14. All that is commonly understood about piercing the ice by sawing and boring through it is a delusion, and arises from the misunderstanding of technical expressions. Where there is navigable water, there any one can sail—where there is none, no one. In 1869 and 1870, after coming on a cul-de-sac of ice in Greenland to the east of Shannon Island, we could not penetrate a yard further; in 1871, in loose, but solid ice, we drew away only by warping on the smaller floes, without being able to make the slightest progress, and in 1872 we were twice “beset,” in heavy ice, in spite of our steam power. The penetration of close pack-ice is an impossibility: in this case patient endurance is alone of any avail, and hence Sir John Ross so emphatically recommends the Polar navigator “never to lose sight of the two words caution and patience.”[7] If a vessel, therefore, is arrested by impenetrable masses barring its way, the breaking up of the ice must be patiently awaited, and this, generally, is effected by calms, although the ebb and flow of the tide appear to have an influence on the solidity of the ice. It is then usual with sailing ships to seek the larger “ice-holes,” or keep in the freest water-ways, in order to guard against the danger of being completely inclosed. These precautions, however, are not so requisite for steam-vessels, as their power to escape quickly and in any direction secures them against this danger. A steam-vessel may even venture to fasten on to an ice-floe by means of an ice-anchor, and of course under its lee, the fires being banked up, so that by getting up steam she may shift her place as soon as the ice moves nearer. As a principle, and so far as it is possible without the exhaustion of her powers, a ship in the ice should endeavour to be in constant motion, even though this entail many changes of her course and the temporary return to a position which had been abandoned. The making fast to a floe, however, should never be attempted, except when every hope of navigating in the surrounding waters has been proved fruitless. The fastening a vessel to an iceberg diminishes, indeed, its drifting, but is, if possible, to be avoided, because of the danger of the iceberg overturning or rending asunder, things which occur far more frequently than we should be led to expect from their great appearance of stability. When a ship, notwithstanding every possible caution, is “beset,” it is then advisable to “ship” the rudder in order to protect it from injury, to which it is peculiarly liable from its unusual weight and size. A ship is exposed to considerable danger when she finds herself among icebergs in a calm; but since these are over-spread by a dazzling sheen, even in the thickest mist, the peril of the position is to be avoided at the last moment by warping.
15. As the happy choice of a sea-way is one of the essential conditions of success in ice-navigation, the ability to determine the ship’s position and to ascertain whether a surface covered with ice to the horizon, admits of being penetrated, is most desirable. Hence the employment of a balloon would be of the last importance in Arctic navigation. The advantage of being able to ascend from the ship in a balloon secured by a rope, to the height of a few hundred feet, is self-evident; and, undoubtedly, the first vessel which avails herself of this great resource will derive extraordinary benefit from it.
16. From the deck of a ship even drift-ice appears to be of such solidity at a little distance as to defy navigation, while from the mast-head more water than ice may be descried. In order then to extend the horizon, a look-out, called “the crow’s nest,” is fixed on the mast-head, in which an officer is always on the watch, and from which all the operations of the vessel are directed. In a ship of the size and height of the Tegetthoff the horizon visible from “the crow’s nest” extends to about eleven miles,[8] but at the distance of even five miles the possibility of penetrating cannot be determined with sufficient exactness. It is the business of the officer in “the crow’s nest” to observe the passages through the ice and distant objects generally, as he is in the best position to fulfil this most important duty. It is the special business of the watch on the forecastle to mark what lies in the immediate neighbourhood of the vessel, and his constant care is demanded to avoid isolated ice-floes and prevent collision with them. The seaman at the helm steers the ship by the signs and calls which come to him from “the crow’s nest,” and modifies them according to those of the watch on the forecastle. The rest of the crew remove the smaller fragments of ice from the vessel’s course, special care being taken to prevent their damaging the screw.
17. While sea-currents move the ice in close and continuous lines, winds produce great disturbances in their movement, and open long “leads” in the direction of their course, which often alternate with strips of the thickest pack-ice. This movement of the ice varies with each accumulation of floes, as its rate of motion depends on the height of the ice-field, which then acts as a sail. It is ascertained by experience that calms, on the other hand, have the remarkable property of breaking up the ice. The knowledge and application of these circumstances are essential to the Arctic navigator. If the course of a ship lies across or against a current, it is constantly deflected. The deflection on the coast of East Greenland, for example, amounted to five, even ten miles, within twenty-four hours; hence the importance of choosing routes with and not against the course of currents.
18. Lastly, it is of the greatest moment to choose betimes an appropriate winter harbour, and it is therefore necessary to keep near the coast towards the close of the season for navigation. To find one suitable for shelter during the winter in an unknown Arctic region is a matter of great difficulty, for it very often happens, that the ice drifts out from these “docks”[9] in the storms which constantly occur, or perhaps the “dock” is so sheltered, that the ice, if it breaks up at all, breaks up only in the following summer. Shallow bays which freeze almost to the bottom, lying under the lee of a current or within a fiord, are the most appropriate spots in which to winter.
CHAPTER III.
THE PENETRATION OF THE REGIONS WITHIN THE POLAR CIRCLE; THE PERIOD OF THE NORTH-WEST AND NORTH-EAST PASSAGES.
1. Around the lonely apex of the Pole stand cairns of stone which serve to mark the points to which the restless spirit of human enterprise and discovery has penetrated. In its zenith wheels the sea-gull in its flight, and the harpoon-persecuted seal finds on its ice-floes an unapproachable asylum; but the Pole itself remains the goal which no human effort has yet reached.
2. As all knowledge is perfected slowly and gradually, so man’s knowledge of the earth and its configuration forms no exception to this general rule. Of the few attempts of early antiquity to enlarge the domain of geographical knowledge, tradition tells us only of the Argonautic expedition of the Greeks, of the voyage of the Phœnicians to Ophir, and their bolder circumnavigation of Africa. With the conception of the spherical form of the earth the still vague notion of climatal zones makes its appearance, and to this, four centuries before Christ, Pytheas of Marseilles gave the first scientific elucidation and the first approximation to modern theories by his doctrine of the Polar Circle. Almost contemporaneously Alexander’s expedition to the wonder-land of India created a paradise for commerce and navigation, to secure which a shortened route, the route through the ice—the most perverse notion that ever entered into the mind of man to conceive—was one thousand eight hundred years afterwards eagerly and passionately sought.