Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 62.djvu/62

56 Ryp in command of the other, sailed north past Bear Island to Spitzbergen, and in following its shores, then explored for the first time, reached a latitude of close on 80°. Even this high northing was surpassed, however, by Henry Hudson in 1607, who, in a little vessel of 80 tons, the Hopewell, followed the Spitzbergen coast to a point by dead reckoning 81° N. Land was stated to have been seen as far north as 82°, but either the reckoning must have been erroneous or ice must have been mistaken for land. In 1612, however, Jonas Poole met at Spitzbergen Thomas Marmaduke, of Hull, in the Hopewell, who, Poole states, sailed as far north as 82°, two degrees beyond Hakluyt's Headland. If this statement is well founded, no further advance towards the Pole was made in this or any other direction that is, no well-authenticated advance for considerably over 200 years. But if Marmaduke 's claim is allowed, so must be the claims of the Dutch and other whalers, large numbers of whom for many long years thought nothing of passing 80° N. latitude, and in favorable seasons may possibly have reached a degree or two higher. Confining our attention, however, to authenticated records, and remembering that the highest northing calculated from observations that was reached by Hudson was 80°23′, we may mention, in this brief record of the stages passed in the journey northwards, the expedition sent out by the Admiralty in 1773 under Captain J. C. Phipps (afterwards Lord Mulgrave). Phipps reached 80°48′ N. latitude off the northwest coast of Spitzbergen. It is interesting to note that this was the polar expedition on which Nelson served. A more marked advance was made in 1806, when the famous whaler, William Scoresby, was able to advance good proof that he had reached 81°30′ N. latitude in the Spitzbergen Sea.

But it was reserved for Lieutenant W. E. Parry far to outdistance all his predecessors in the work of north polar exploration. Parry set sail in the Hecla in 1827, and making Trureaberg Bay, on the north coast of Spitzbergen, his base of operations, started northwards with two boats, which were fitted with steel-shod runners so that they might serve as sledges. In spite of the toilsome nature of the journey, he and his men pushed over the ice, piled with great blocks and bristling with splinters which pierced through boots and feet, to latitude 82°45′ N. Then it was found that the southerly drift of the ice practically counterbalanced the progress made during the onward march and the expedition was compelled to turn back. Before Dr. Hansen's ever-memorable expedition, Parry's was the highest northing attained in the Eastern Hemisphere. But it may be noted that the Austrian Lieutenant Julius Payer, who, in conjunction with Lieutenant Carl Weyprecht, discovered Franz Josef Land in 1873, reached in the following year the highest point on land yet attained in the Eastern Hemisphere, in 82°05′ N. latitude. Neither Mr. Jackson, Mr.