A Few Years Later, Jonas Poole - Having Been
Sent In The Same Direction, Instead Of Prosecuting Any
Discoveries, Wisely Set Himself To Killing The Sea-Horses
That Frequent The Arctic Ice-Fields, And In Lieu Of
Tidings Of New Lands - Brought Back A Valuable Cargo Of
Walrus Tusks.
In 1615, Fotherby started with the intention
of renewing the attempt to sail across the north pole,
but after encountering many dangers he also was forced
to return.
It was during the course of his homeward voyage
that he fell in with the island of Jan Mayen. Soon
afterwards, the discovery by Hudson and Davis, of the
seas and straits to which they have given their names,
diverted the attention of the public from all thoughts
of a north-east passage, and the Spitzbergen waters were
only frequented by ships engaged in the fisheries. The
gradual disappearance of the whale, and the discovery of
more profitable fishing stations on the west coast of
Greenland, subsequently abolished the sole attraction
for human being which this inhospitable region ever
possessed, and of late years, I understand, the Spitzbergen
seas have remained as lonely and unvisited as they were
before the first adventurer invaded their solitude.
Twice only, since the time of Fotherby, has any attempt
been made to reach the pole on a north-east course. In
1773, Captain Phipps, afterwards Lord Mulgrave, sailed
in the "Carcass" towards Spitzbergen, but he never reached
a higher latitude than 81 degrees. It was in this expedition
that Nelson made his first voyage, and had that famous
encounter with the bear. The next and last endeavour was
undertaken by Parry, in 1827. Unable to get his ship even
as far north as Phipps had gone, he determined to leave
her in a harbour in Spitzbergen, and push across the sea
in boats and sledges. The uneven nature of the surface
over which they had to travel, caused their progress
northward to be very slow, and very laborious. The ice
too, beneath their feet, was not itself immovable, and
at last they perceived they were making the kind of
progress a criminal makes upon the treadmill, - the floes
over which they were journeying drifting to the southward
faster than they walked north; so that at the end of a
long day's march of ten miles, they found themselves four
miles further from their destination than at its
commencement. Disgusted with so Irish a manoeuvre, Parry
determined to return, though not until he had almost
reached the 83rd parallel, a higher latitude than any to
which man is known to have penetrated. Arctic authorities
are still of opinion, that Parry's plan for reaching the
pole might prove successful, if the expedition were to
set out earlier in the season, ere the intervening field
of ice is cast adrift by the approach of summer.
Our own run to Bear Island was very rapid. On getting
outside the islands, a fair fresh wind sprung up, and we
went spinning along for two nights and two days as merrily
as possible, under a double-reefed mainsail and staysail,
on a due north course. On the third day we began to see
some land birds, and a few hours afterwards, the loom of
the island itself; but it had already begun to get
fearfully cold, and our thermometer, which I consulted
every two hours, plainly indicated that we were approaching
ice. My only hope was that, at all events, the southern
extremity of the island might be disengaged; for I was
very anxious to land, in order to examine some coal-beds
which are said to exist in the upper strata of the
sandstone formation. This expectation was doomed to
complete disappointment. Before we had got within six
miles of the shore, it became evident that the report of
the Hammerfest Sea-horseman was too true.
Between us and the land there extended an impenetrable
barrier of packed ice, running due east and west, as far
as the eye could reach.
[Figure: fig-p162.gif]
What was now to be done? If a continuous field of ice
lay 150 miles off the southern coast of Spitzbergen, what
would be the chance of getting to the land by going
further north? Now that we had received ocular proof of
the veracity of the Hammerfest skipper in this first
particular, was it likely that we should have the luck
to find the remainder of his story untrue? According to
the track he had jotted down for me on the chart, the
ice in front stretched right away west in an unbroken
line, to the wall of ice which we had seen running to
the north, from the upper end of Jan Mayen. Only a week
had elapsed since he had actually ascertained the
impracticability of reaching a higher latitude, - what
likelihood could there be of a channel having been opened
up to the northward during so short an interval? Such
was the series of insoluble problems by which I posed
myself, as we stood vainly smacking our lips at the
island, which lay so tantalizingly beyond our reach.
Still, unpromising as the aspect of things might appear,
it would not do to throw a chance away; so I determined
to put the schooner round on the other tack, and run
westwards along the edge of the ice, until we found
ourselves again in the Greenland sea. Bidding, therefore,
a last adieu to Mount Misery, as its first discoverers
very appropriately christened one of the higher hills in
Bear Island, we suffered it to melt back into a fog, - out
of which, indeed, no part of the land had ever more than
partially emerged, - and with no very sanguine expectations
as to the result, sailed west away towards Greenland.
During the next four-and-twenty hours we ran along the
edge of the ice, in nearly a due westerly direction,
without observing the slightest indication of anything
approaching to an opening towards the North. It was weary
work, scanning that seemingly interminable barrier, and
listening to the melancholy roar of waters on its icy
shore.
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