A relief expedition had meanwhile been fitted out at San Francisco, and in June 1881 the Rodgers sailed under the command of Lieutenant Berry, U.S.N. That intelligent officer made a complete survey and examination of the small Wrangell Island, in sight from Cape Chelagskoi, about which Dr Petermann and others had written so inaccurately. He wintered in St Lawrence Bay, and then made his way to Yakutsk, to join Melville in the search. The bodies of De Long and Ambler were found close to each other on the island of Boren-Bjelkoi; they had died nobly, martyrs to science, and devoted to duty to the last.
De Long was a naval officer of promise, and a noble character. He impressed me greatly with his thoroughness. In his last letter to his wife he wrote: “I feel my responsibility, and I hope I appreciate the delicate position I am placed in, of leading and directing so many people of my own age. I hope God will aid me in what I have undertaken, and will bring me through it in safety and with credit.” Mrs De Long resolved to publish the whole of her husband’s copious journals, and she acted wisely, for they form one of the most interesting of Arctic books. She wrote to me—what every reader will endorse—“the journals show so convincingly the zeal, perseverance, and devotion of the leader, that I am anxious that they should have as large a circulation as possible.”
De Long’s expedition, though unfortunate, was not without useful results. The history of the drift, so carefully and accurately recorded, is valuable geographically and will always be of assistance to future explorers.
CHAPTER XXXVII
GREENLAND AND ITS INLAND ICE—NORDENSKIÖLD, NANSEN, PEARY
The inland ice of Greenland was for centuries one of the greatest Arctic problems—an entirely unknown area of 750,000 square miles. So little was its formation understood in the first half of the eighteenth century that Governor Claus Paars, Greenland’s first and only governor, took out horses with the idea of riding across it to the supposed lost colony on the east side. He was disabused when he sailed up to the end of the Amaralikfjord, reached the inland ice and, after a march of two hours, was stopped by a crevasse.
No one knew what there might be within that vast region. The Eskimos were often on its edge when hunting the reindeer, but had never ventured far. They were terrified at the mighty solitude. At last curiosity overcame fear in the case of a trader named Lars Dalager, who was at Frederikshaab, one of the most southern Greenland stations. With a few Eskimos, he went up to the head of a fjord to the south of the iisblink on September 2nd, 1751, and advanced for a few days over very rough ice. He noticed the extreme cold of the inland ice and sighted mountain peaks which he supposed to be on the eastern coast, but they have since been found to be nunataks or mountain peaks rising out of the great snowy expanse. He returned to his boat after five days. The men of science who visited Greenland somewhat later, Fabricius in the days of Krantz, and the German Geisecke in 1806–13, only reached the edge of the inland ice, though it engaged much of their attention. The well-known Alpine traveller Whymper made two attempts from Disco Bay in 1867 and 1872, but without result. Several persons, such as Steenstrup, Kornerup, and Holm, made observations on the rate of movement of the glaciers and it was found to vary in different localities.
The first really serious expeditions were those of Nordenskiöld in 1870 and 1883. In the former year the accomplished Swedish explorer selected the northern arm of the Auleitsivik fjord, twenty miles north of Godthaab, as his point of entrance into the unknown. He was accompanied by the botanist Dr Berggren. On the 19th July they reached the ice cap by a cleft, and finding the surface impassable for a sledge they abandoned it, and went on with a few necessaries on their backs. Passing the region of broken-up ice and cleft and favoured by good weather, they came to a perceptible rise, with a smoother surface, and reached their furthest point 2200 feet above the sea and 30 miles west of the Auleitsivik fjord, returning after six days. Nordenskiöld found rivers and streams on the surface. The explorers went along the bank of one great river until the whole mass of water poured down a perpendicular cleft into the depths.
In 1883 Nordenskiöld again came out to Greenland in the steamer Sophia, funds being supplied by Baron Oscar Dickson, that munificent supporter of Arctic research. Nordenskiöld believed that the inland ice was not an unbroken mass, but that there were islands with bare rocks and some vegetation, the abode of reindeer and ptarmigan. He started from the same place as in 1870, with a party of ten, including two Lapps with ski. In 18 days they had advanced 73 miles and attained a height of 5000 feet. They were stopped by soft sludgy snow, but Nordenskiöld sent on the Lapps, who returned with a report that they had been 145 miles further, reaching a height of 5800 feet, and that there was nothing but an endless unbroken surface of snow. Yet the sight of two ravens rather confirmed Nordenskiöld in the belief that the expanse of snow was relieved by oases. The great Swedish savant was 31 days on the inland ice.
Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld