Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume I.djvu/716

 680 ARCTIC DISCOVERY toms, Capt. Hall returned in September, 1869, to the United States, where he applied himselt to the organization of a new expedition. A German arctic expedition, organized by Dr. Petermann of Gotha, and placed under the command of Capt. Koldewey, left Bremen in the spring of 1868, in the Greenland, a vessel of 80 tons burden. Leaving Bergen, Norway, in May, Koldewey succeeded in reaching a point in lat. 81 5' N., Ion. 16 W. He returned 111 October to Bremen. In 1868 the Swedish government also sent out an expedition, which sailed to the north of Spitzbergen, but with- out any noteworthy discoveries. In 1869 Dr. Hayes visited Upernavik to make preparations for the expedition he had not ceased to plan ; he then hoped to undertake it during the year 1870. In a small steamer, the Panther, Dr. Hayes and his party made a short voyage about the arctic seas, but did not prosecute any ex- tensive explorations. On June 15, 1869, an- other German expedition left Bremen ; the vessels were the Gerinania, under Capt. Hege- mann, and the Hansa, under Capt. Koldewey. Through a mistake in the reading of signals, the two vessels parted in July, the Germania following the E. coast of Greenland, and win- tering in Sabine bay; while the Hansa was wrecked in October among the ice along the shore. Her crew took refuge on a field of moving ice, which, as it floated southward, gradually diminished, until, after it had become a mere raft, they were obliged to take to their three boats, by means of which they finally reached Friedrichsthal, near Cape Farewell. They reached home in the summer of 1870. Meanwhile the Germania had endeavored, but without success, to reach high latitudes by fol- lowing the E. coast of Greenland ; and in the autumn she also returned to Bremen. Though the voyage contributed much to scientific knowledge, no new discoveries of importance were made by either of the crews. Several other expeditions were sent out from the con- tinent of Europe in 1869, but they accomplished little beyond scientific research, conducted in regions already known. Still less was done in 1870. Capt. Sherard Osborn, of the British navy, had for several years urged a new ex- pedition by way of Smith sound in search of the open polar sea, but his views were not sustained by the board of admiralty, and he failed to secure aid from the government. A French scheme for arctic exploration was abandoned on account of the war with Ger- many. In 1871 several arctic voyages were begun. In the summer James Lamont, an Englishman, sailed to the eastward of Green- land, but made no new discoveries. In June the Austrian lieutenants Payer and Weyprecht, in a small Norwegian sailing vessel, sailed from Yrornso, Norway, into the Arctic sea to the north of Nova Zembla, where they succeeded in discovering an open ocean in which naviga- tion was only impeded by very light and scat- tered ice. In October they returned to Tromso, ARCTURUS having penetrated to lat. 78 41' N. Dr. Peter- mann, the German geographer, looks upon the discoveries made by this unpretending expedi- tion as most important, as he believes that Payer and Weyprecht actually penetrated into the open polar sea, and found the entrance of the best, if not the only water passage to the neighborhood of the pole. Their discoveries seem also to confirm the theory originally ad- vanced by Capt. Silas Bent of the U. S. navy, that the pole can best be reached by following the course of the Gulf stream northward be- tween Spitzbergen and Nova Zembla; it is claimed by the supporters of this theory that the warmer water of the great current not only keeps the northern channel free from ice at this point, but is the cause of the open polar sea. An expedition fitted out by A. Rosenthal of Bre- merhuven began in 1871 the exploration of the ocean N. of Siberia. The Norwegian captains Tobiesen and Mack confirmed the discovery of Payer and Weyprecht. Another Norwegian, Capt. Carlsen, discovered the remains of the winter quarters established 275 years before at the N. E. end of Nova Zembla by the Dutch captain Barentz. Ulve and Smyth sailed to the north of Spitzbergen and found open water even in lat. 80 27'. Finally, Capt. Hall or- ganized at last, with the aid of congress, his long desired American expedition toward the pole ; and on June 29 he sailed from New York with a well selected corps of assistants and crew, in the wooden steamer Polaris, of about 400 tons. For nearly two years no important news was received from the explorers. On April 29, 1873, the British steamship Tigress struck an ice floe in lat. 53 35' N., Ion. 35 W. On this floe were found Capt. Tyson, one of Hall's officers, and 18 others, who had been 196 days on the ice, and drifted about 2,000 miles. They reported that on Oct. 15, 1872, the Polaris being fast in the ice about lat. 77 35', and leaking badly, they had been ordered to land provisions ; and that while so engaged the floe broke up, and they were separated from the ship and rapidly drifted southward, without seeing her again. Their report gave the following details of the expedition. Capt. Hall sailed up Kennedy channel and through a strait which he named Robeson, and on Aug. 24, 1871, reached lat. 82 16' N. It being deemed prudent to fall back, the Po- laris was taken on Sept. 5 into winter quar- ters in Thank God bay, lat. 81 38' N. On Oct. 10 Capt. Hall started on a sledge expe- dition, but did not go beyond lat. 82. On his return ho was taken suddenly ill, and died on Nov. 8. The command then devolved on Capt. Buddington, who resolved to return, and on Aug. 12, 1872, the Polaris was turned southward. She drifted with the ice into Baf- fin bay, where Tyson left her. AIUTt Rl S (Gr. dp/crop, bear, and ofyof, guard, or ovpd, tail), formerly a constellation near the Great Bear. Later the name was confined to the largest star in the constellation, which was after-