[147] Length 160 ft., extreme breadth 33·4 ft., depth of hold 17 ft., tonnage 751, nominal h.-p. 60.
[148] Length 166 ft., extreme breadth 30 ft., depth of hold 18 ft., tonnage 668, nominal h.-p. 43.
[149] Each sledge had its flag, which, at my suggestion, was designed on proper heraldic rules. The cross of St George at the hoist, the fly swallow-tailed, party per fess with the colours of the sledge-commander’s arms, and his crest or principal charge over all, a border or fringe of the colours of the arms. The same pattern was adopted for the sledge flags of Captain Scott’s Antarctic expeditions.
[150] Hans Hendrik was born at the German missionary station of Fiskernäs in Greenland, and had become a good kayaker and hunter when he agreed to join Dr Kane’s expedition, where he was under the protection of Carl Petersen. He was with Morton when he reported having seen the open polar sea. After Kane’s second winter Hans joined the Arctic Highlanders and married a girl named Markut. Hans and his wife later joined Hayes’s expedition, and afterwards settled at Upernivik. In August, 1871, they joined Hall’s expedition, and were left on the floe which drifted down Baffin’s Bay, where, as we have seen, Hans saved the rest of the party by his skill as a huntsman. He was most useful in some of the sledge journeys from the Discovery. In 1877 he wrote his memoirs in Eskimo, which were translated into English by Dr Rink (Trübner, 1878). He afterwards lived at Upernivik.
[151] Rawson was mortally wounded at the battle of Tel-el-Kebir, while serving as naval aide-de-camp to Sir Garnet Wolseley. Admiral Sir George Egerton, K.C.B., became Commander-in-Chief at Devonport.
[152] Tidal observations, under the direction of Lieutenant Archer, were taken in 81° 45′ N., during 7 months; and in 82° 25′ N., for two months. They were reported upon by Professor Houghton (Nares, II, p. 356).
[153] Ivigtut, the cryolite mine, is about 16 miles up the Arsak fjord. Cryolite is a white mineral found on the gneiss of S.W. Greenland and nowhere else—a double hydro-fluorate of soda and alumina. In 1857 a licence was given to a company to work the mine to the amount of about 26 ship-loads yearly.
[154] In 1892 these two young Swedish enthusiasts started with the object of exploring the part of Ellesmere Island between Jones and Smith Sounds. They bought a small cutter of 37 tons at St John’s, Newfoundland, and went up Baffin’s Bay to the Cary Islands. In 1893 a whaler found her driven on shore at one of the Cary Islands and full of ice. There was a record written by Björling asking that, if nothing was heard of them in 1893, relief might be sent to Clarence Point on Ellesmere Island. They went away in an open boat. I appealed for funds and collected £100 as a help to Nordenskiöld’s fund for sending a steamer. She went, but nothing more was ever found or heard of these gallant youths.
[155] Both his sons inherited much of the ability of their father. The eldest died young, but not before he had done valuable ethnographic work. The younger, Erland, now Baron Nordenskiöld, has made two journeys among the Amazonian Indians, with excellent ethnographic and linguistic results.
[156] Sir Fridtjof Nansen, in an Appendix to his Through Siberia, has lately made a record of all voyages across the Kara Sea from the voyage of Burrough in 1556 to the present day, with notes on the state of the ice in each year. His conclusion is that in the great majority of years it is possible to reach the Siberian rivers through the Kara Sea, though there are great variations in the quantity of ice in different years. He thinks it very improbable that these differences are caused by winds and sea currents from the north. His conclusion is that the ice that is met with is formed in the Kara Sea itself, and that the differences of ice conditions are caused by differences in the winters. In a cold winter, with little precipitation, more ice will be formed, and little ice will melt in a cold spring and summer. When there is a warm winter and heavy snow-fall succeeded by a warm spring and summer, the melting of the ice will proceed rapidly, and there will be a fairly ice-free Kara Sea. Nansen’s remarks on the navigation of the Kara Sea are extremely valuable, based on the most complete information and long experience of ice conditions.