Pole itself still remains to be conquered, and though it is difficult at present to see how that terribly arduous journey over the rough seas of palæocrystic ice is to be accomplished, science will doubtless find a way. Of this, at any rate, we may be sure; so long as the Pole retains a single secret, there will not be wanting brave men who will gladly go through any dangers, and suffer any privations, if they can but wrest it from its prison of ice.
