Science in Short Chapters

by W. Mattieu Williams

It is the physical configuration of the fringing zone of the arctic regions, not its mere latitude, that bars the way to the Pole.

I put this in italics because so much depends upon it—I may say that all depends upon it—for if this barrier can be scaled at any part we may come upon a region as easily traversed as that part of the Arctic Ocean lying between the North Cape and Spitzbergen, which is regularly navigated every summer by hardy Norsemen in little sailing sloops of 30 to 40 tons burden, and only six or eight pair of hands on board; or by overland traveling as easily as the Arctic winter journey between Tornea and Alten. This trip over the snow-covered mountains is done in five or six days, at the latter end of every November, by streams of visitors to the fair at Alten, in latitude 70°, 3½ degrees N. of the Arctic circle; its distance, 430 miles, is just about equal to that which stands between the North Pole and the northernmost reach of our previous Arctic expeditions. One or the other of the above-named conditions, or an enclosed frozen Polar ocean, is what probably exists beyond the broken fjord barrier hitherto explored; a continuation of such a barrier is, in fact, almost a physical impossibility; and therefore the Pole will be ultimately reached, not by a repetition of such weary struggles as those which ended in the very hasty retreat of our last expedition, but by a bound across about 400 miles of open or frozen Polar ocean, or a rapid sledge-run over snow-paved fields like those so merrily traversed in Arctic Norway by festive bonders and their families on their way to Yule-time dancing parties.

Reference to a map of the circumpolar regions, or, better, to a globe, will show that the continents of Europe, Asia, and America surround the Pole, and hang, as it were, downwards or southwards from a latitude of 70° and upwards. There is but one wide outlet for the accumulations of Polar ice, and that is between Norway and Greenland, with Iceland standing nearly midway. Davis’s and Behring’s Straits are the narrower openings; the first may be only a fjord, rather than an outlet. The ice-block, or crowding together and heaping up of the glacier fragments and bay ice, is thus explained.

Attempts of two kinds have been made to scale this icy barrier. Ships have sailed northwards, threading a dangerous course between the floating icebergs in the summer, and becoming fast bound in winter, when the narrow spaces of brackish water lying between these masses of land ice become frozen, and the “ice-foot” clinging to the shore stretches out seaward to meet that on the opposite side of the fjord or channel. The second method, usually adopted as supplementary to the first, is that of dragging sledges over these glacial accumulations. The pitiful rate of progress thus attainable is shown by the record of the last attempt, when Commander Markham achieved about one mile per day, and the labor of doing this was nearly fatal to his men. Any tourist who has crossed or ascended an Alpine glacier with only a knapsack to carry, can understand the difficulty of dragging a cartload of provisions, etc., over such accumulations of iceberg fragments and of sea-ice squeezed and crumbled up between them. It is evident that we must either find a natural breach in this Arctic barrier or devise some other means of scaling it.

The first of these efforts has been largely discussed by the advocates of rival routes. I will not go into this question at present, but only consider the alternative to all land routes and all water routes, viz.: that by the other available element—an aerial route—as proposed to be attempted in the new Arctic expedition projected by Commander Cheyne, and which he is determined to practically carry out, provided his own countrymen, or, failing them, others more worthy, will assist him with the necessary means of doing so.

To reach the Pole from the northernmost point already attained by our ships demands a journey of about 400 miles, the distance between London and Edinburgh. With a favorable wind, a balloon will do this in a few hours, On November 27, 1870, Captain Roher descended near Lysthuus, in Hitterdal (Norway), in the balloon “Ville d’Orleans,” having made the journey from Paris in fifteen hours. The distance covered was about 900 miles, more than double the distance between the Pole and the accessible shores of Greenland.

On November 7, 1836, Messrs. Holland, Mason, and Green ascended from Vauxhall Gardens, at 1.30 P.M., with a moderate breeze, and descended eighteen hours afterwards “in the Duchy of Nassau, about two leagues from the town of Weilburg,” the distance in a direct line being about 500 miles. A similar journey to this would carry Commander Cheyne from his ship to the North Pole, or thereabouts, while a fresh breeze like that enjoyed by Captain Roher would, in the same time, carry him clear across the whole of the circumpolar area to the neighborhood of Spitzbergen, and two or three hours more of similar proceeding would land him in Siberia or Finland, or even on the shores of Arctic Norway, where he could take the Vadsö or Hammerfest packet to meet one of Wilson’s liners at Trondhjem or Bergen, and thus get from the North Pole to London in ten days.

Lest any of my readers should think that I am writing this at random, I will supply the particulars. I have before me the “Norges Communicationer” for the present summer season of 1880. Twice every week a passenger excursion steam packet sails round the North Cape each way, calling at no less than twenty stations on this Arctic face of Europe to land and embark passengers and goods. By taking that which stops at Gjesvaer (an island near the foot of the North Cape) on Saturday, or that which starts from Hammerfest on Sunday morning, Trondhjem is reached on Thursday, and Wilson’s liner, the “Tasso,” starts on the same day for Hull, “average passage seventy hours.” Thus Hammerfest, the northernmost town in the world, is now but eight days from London, including a day’s stop at Tromsö, the capital of Lapland, which is about 3 degrees N. of the Arctic circle, and within a week of London. At Captain Roher’s rate of traveling Tromsö would be but twenty-three hours from the Pole.

These figures are, of course, only stated as possibilities on the supposition that all the conditions should be favorable, but by no means as probable.

What, then, are the probabilities and the amount of risk that will attend an attempt to reach the Pole by an aerial route?