Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 62.djvu/66

60 to the polar sea beyond. Heavy pack-ice stopped his advance in 82°11' N. latitude. His vessel, the Polaris, wintered under an enormous floeberg in 81°37' north. Before winter really set in Hall journeyed by sledge northwards to the 82d parallel, and there saw land on the west side of Robeson Strait, extending north, as far as he could judge and subsequent observations practically confirmed his estimate to about 83°05' N. During the winter Hall died, and the other members of the expedition only escaped after experiencing a succession of disasters.

But the success which had attended the efforts of the expedition to reach a high northern latitude and the other valuable geographical results obtained, roused a spirit of emulation in this country. In 1875 was despatched the famous Nares expedition, in the Alert and the Discovery. They found all plain sailing as far as Cape Sabine, but beyond that point the ice conditions were as unfavorable to an advance northwards as Hall had found them favorable. By degrees, however, the Alert and the Discovery made their way along the West Greenland coast past Cape Lieber and across Lady Franklin Bay to Discovery Harbor. Here the Discovery wintered, but Nares, pushing north in the Alert, managed before the close of the summer to advance a step nearer the Pole than any who had previously followed the Smith Sound route. His winter station on the edge of the Polar Sea was in 82°25' N. But even this high northing was not to mark the limit of the expedition's success that year. Lieutenant Pelham Aldrich, whilst in command of a sledging party, reached on September 25, 1875, latitude 82°48' north, on the coast of Grinnell Land, and established what was then a world's record. In the following summer Aldrich was yet more successful, passing round the north end of Grinnell Land from Cape Columbia, in 83°07' north, to Cape Alfred Ernest, in 82°16' north. Meanwhile Commander A. H. Markham was attaining still higher latitudes. After following the coast to Cape Henry, in 82°55' N., Markham struck across the ice-bound Polar Sea in a direct attempt to reach the North Pole. He was accompanied by seventeen men, with two sledges, and after almost superhuman exertions reached a latitude of 83°20’. On the valuable work accomplished in other directions it is not now our purpose to dilate. It is curious to note, however, when one bears subsequent expeditions in mind, that the Nares expedition, successful as it undoubtedly was, was supposed to have closed that particular route to the Pole. "To send another expedition in that direction would," it was declared, "be a waste of money and energy."

In spite of this dictum, the Greely Expedition, sent north by the United States Government as a result of the International Polar Conferences of 1879-80, made its way up Smith Sound in 1881. The expedition remained in the polar regions three years, and carried out a series of