Round About the North Pole

by W. J. Gordon

Four years afterwards Captain John Ross, anxious for further work in the north, started in search of the passage by the same route. After some years of effort he had succeeded in organising an expedition, the expenses of which to the amount of over £17,000 were borne by Felix Booth, with the exception of over £2000 added by Ross himself. It was a memorable voyage in many respects, and for one thing in particular that is frequently passed unnoticed. This was the introduction of steam into Arctic navigation. The Victory was an old Isle of Man packet-boat of eighty-five tons, which, by raising her sides five feet, Ross increased to one hundred and fifty tons. Taking out her old paddles, he replaced them with a pair of Robertson's patents, hoistable out of water in a minute, so as to clear the ice. The engine was also a patent, by Braithwaite and Ericsson, who built the Novelty that appeared at Rainhill. But neither Braithwaite nor Ericsson was any happier in this production. Its great feature was the doing away with the funnel, no flue being required owing to the fires being kept going by artificial draught derived from two bellows of unequal sizes—"the bellows draught," in fact, like that of the Novelty which broke down in the great locomotive contest won by the Rocket. Had not Ross been a man of enterprise he would never have ventured to sea with such an experimental arrangement; but he did, and he suffered for it.

THE "VICTORY"

The "execrable machinery," as he inadequately called it, went wrong from the first. On the way from Galleons Reach to Woolwich, part of it became displaced, causing a delay for repairs. At Woolwich, Sir Byam Martin, the Comptroller of the Navy, and Sir John Franklin went on board and said uncomplimentary things about it, as also did the Duke of Orleans (afterwards King Louis Philippe) and the Duke of Chartres, though the Frenchmen were more gentle in their phrases. From Woolwich to Margate this remarkable engine, aided by the sails, took the Victory in just over twelve hours, the boiler leaking so much that the additional forcing pump had to be kept working by hand all the time. Passing the Lizard, the piston-rod was found to be so much worn on one side by friction against the guide-wheels that a piece of iron had to be brazed on to it. Then the keys of the main shaft broke and the substitutes made on board broke one after the other. "The boilers also continued to leak, though we had put dung and potatoes in them by Mr. Ericsson's directions." The air-pump drew quantities of water; the feeding pump was insufficient to supply the boiler. The big bellows nearly wore out; so did the small one. Off the Mull of Galloway the stoker fell into the machinery and had his arm crushed and nearly severed above the elbow. Then the teeth of the fly-wheel of the small bellows were shorn off, and the boiler joints gave way, and the water, or rather the potato soup, flowed out of the furnace doors and put out the fire.

Enough has been said to show the difficulties under which Ross first used steam on a voyage to the northern seas. The list of damages need not be continued. Every constituent part of the apparatus gave way in turn; and when the Victory became imprisoned for the winter, and the engineering staff had some time on their hands, they employed it in taking what was left of the installation, piece by piece, out of the ship, laying it on the ice, and leaving it there.

Ross was to be accompanied by the whaler John, but the men mutinied and refused to start, so that he went on from Loch Ryan alone. The following year the crew of the John, then on a whaling voyage in Baffin Bay, again mutinied, killed the master, put the mate adrift in a boat in the manner of Henry Hudson, and lost the ship on the western coast, where most of them were drowned.

With the Krusenstern, a boat of eighteen tons, in tow, Ross crossed the Atlantic, sighting Sanderson's Hope on the 29th of July, having left Scotland six weeks before. Early in August he sailed through Lancaster Sound, and, taking the opportunity of removing his Croker's Mountains to the north-east corner of North Somerset, went down Prince Regent Inlet to Fury Beach. After completing his provisions for twenty-seven months from the stores left behind by Parry, he crossed Cresswell Bay, passed Cape Garry, Parry's farthest south, on the 15th of August, and next day, Sunday, "I went on shore," he says, "with all the officers, to take formal possession of the new-discovered land; and at one o'clock, being a few minutes after seven in London, the colours were displayed with the usual ceremony, and the health of the King drunk, together with that of the founder of our expedition, after whom the land was named."

NORTH HENDON

"From the highest part of this land, which was upwards of a hundred feet above the level of the sea," he continues, "we had a good view of the bay and the adjoining shores, and had the satisfaction to find that the ice was in motion and fast clearing away. We therefore resolved to wait patiently till we could see an opening; and proceeded to the northern quarter of this spot to make some observations on the dip of the magnetic needle.... To this place I gave the name Brown Island, after the amiable sister of Mr. Booth; the inlet was named Brentford Bay, and the islands Grimble Islands." And in his book is a beautiful steel engraving by W. Chevalier, "Taking Possession. Cape Hussard, Grimble Isle, Brentford Bay, Brown's Island." In short, Ross found the place, landed on it, took possession of it, named it and sketched it. "The sketches from which the drawings were made were taken by Mr. Ronald's invaluable perspective instrument, and therefore must be true delineations."