“In 1871 Captain Hall left New York in the steamer Polaris. Four months afterwards, during the terrible winter, he died. A year later the Polaris, caught in the floes after reaching the eighty-second parallel, was crushed by the ice. Eighteen of her men, under Lieutenant Tyson, took refuge on an ice-floe and reached the continent after long drifting about in the Arctic Ocean.
“In 1875 Sir George Nares left Portsmouth with the Alert and Discovery. It was in his memorable Arctic campaign that winter quarters were established between the eighty-second and eighty-third parallels, and that Captain Markham, in a dash to the northward, stopped within four hundred miles of the Pole, no one up to then having been so near.
“In 1879 our great citizen, Gordon Bennett—”
Here there were three cheers given for the proprietor of the New York Herald.
—“Fitted out the Jeannette, which he confided to Captain De Long. The Jeannette left San Francisco with thirty-three men, passed through Behring Straits, was caught by the ice at Herald Island, and sank at Bennett Island, near the seventy-seventh parallel. The men had only one resource; to make southwards with the boats or journey over the ice-fields. Misery decimated them. De Long died in October. Many others succumbed, and twelve only returned from the expedition.
“In 1881 Lieutenant Greely left St. John’s, Newfoundland, in the steamer Proteus, to establish a station on Lady Franklin Bay, a little below the eighty-second degree. There he founded Fort Conger, whence he sent out expeditions west and north, one of which, under Lieutenant Lockwood and his companion, Brainard, in May, 1882, claims to have reached 83° 35′, being fifteen miles nearer than Markham’s furthest. That is the nearest yet obtained. It is the Ultima Thule of circumpolar cartography.”
Here there were loud cheers in honour of the American discoverers.
“But,” said Barbicane, “the expedition ended in disaster. The Proteus sank. Eighty-four men were left in frightful misery. Doctor Pavy died. Greely was discovered by the Thetis in 1883 with only six companions, and one of these was Lieutenant Lockwood, who soon succumbed, adding another name to the sorrowful martyrology of Arctic exploration.”
There was a respectful silence while Barbicane paused.
Then in a thrilling voice he resumed,—