Peary's ship, the _Roosevelt_
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In 1881 the De Long expedition, in the steam cruiser Jeannette, met disaster off the Siberian coast. The Jeannette was sunk and her officers and crew in three boats abandoned her. One boat was never heard of afterward. De Long and his party starved in the delta swamps of the Lena River. Chief Engineer Melville and his party were rescued in the Lena River.

In 1881 also the International Polar Conference attempted to establish a chain of stations around the pole as far north as possible. The United States and several of the European nations were represented in the organization. Two expeditions were sent out by the United States; one at Point Barrow, under Lieutenant Ray, the other at Lady Franklin Bay, opposite the Greenland coast, in latitude 81° 40'. The latter was in charge of Lieutenant, now General Greely. In a sledge journey along the north coast of Greenland, Lockwood and Brainard reached the latitude of 83° 24'. The observations of Greely and Ray added not a little knowledge concerning the meteorology and tides of the arctic regions. The sledge journey of Lockwood and Brainard practically established the fact that Greenland is an island.

Of all attempts to reach the pole, the most daring was that adopted by S. A. Andree, a Swedish explorer. Andree had been to the polar regions before, and being something of an aeronaut, believed that he could reach or pass over the pole in a balloon. In carrying out his plan he had constructed a monster balloon capable of floating in the air thirty days, due allowance being made for the daily escape of gas by permeation through the envelope. This balloon, with necessary accessories, was shipped to Danes Island, one of the Spitzbergen group. Everything being ready July 11, 1897, Andree set forth on his perilous trip accompanied by two companions. The balloon carried a load of about five tons, including food, clothing, ballast, scientific instruments, and men.

On being let loose the balloon arose six hundred feet, and then descended to the surface of the sea owing to the entanglement of the guide ropes and ballast lines. Three heavy guide ropes nine hundred feet long were used, to which were attached eight ballast lines two hundred and fifty feet long. The ropes were cut and ballast was thrown out, when the balloon again rose and the wind bore it away over a mountainous island one thousand five hundred feet high. In an hour it had passed below the northeastern horizon. Three message buoys were dropped on the day of Andree's departure, reporting fine weather, all well, and altitude eight hundred and twenty feet; from that time on no traces of the daring unfortunates have ever been found.

Fridtjof Nansen, who had spent some time in the exploration of Greenland, had also reached the conclusion that a polar current sweeps across the Arctic Ocean from Bering Sea to the north coast of Greenland. He therefore set out with a picked crew in a small steamship, the Fram,1893, entering the Arctic at Bering Strait. After the Fram had been caught in the ice-pack, Nansen and his companion, Johansen, started toward the north pole with dog sledges. They reached latitude 86° 14'; finding that the ice was drifting southward, they made for Franz Josef Land, where they spent the winter, and then started for Spitzbergen. On their way they were found by members of the Jackson-Harmsworth expedition, by whom they were rescued. The Fram also returned safely. The existence of the polar current was not established.

In 1900 Captain Cagui, a member of the Abruzzi Polar Expedition, starting from Franz Josef Land, made a dash across the ice toward the pole. He succeeded in reaching latitude 86° 34', the nearest approach to the pole up to that time.

Only a few years afterward, 1905-6, Amundsen, in the steamer Gjoa, found a more southerly northwest passage from King William Land than that followed by Collinson. It was comparatively free from ice. Amundsen was the first to penetrate the northwest passage in a continuous voyage. The result showed plainly that as a commercial route the northwest passage was out of the question.