We Shall Not See So Much Life Near The North Pole, That Is
Certain.
It would be worth while to go ashore upon an islet there,
near Vogel Sang, to pay a visit to the eider-ducks.
Their nests are
so abundant that one cannot avoid treading on them. When the duck
is driven by a hungry fox to leave her eggs, she covers them with
down, in order that they may not cool during her absence, and,
moreover, glues the down into a case with a secretion supplied to
her by Nature for that purpose. The deserted eggs are safe, for
that secretion has an odour very disagreeable to the intruder's
nose.
We still sail northward, among sheets of ice, whose boundaries are
not beyond our vision from the masthead - these are "floes;" between
them we find easy way, it is fair "sailing ice." In the clear sky
to the north a streak of lucid white light is the reflection from an
icy surface; that is, "ice-blink," in the language of these seas.
The glare from snow is yellow, while open water gives a dark
reflection.
Northward still; but now we are in fog the ice is troublesome; a
gale is rising. Now, if our ship had timbers they would crack, and
if she had a bell it would be tolling; if we were shouting to each
other we should not hear, the sea is in a fury. With wild force its
breakers dash against a heaped-up wall of broken ice, that grinds
and strains and battles fiercely with the water. This is "the
pack," the edge of a great ice-field broken by the swell. It is a
perilous and an exciting thing to push through pack ice in a gale.
Now there is ice as far as eye can see, that is "an ice-field."
Masses are forced up like colossal tombstones on all sides; our
sailors call them "hummocks;" here and there the broken ice displays
large "holes of water." Shall we go on? Upon this field, in 1827,
Parry adventured with his men to reach the North Pole, if that
should be possible. With sledges and portable boats they laboured
on through snow and over hummocks, launching their boats over the
larger holes of water. With stout hearts, undaunted by toil or
danger, they went boldly on, though by degrees it became clear to
the leaders of the expedition that they were almost like mice upon a
treadmill cage, making a great expenditure of leg for little gain.
The ice was floating to the south with them, as they were walking to
the north; still they went on. Sleeping by day to avoid the glare,
and to get greater warmth during the time of rest, and travelling by
night - watch-makers' days and nights, for it was all one polar day -
the men soon were unable to distinguish noon from midnight. The
great event of one day on this dreary waste was the discovery of two
flies upon an ice hummock; these, says Parry, became at once a topic
of ridiculous importance. Presently, after twenty-three miles'
walking, they had only gone one mile forward, the ice having
industriously floated twenty-two miles in the opposite direction;
and then, after walking forward eleven miles, they found themselves
to be three miles behind the place from which they started. The
party accordingly returned, not having reached the Pole, not having
reached the eighty-third parallel, for the attainment of which there
was a reward of a thousand pounds held out by government. They
reached the parallel of eighty-two degrees forty-five minutes, which
was the most northerly point trodden by the foot of man.
From that point they returned. In those high latitudes they met
with a phenomenon, common in alpine regions, as well as at the Pole,
red snow; the red colour being caused by the abundance of a minute
plant, of low development, the last dweller on the borders of the
vegetable kingdom. More interesting to the sailors was a fat she
bear which they killed and devoured with a zeal to be repented of;
for on reaching navigable sea, and pushing in their boats to Table
Island, where some stones were left, they found that the bears had
eaten all their bread, whereon the men agreed that "Bruin was now
square with them." An islet next to Table Island - they are both
mere rocks - is the most northern land discovered. Therefore, Parry
applied to it the name of lieutenant - afterwards Sir James - Ross.
This compliment Sir James Ross acknowledged in the most emphatic
manner, by discovering on his part, at the other Pole, the most
southern land yet seen, and giving to it the name of Parry: "Parry
Mountains."
It very probably would not be difficult, under such circumstances as
Sir W. Parry has since recommended, to reach the North Pole along
this route. Then (especially if it be true, as many believe, that
there is a region of open sea about the Pole itself) we might find
it as easy to reach Behring Straits by travelling in a straight line
over the North Pole, as by threading the straits and bays north of
America.
We turn our course until we have in sight a portion of the ice-
barred eastern coast of Greenland, Shannon Island. Somewhere about
this spot in the seventy-fifth parallel is the most northern part of
that coast known to us. Colonel - then Captain - Sabine in the Griper
was landed there to make magnetic, and other observations; for the
same purpose he had previously visited Sierra Leone. That is where
we differ from our forefathers. They commissioned hardy seamen to
encounter peril for the search of gold ore, or for a near road to
Cathay; but our peril is encountered for the gain of knowledge, for
the highest kind of service that can now be rendered to the human
race.
Before we leave the Northern Sea, we must not omit to mention the
voyage by Spitzbergen northward, in 1818, of Captain Buchan in the
Dorothea, accompanied by Lieutenant Franklin, in the Trent.
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