Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 19.djvu/335

Rh POLAR REGIONS 319 right from the empress Catherine to dig there for fossil ivory. These islands were more fully explored by an Heden- officer named Hedenstrom in 1809, and seekers for fossil strom. ivory annually resorted to them. A Russian expedi tion under Captain Tchitschakoff, sent to Spitzbergen in 1764, was only able to attain a latitude of 80 30 N. Since the year 1773 the objects of polar exploration, at least so far as England is concerned, have been mainly the acquisition of knowledge in various branches of science. It was on these grounds that the Honourable Daines Bar- rington and the Royal Society induced the Government to undertake arctic exploration once more. The result was that two vessels, the &quot;Racehorse&quot; and &quot;Carcass&quot; bombs, hipps. were commissioned, under the command of Captain Phipps. The expedition sailed from the Nore on the 2d June 1773, and was stopped by the ice to the north of Hakluyt Head land, the north-western point of Spitzbergen. They reached the Seven Islands and discovered Walden Island ; but beyond this point progress was impossible. When they attained their highest latitude in 80 48 N., north of the central part of the Spitzbergen group, the ice at the edge of the pack was 24 feet thick. Captain Phipps returned to England in September 1773. Five years afterwards ook. Captain Cook received instructions to proceed northward from Kamchatka and search for a north-east or north-west passage from the Pacific to the Atlantic. In accordance with these orders Captain Cook, during his third voyage, reached Cape Prince of Wales, the western extremity of America, on August 9, 1778. His ships, the &quot;Resolution &quot; and &quot;Discovery,&quot; arrived at the edge of the ice, after passing Behring Strait, in 70 41 N. On August 17th the farthest point seen on the American side was named Icy Cape. On the Asiatic side Cook s survey extended to Cape North. In the following year Captain Clerke, who had succeeded to the command, made another attempt, but his ship was beset in the ice, and so much damaged that further attempts were abandoned. arrow. The wars following the French Revolution put an end to voyages of discovery till, after the peace of 1815, north polar research found a powerful and indefatigable advocate in Sir John BARROW (q.v.). Through his influence a measure for promoting polar discovery became law in 1818 (58 Geo. III. c. 20), by which a reward of 20,000 was offered for making the north-west passage, and of 5000 for reaching 89 N., while the commissioners of longitude were empowered to award proportionate sums to those who might achieve certain portions of such discoveries. In 1817 the icy seas were reported by Captain Scoresby and others to be remarkably open, and this circumstance enabled Barrow to obtain sanction for the despatch of two expe ditions, each consisting of two whalers one to attempt discoveries by way of Spitzbergen and the other by Baffin s Bay. The vessels for the Spitzbergen route, the &quot; Doro thea &quot; and &quot; Trent,&quot; were commanded by Captain David Buchan and Lieutenant John Franklin, and sailed in April 1818. Driven into, the pack by a heavy swell from the south, both vessels were severely nipped, and had to return to England. The other expedition, consisting of the &quot; Isa bella&quot; and &quot;Alexander,&quot; commanded by Captain John Ross and Lieutenant Edward Parry, followed in the wake of Baffin s voyage of 1616. Ross sailed from England in April 1818. The chief merit of his voyage was that it vindicated Baffin s accuracy as a discoverer. Its practical result was that the way was shown to a very lucrative fishery in the &quot;North Water&quot; of Baffin s Bay, which continued to be frequented by a fleet of whalers every year. Captain Ross thought that the inlets reported by Baffin were merely bays, while the opinion of his second in command was that a wide opening to the westward existed through Lancaster Sound of Baffin. Parry was consequently selected to command a new Parry s expedition in the following year. His two vessels, the first and &quot;Hecla&quot; and &quot;Griper,&quot; passed through Lancaster Sound, Iecond the continuation of which he named Barrow Strait, and V ya8 advanced westward, with an archipelago on his starboard hand, since known as the Parry Islands. He observed a wide opening to the north, which he named Wellington Channel, and sailed onwards for 300 miles to Melville Island. He was stopped by that impenetrable polar pack of vast thickness which appears to surround the archipelago to the north of the American continent, and was obliged to winter in a harbour on the south coast of Melville Island. Parry s sanitary arrangements during the winter were very judicious, and the scientific results of his expedition were most valuable. The vessels returned in October 1820; and a fresh expedition in the &quot; Fury &quot; and &quot; Hecla,&quot; again under the command of Captain Parry, sailed from the Nore on May 8, 1821, and passed their first winter on the coast of the newly discovered Melville Peninsula in 66 11 N. Still persevering, Parry passed his second winter among the Eskimo at Igloolik in 69 20 N., and discovered a channel leading westward from the head of Hudson s Bay, which he named Fury and Hecla Strait. The expedition returned in the autumn of 1823. Meantime Parry s friend Frank- Franklin had been employed in attempts to reach by land J in s ftrst the northern shores of America, hitherto only touched at J oul ne y- two points by Hearne and Mackenzie. Franklin went out in 1819, accompanied by Dr Richardson, George Back, and Hood. They landed at York factory, and proceeded to the Great Slave Lake. In August of the following year they started for the Coppermine river, and, embarking on it, reached its mouth on July 18, 1821. From that point 550 miles of coast-line were explored, the extreme point being called Cape Turnagain. Most frightful sufferings, from starvation and cold, had to be endured during the return journey ; but eventually Franklin, Richardson, and Back arrived safely at Fort Chippewyan. It was now thought desirable that an attempt should be made to con nect the Cape Turnagain of Franklin with the discoveries made by Parry during his second voyage ; but the first effort, under Captain Lyon in the &quot; Griper,&quot; was unsuc cessful. In 1824 three combined attempts were organized. Parry s While Parry again entered by Lancaster Sound and pushed third down a great opening he had seen to the south named v J a g e&amp;gt; Prince Regent s Inlet, Captain Beechey was to enter Behring s Strait, and Franklin was to make a second journey to the shores of Arctic America. Parry was unfortunate, but Beechey entered Behring Strait in the &quot; Blossom &quot; in Beechey. August 1826, and extended our knowledge as far as Point Barrow in 71 23 30&quot; H. lat. Franklin, in 1825-26, Frank- descended the Mackenzie river to its mouth, and ex- lin&amp;gt;s plored the coast for 374 miles to the westward ; while ^&quot;g Dr Richardson discovered the shore between the mouths of the Mackenzie and Coppermine, and sighted land to the northward, named by him Wollaston Land, the dividing channel being called Union and Dolphin Strait. They returned in the autumn of 1826. Work was also being done in the Spitzbergen and Barents Seas. From 1821 to 1824 the Russian Captain Lutke. Lutke was surveying the west coast of Nova Zembla as far as Cape Nassau, and examining the ice of the adjacent sea. In May 1823 the &quot;Griper&quot; sailed, under the com mand of Captain Clavering, to convey Captain Sabine to Claver- the polar regions in order to make pendulum observations. ^8- Clavering pushed through the ice in 75 30 N., and succeeded in reaching the east coast of Greenland, where observations were taken on Pendulum Island. He laid down the land from 76 to 72 N. Parry s attempt in 1827 to reach the pole from the