As soon as the sun reappeared sledge-exploration began, each ship being left with only half-a-dozen men and officers on board. Expeditions were sent east and west, one to explore the northern coast of Greenland, the other to explore the coast of Grant Land. Captain Stephenson crossed over from the Discovery’s wintering-place to Polaris Bay, and there placed over Hall’s grave a tablet, prepared in England, bearing the following inscription: “Sacred to the memory of Captain C. F. Hall, of U.S. Polaris, who sacrificed his life in the advancement of science, on November 8, 1871. This tablet has been erected by the British Polar Expedition of 1875, who, following in his footsteps, have profited by his experience”—a graceful acknowledgment (which might, however, have been better expressed). The party which travelled westwards traced the shores of Grant Land as far as west longitude 86° 30´, the most northerly cape being in latitude 83° 7´, and longitude 70° 30´ west. This cape they named Cape Columbia.
The coast of Greenland was explored as far east as longitude 50° 40´ (west), land being seen as far as 82° 54´ north, longitude 48° 33´ west. Lastly, a party under Commander Markham and Lieutenant Parr pushed northwards. They were absent ten weeks, but had not travelled so far north in the time as was expected, having encountered great difficulties. On May 12, 1876, they reached their most northerly point, planting the British flag in latitude 83° 20´ 26´´ north. “Owing to the extraordinary nature of the pressed-up ice, a roadway had to be formed by pickaxes for nearly half the distance travelled, before any advance could be safely made, even with light loads; this rendered it always necessary to drag the sledge-loads forward by instalments, and therefore to journey over the same road several times. The advance was consequently very slow, and only averaged about a mile and a quarter daily—much the same rate as was attained by Sir Edward Parry during the summer of 1827. The greatest journey made in any one day amounted only to two miles and three quarters. Although the distance made good was only 73 miles from the ship, 276 miles were travelled over to accomplish it.” It is justly remarked, in the narrative from which I have made this extract, that no body of men could have surpassed in praiseworthy perseverance this gallant party, whose arduous struggle over the roughest and most monotonous road imaginable, may fairly be regarded as surpassing all former exploits of the kind. (The narrator says that it has “eclipsed” all former ones, which can scarcely be intended to be taken au pied de la lettre.) The expedition reached the highest latitude ever yet attained under any conditions, carried a ship to higher latitudes than any ship had before reached, and wintered in higher latitudes than had ever before been dwelt in during the darkness of a Polar winter. They explored the most northerly coast-line yet traversed, and this both on the east and west of their route northwards. They have ascertained the limits of human habitation upon this earth, and have even passed beyond the regions which animals occupy, though nearly to the most northerly limit of the voyage they found signs of the occasional visits of warm-blooded animals. Last, but not least, they have demonstrated, as it appears to me (though possibly Americans will adopt a different opinion), that by whatever route the Pole is to be reached, it is not by that which I have here called the American route, at least with the present means of transit over icebound seas. The country may well be satisfied with such results (apart altogether from the scientific observations, which are the best fruits of the expedition), even though the Pole has not yet been reached.
Must we conclude, however, that the North Pole is really inaccessible? It appears to me that the annals of Arctic research justify no such conclusion. The attempt which has just been made, although supposed at the outset to have been directed along the most promising of all the routes heretofore tried, turned out to be one of the most difficult and dangerous. Had there been land extending northwards (as Sherard Osborn and others opined), on the western side of the sea into which Robeson Channel opens, a successful advance might have been made along its shore by sledging. M’Clintock, in 1853, travelled 1220 miles in 105 days; Richards 1012 miles in 102 days; Mecham 1203 miles; Richards and Osborn 1093 miles; Hamilton 1150 miles with a dog-sledge and one man. In 1854 Mecham travelled 1157 miles in only 70 days; Young travelled 1150 miles and M’Clintock 1330 miles. But these journeys were made either over land or over unmoving ice close to a shore-line. Over an icebound sea journeys of the kind are quite impracticable. But the conditions, while not more favourable in respect of the existence of land, were in other respects altogether less favourable along the American route than along any of the others I have considered in this brief sketch of the attempts hitherto made to reach the Pole.
The recent expedition wintered as near as possible to the region of maximum winter cold in the western hemisphere, and pushed their journey northwards athwart the region of maximum summer cold. Along the course pursued by Parry’s route the cold is far less intense, in corresponding latitudes, than along the American route; and cold is the real enemy which bars the way towards the Pole. All the difficulties and dangers of the journey either have their origin (as directly as the ice itself) in the bitter Arctic cold, or are rendered effective and intensified by the cold. The course to be pursued, therefore, is that indicated by the temperature. Where the July isotherms, or lines of equal summer heat, run northwards, a weak place is indicated in the Arctic barrier; where they trend southwards, that barrier is strongest. Now there are two longitudes in which the July Arctic isotherms run far northward of their average latitude. One passes through the Parry Islands, and indicates the sea north-east of Behring’s Straits as a suitable region for attack; the other passes through Spitzbergen, and indicates the course along which Sir E. Parry’s attack was made. The latter is slightly the more promising line of the two, so far as temperature is concerned, the isotherm of 36° Fahrenheit (in July) running here as far north as the 77th parallel, whereas its highest northerly range in the longitude of the Parry Islands is but about 76°. The difference, however, is neither great nor altogether certain; and the fact that Parry found the ice drifting southwards, suggests the possibility that that may be the usual course of oceanic currents in that region. North of the Parry Islands the drift may be northwardly, like that which Payer and Weyprecht experienced to the north of Novaia Zemlia.
There is one great attraction for men of science in the route by the Parry Islands. The magnetic pole has almost certainly travelled into that region. Sir J. Ross found it, indeed, to be near Boothia Gulf, far to the east of the Parry Islands, in 1837. But the variations of the needle all over the world since then, indicate unmistakably that the magnetic poles have been travelling round towards the west, and at such a rate that the northern magnetic pole has probably nearly reached by this time the longitude of Behring’s Straits. The determination of the exact present position of the Pole would be a much more important achievement, so far as science is concerned, than a voyage to the pole of rotation.
There is one point which suggests itself very forcibly in reading the account of the sledging expedition from the Alert towards the north. In his official report, Captain Nares says that “half of each day was spent in dragging the sledges in that painful fashion—face toward the boat—in which the sailors drag a boat from the sea on to the sand;” and again he speaks of the “toilsome dragging of the sledges over ice-ridges which resembled a stormy sea suddenly frozen.” In doing this “276 miles were toiled over in travelling only 73 miles.” Is it altogether clear that the sledges were worth the trouble? One usually regards a sledge as intended to carry travellers and their provisions, etc., over ice and snow, and as useful when so employed; but when the travellers have to take along the sledge, going four times as far and working ten times as hard as if they were without it, the question suggests itself whether all necessary shelter, provisions, and utensils might not have been much more readily conveyed by using a much smaller and lighter sledge, and by distributing a large part of the luggage among the members of the expedition. The parts of a small hut could, with a little ingenuity, be so constructed as to admit of being used as levers, crowbars, carrying-poles, and so forth, and a large portion of the luggage absolutely necessary for the expedition could be carried by their help; while a small, light sledge for the rest could be helped along and occasionally lifted bodily over obstructions by levers and beams forming part of the very material which by the usual arrangement forms part of the load. I am not suggesting, be it noticed, that by any devices of this sort a journey over the rough ice of Arctic regions could be made easy. But it does seem to me that if a party could go back and forth over 276 miles, pickaxing a way for a sledge, and eventually dragging it along over the path thus pioneered for it, and making only an average of 1¼ mile of real progress per day, or 73 miles in all, the same men could with less labour (though still, doubtless, with great toil and trouble) make six or seven miles a day by reducing their impedimenta to what could be carried directly along with them. Whether use might not be made of the lifting power of buoyant gas, is a question which only experienced aëronauts and Arctic voyagers could answer. I believe that the employment of imprisoned balloon-power for many purposes, especially in time of war, has received as yet much less attention than it deserves. Of course I am aware that in Arctic regions many difficulties would present themselves; and the idea of ordinary ballooning over the Arctic ice-fields may be regarded as altogether wild in the present condition of the science of aëronautics. But the use of balloon-power as an auxiliary, however impracticable at present, is by no means to be despaired of as science advances.
After all, however, the advance upon the Pole itself, however interesting to the general public, is far less important to science than other objects which Arctic travellers have had in view. The inquiry into the phenomena of terrestrial magnetism within the Arctic regions; the investigation of oceanic movements there; of the laws according to which low temperatures are related to latitude and geographical conditions; the study of aerial phenomena; of the limits of plant life and animal life; the examination of the mysterious phenomena of the Aurora Borealis—these and many other interesting subjects of investigation have been as yet but incompletely dealt with. In the Polar regions, as Maury well remarked, “the icebergs are framed and glaciers launched; there the tides have their cradle, the whales their nursery; there the winds complete their circuit, and the currents of the sea their round, in the wonderful system of oceanic circulation; there the Aurora is lighted up, and the trembling needle brought to rest; and there, too, in the mazes of that mystic circle, terrestrial forces of occult power and of vast influence upon the well-being of man are continually at work. It is a circle of mysteries; and the desire to enter it, to explore its untrodden wastes and secret chambers, and to study its physical aspects, has grown into a longing. Noble daring has made Arctic ice and snow-clad seas classic ground.”