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Introduction ix Ollk'iiil Instructions xix Explunutiun ul' Technical TerniH xxiii ( Departure from the Nore Arrival at Hammerfest Hydrographical Remarks upon the Port| of Hammerfest Leave Hammerfest Meet with the ice Reach Hackluyt's Headland Break adriA, and placed in a precarious ^ situation j Beset in the ice and severely " nipped" Land on Red Beach Attempt to set off with the boats Proposed alteration of plan Precarious situation of the ship Inexpediency of quitting her while thusj situated J Land near Mussell Bay Remarkably fine weather Escape from the ice into open water toi the eastward j Impracticability of approaching the land,] to search for a harbour. ... j Arrive off Walden Island Ditto off Little Table Island Ditto in Latitude 81° 5' 32" Land on Walden Island Return towards Little Table Island and) land upon it ) Page 2 4 10 11 13 15 19 id. 22 24 27 29 31 34 35 38 41 42 43 46 47 PiiKf 50 52 54 Stand again to the southward and dis-l cover Heda Cove, where the ship is I secured J Leave the Hecla in the boats Touch at Walden and Little Taiile i Islands ; set off to the northward and > meet with the ice ) Plan of travelling upon the ice 55 Allowance of Provisions, &c 59 Commence travelling over the ice ... . 59, 60 Much rain 61 Method of carrying the Instruments, ... 63 And of selecting the best road 6V Very laborious travelling 69 Mackintosh's water-proof Canvas 72 No appearance of large or level ice ... . 75 Much water upon the ice 77, 80 A rare bird (the Ross Gull) seen 81 The fee very dangerous for the provisions 82 One of the boats nearly upset 84 Remarkable duration of rain id. More open water than usual 87 And thicker ice gy Killed a seal 91 Snow-blindness 93 One of the boats nearly upset 92, 93 Northerly wind commences . 93 Considerable southerly drift perceived , . 94 I lO.NTENTS. ^ il ,i:i li'i n\ II.' I'rovidi'iilially I'scMpi' the los^ot'oiir pnt-i visions, iiy (In- ici" liiL'ukiiig' | A second seul killed Urilliimt |irisin;ilict'ol()iir.s redt'ctt'd Iroml ilk' siiow-crystiils ) Si ill no fields of ice to lie seen A beautiful phenomenon, consisting of | six (oit'-bows ' liiciitcnant lloss liiu't Ciintinued sonllierly set observed .... hn|)ossibility of making uny profrpess to J (lie northward; determine on return-!- '"!;• I <)l)scrvali(His made at our furthest north Set out on our return The snow much tin^'ed with red colour- i iuii' matter | Peculiar refraction of the ice •Some of the men suircring from chil-l l)lains, &c I Kow across a lake of fresh water upon i the ice j A bear killed Hard rain l'll«t! 97 99 100 101 102 and 103 101 lOG 109 112 113 114 id. 115 Incrcuie of open water Contimied drift of the ice to the southward llcach the open sea and (|uit the ice . . Arris e at Table Island I'eople much exhausted on nur reuehin^'j VValden Island f Reach Deverly and Hird Buys Description of Low Island lleturn to the Heclu . Distance travelled Proceedings on board during our absence Mr. Cow's ingenious boat for weighing | anchors ( Lieutenant Foster's Survey of W'tiygatz | Strait I Description of Treurenburg Bay Leave Ilecla Cove Arrive at Balta Sound Leave Baltu and arrive at Lung Mope . . Quit the Hecla and arrive in London . . Death of Mr. George Crawford Ilcclu paid off. Remarks on the nature, &c., of thisi enterprise ) I'.iK'' lUi 117 IIS 111/ 121 I2.S 124 127 I2.S I2!> i;jn 1.12 133 i3h 139 140 141 id. 142 id. APPENDIX. Page Xo. I. Meteorological Journals lal II. Notice respecting the Chronometers, &c 163 III. Dip of the Magnetic Needle 167 IV. Variation of the Magnetic Needle 171 V. Diurnal Variation of the Magnetic Needle 173 VI. Diurnal Changes of Intensity in the Magnetic Needle 179 VII. Temperature and Specific Gravity of Sea-water below the surface 185 NATURAL HISTORY.— Zoology 189 Botany 207 Geology -223 DIRECTIONS TO TIIK BIXUEIl FOR PLACING THE PLATES. The Bouts oflTWaldeii Island in a Snow-SUmn—Fionlhpinr. Pliin of the Port of llninmerfest to J ace pase. 7 Dopurtiire of the Houts from Hecia Cove „ 52 The Boats huiiled up i;)r the nif^ht „ 58 Truvellingf amonjr Himmiocks of Ice „ !)(» Plan of Treiirenl)iirg Bay 13.1 The Chart of the North Coast of Spitzhergen to he ph.ced at the end of tlie book. ElinATA. Page 37, bottom liiie,/or " affod," read " lUTord." 43, first liiie,/«r " three to four," read " Cmir to five." W., note, dele " subsequently." 52, line 10, for 2(;o, read 2«tl. CO, line L'O, for " In," rcatl " It." n ir ■1 ■§ i m. i I INTIIODUCTIOX. In April, 1826, I proposed to the Eight Honourable Vis- count Melville, First Lord Commissioner of the Admiralty, to attempt to reach the North Pole, by means of travelline: ^vith sledge-boats over the ice, or through any spaces of open water that might occur, lly proposal was soon after referred to the President and Council of the Royal Society, who strongly recommended its adoption ; and an Expedition being accordingly directed to be equij^ped for this purpose, I had the honor of being appointed to the command of it ; and my commission for His Majesty's Ship the Hecla, which was intended to carry us to Spitzbergen, was dated the ilth of November, 1826. The reports of several of our navigators who had visited Spitzbergen, and were well qualified to judge of the nature of the polar ice, concur in representing it as by no means unfavourable for this project. From one of the Seven Islands, and almost on the very spot from which we subse- quently took our departure in the boats. Captain Lutwidgc, the associate of Captain PhiiDps in the Expedition towards the North Pole in 1773, describes the ice to the north-east- b INTRODUCTION. ,j:„i ward, to the distance of ten or twelve leagues, to have the appearance of " one continued plain of smooth unhroken ice, bounded only by the horizon." In Captain Phipps's chart of that voyage, the ice to the northward of the Seven Islands is represented as " flat and unbroken ;" and, in another situation, rather more to the westward, and about the same parallel, he describes the " main body of the ice to be lying in a line, nearly east and west, quite solid *." The testimony of Mr. Scoresby, jun., a close and intelli- gent observer of nature in these regions, is entirely to the same effect. " I once saw," says he, " a field that was so free from either fissure or hummock, that I imagine, had it been free from snow, a coach might have been driven many leagues over it in a direct line, without obstruction or danger." Indeed, in a paper upon the subject of the Polar Ice, presented by Mr. Scoresby to the Wernerian Society of Edinburgh, and published in their Memoirs -f-, he enters at considerable length into the arguments in favour of the practicability of this enterprise, and in his subsequent work, above quoted, repeats his conviction to the same effect ^. To the respectable authorities already mentioned I may also add the testimony of several intelligent and experienced whalers, whom I consulted as to the nature of * Phipps's Voyage towards the North Pole, pp. 59 — 60, 55. t Vol. ii. p. 328. J Scoresby's Account of the Arctic Regions, i. 54 — 61, 242. I INTRODUCTION. XI t 1 I •I i m M m the ice, with reference to this project ; and who, without exception, agreed in considering it as highly favourable for the purpose. But the hopes I had formed of being able to attain this object, and the plan now suggested for putting it into exe- cution, were principally founded on a similar proposition formerly made by my friend and brother-officer. Captain Franklin, who, judging of this enterprise by his own experi- ence, as well as by that of his associates, Captains Buchan and Beechey, though by no means thinking lightly of the labour and hazard attending it, had drawn up a plan for making the attempt, and himself volunteered to conduct it*. Fol- lowing up, in the most essential particulars, the plan of this distinguished traveller, the principal features of which will best be understood by reference to my Official Instructions, two boats were constructed at Woolwich, under my super- intendence, after an excellent model suggested by Mr. Peake, and nearly resembling what are called "troop-boats," having great flatness of floor, with the extreme breadth carried well forward and aft, and possessing the utmost buoyancy, as well as capacity foi-^ stowage. Their length was twenty feet, and their extreme breadth seven feet. The timbers were made of tough ash and hickory, one inch by half an inch square, and a foot apart, with a « half- * This plan, as originally proposed by Captain Franklin, was given to me by Mr. Barrow, soon after my return from the Expedition of 182i-5. b 2 Xll INTRODUCTION. ;.■'! ii 'i ■ 'I'' 1, ^ I il timber " of smaller size between each two. On the outside of the frame thus formed, was laid a covering of Mackintosh's water-proof canvas, the outer part being coated with tar. Over this was placed a plank of fir, only three-sixteenths of an inch thick ; then a sheet of stout felt ; and, over all, an oak plank of the same thickness as the fir ; the whole of these being firmly and closely secured to the timbers by iron screws applied from without. This method of planking the boats was proposed and executed by ]Mr. Lang, IMaster- Shipwright of Woolwich dock-yard ; and the following Narrative will show how admirably the elasticity of this mode of construction was adapted to withstand the constant twisting and concussion to which the boats were subject *. On each side of the keol, and projecting considerably below it, was attached a strong " runner," shod with smooth steel, in the manner of a sledge, upon which the boat entirely rested while upon the ice ; and to afford some additional chance of making progress on hard and level fields, we also applied to each boat two wheels, of five feet diameter, and a small one abaft, having a swivel for steering by, like that of a Bath chair; but these, ov.ing to the irregularities of the ice, did not prove of any service, and were subsequently * The first travelling-boat, which was built by way of experiment, was planked differently from these two ; the planks, which were of half-inch oak, being ingeniously "tongued" together with copper, according to a method contrived by ]\Ir. Teake, in order to save the necessity of caulking, in case of the wood shrinking. This was the boat subsequently landed on Red Beach. INTRODUCTION. JCIU I relinquished. A " span" of hide-rope was attached to the fore part of the runners, and to this were affixed two strong ropes of horse-hair, for dragging the boat ; each individual being furnished with a broad leathern shoulder-belt, which could readily be fastened to or detached from the drag-ropes. The interior arrangement consisted only of two thwarts ; a locker at each end for the nnntical and other instruments, and for the smaller stores ; and a very slight frame-work along the sides, for containing the bags of biscuit, and our spare clothes. A bamboo mast nineteen feet long, a tanned duck sail, answering also the purpose of an awning, a spreat, one boat-hook, fourteen paddles, and a steer-oar, completed each boat's equipment. Two officers and twelve men (ten of the latter beino- seamen, and two marines) were selected for each boat's crew. It was proposed to take with us resources for ninety days ; to set out from Spitzbergen, if possible, about the beginning of June ; and to occupy the months of June, July, and August, in attempting to reach the pole, and returnino- to the ship ; making an average journey of thirteen miles and a half per day. Our provisions consisted of biscuit, made by Mr. Le Mann, of the best wheaten flour ; beef pemmican*; sweetened cocoa-powder, manuflictured by * For this article of our equipment, which contains a large proportion of nutriment in a small weight and compass, and is therefore invahialile on such occasions, we arc much indebted to the kindness of jMr. J. P. Holmes, f XIV INTRODUCTION. s . ^ 1;?' iSi » 1. ■i''f W m J I! n m II tfci 'If i'Ej Messrs. Fortnum and IMason ; and a small proportion of rum, the latter concentrated to fifty-five per cent, above proof, in order to save weight and stowage. The proper instruments were provided, both by the Admiralty and the Board of Longitude, for making such observations as might be interesting in the higher latitudes, and as the nature of the enterprise would permit. Six pocket chronometers, the property of the public, were furnished for this service ; and Messrs. Parkinson and Frodsham, with their usual liberality, entrusted to our care several other excellent watches, on trial, at their own expense *. I have again to express my obligations to the Navy and Victualling Boards for their readiness in attending to my wishes, in the course of this equipment; as well as to Commissioner Hill, and to the Officers of Deptford and Woolwich Dock -yards, for the very obliging manner in which they executed the Instructions of their respective Boards in providing for our various wants. Annexed is a list of the different articles composing the equipment of the boats, together with the actual weight of each. Surgeon, of Old Fish Street, who had resided several years in the Hudson's Bay Establishments, and undertook to superintend the manufacture of it. The process, which requires great attention, consists in drying large thin slices of the lean of the meat over the smoke of wood-fires, then pounding it, and lastly mixing it with about an equal weight of its own fat. In this state it is quite ready for use, without further cooking. * See Appendix, No. II. I '<* INTRODUCTION. Boat • • • . . Bamboo mast, one spreat, one boat-hook, one steer-oar Fourteen paddles . . , , Sail (or awnings) ... Spare rope and line . , , Small sounding-line (750 fathoms in all) , Carpenters' tools, screws, nails, &c. . . Copper and felt for repairs . . , Four fowling-pieces, with two bayonets Small articles for guns . , Ammunition • • . . Instruments • • . . Books ..... ' Fur Suits for sleeping in (fourteen in each boat) Thicknailed boots (ditto ditto) Esquimaux do., with spare soles, (ditto ditto) XV Fntonirizc. Kmlravour. o Flannel shirts W ( Guernsey frocks Thick drawers Mittens Comforters ^ Scotch caps at (seven in each boat) (ditto ditto) (ditto ditto) (twenty-eight in each boat) (fourteen in each boat) (ditto ditto) A bag of small articles for the Officers, including soap, &c. &c. Ditto ditto for the men ditto Biscuit . , Pemmican , Rum . . Cocoa-powder, sweetened Salt Spirits of wine Cooking apparatus . Tobacco Medicine chest . Pannikins, knife, fork, and spoon, (fourteen in each boat) Weighing-dials and measures Various small articles for repairs, &c., not mentioned above Packages for i)rovisions, clothes, &c. . Weight, per man Exclusive of four sledges, weighing 26 lbs. each ]U». 1539 Ills. 1542 46^ 41 464 41 22 22 6 6 8 10 10 10 19 19 15 15 — 4 17| 29 29 7 162 162 47 47 33 33 8^ 14 8J 14 5 5 1 4 1 4 4 4 12 628 564 180 12 628 564 180 63 14 72 63 14 72 — 20 20 19 20 5 2 14 5 2 110 116 14)3753^ . 268 lbs. 3753^ -»T" XVI INTRODUCTION. tfi'; > f In drawing up my Journal for publication, I have, as be- fore, thrown into an Ai)pendix the details of such meteorolo- gical, magnetic, and other observations, as our situation and circumstances enabled us to make ; and these, I trust, will not prove altogether unworthy the attention of men of science, who are engaged in similar pursuits. For the description of the specimens of Natural History, brought home by this Expedition, I am once more indebted to the kind offices of those gentlemen to whom I owe a similar obligation on former occasions ; and whose labours, so highly appreciated by the scientific world, in the various branches of natural knowledge, have imparted to our imperfect collections a degree of value, which, without their assistance, they would never have been found to possess. I have not thought it necessary, in the course of this volume, to enter into any examination of the question respecting the approaches to the North Pole which had already been effected, previously to our late attempt. This question has, of late years, been so fully discussed and brought into public notice, in consequence of the strong and general interest excited by the progress of Arctic Discovery, that I could not hope, by any remarks of mine, to throw fresh light upon the subject. I shall, therefore, only add that, after carefully weighing the various authorities, from which every individual interested in this matter is at liberty to form his own conclusions, my own impartial conviction, at the time of our setting out i INTRODUCTION. xvii on this entcrprize, coincided (with a single exception) with the opinion expressed by tlie Commissioners of Longitude, in their Memorial to the King, that " the progress of dis- covery had not arrived northwards, according to any well authenticated accounts, so far as eighty-one degrees of North Latitude *." The exception to which I allude, is in favour of Mr. Scoresby, who states his having, in the year 1806, reached the latitude of 8 T 12' 42", by actual observation, and 81° 30', by dead reckoning -f*. I therefore consider the latter parallel as, in all probability, the highest which had ever been at- tained, prior to the attempt recorded in the following pages. * See His Majesty's Order in Council of the 23d of February, 1821. Also p. 43 of this Narrative . f x\ccount of the Arctic Regions, vol. i. p. 312. . ( I Ml '!• I I OFFICIAL INSTRUCTIONS. By the Commmioncrs for executing the Office of Lord High Admiral of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, S'^. Whereas the President and Council of the Royal Society have expressed an opinion that an Expedition, for tlio purpose of attempting to reach the North Pole, " cannot fail to aflford many valuable results and settle important matters of philosophical inquiry ;" and whereas, conform- ably therewith, We have thought fit, from your desire to be employed on this service, and your zeal and expe- rience in prosecuting discoveries in the Arctic Regions, to entrust to your charge the conduct of the said Expedition, and to appoint you to the command of His Majesty's Sloop Hecla ; You are hereby required and directed, so soon as the said Vessel shall in all respects be ready for sea, to make the best of your way to the northern part of Spitzbergen ; calling, however, at Hammerfest in Lapland, on your way, if you should think it expedient to take with you from thence a certain number of tame rein-deer to draw the boats over the ice. On your arrival at the northern shores of Spitzbergen, you will fix upon some safe harbour or cove, in which the XX OFFICIAL INSTRUCTIONS. :(..;, I'M, ■ ';1 1 i1 Heela may be placed ; and liavin^ properly secured her, you are then to proceed with the Uoats, Avhose e(|uipiueuts have, under your own directions, been furnished expressly for the service, directly to the Northward, and use your best endeavours to reach the North Pole ; and having made such observations as arc specified in the Instructions for your former Voyages in the Northern Regions, and such as will be pointed out to you by the Council of the Royal So(;iety, added to those M'hich your own experience will suggest, you will be careful to return to Spitzbergen before the winter sets in, and at such a period of the autumn as will ensure the Vessel you command not being frozen up, and thus obliged to winter there. If, in proceeding towards the Pole, any dilHcultics should arise from the intervention of high and extensive land, or from the rugged surface of continuous ice, or other dilH- culty, the surmounting of which would evidently require a greater length of time than it would be prudent to con- sume, in order to secure your safe return, you are, in such ease, to be careful not to risk your own life, and the lives of those who accompany you ; even though, by perseverance, you should be satisfied that such dilficulty might be over- come, but at the expense of so much time as might put to hazard the certainty of returning to the Ship. You will, therefore, in such case, content yourself with the best examination of such land, should any be found, as time and other circumstances will allow. Previous to your departure from the Hecla, you are to direct Lieutenant Foster to proceed, in a boat fitted for the purpose, as soon as the season shall be sufficiently advanced, to survey the Northern and Eastern Coast of ^ OFFICIAL INSTRUCTIONS. XXI Spitz))orfifcn . nntl to continue clown the latter ns fur ns may hv prat'ticaljlo ; with instructions to him to make observa- tions oii the dip, variation, and intensity of the Magnetic Xcedle ; the temperature ; the barometric pressure of the atm().s()hcre ; and such other meteoroloj^ical phenomena, as he may be enabled to notice ; the extent of open water ; the (quantity, the position and nature of the ice ; the depth, temperature, and specific gravity of the sea ; and you will also direct him to pay attention to the number of WiuUes he may meet with, in order that an opinion may be formed as to the expediency and practicability of extending the Whale Fishery on that Coast ; and you will give him such directions, as to the time he is to remain on this Survey, as •will ensure his return to the Vessel, so as not to endanger her being shut up in the Ice for the Winter. While these two operations are carrying on by yourself and Lieutenant Foster, you are to instruct the OlHeer left in the Command of the Hecla, to employ the Ollicers and Men remaining on board in embracing every opportunity of nudving all such observations as may best contribute to the benefit of general Science, and collect and preserve all such specimens of Subjects of Natural History, whether Animals, Plants, or Minerals, as may be deemed new or curious. When you have chosen the situation in which the Ship is to remain, and have become acquainted with the local circumstances of the Coast, you will be enabled to judge of the Instructions which it may be necessary to give tlie Officer who will remain in the Command of the Ship for ensuring your finding her on your return, and for facilitating her putting to sea as soon as the detached parties shall ,H. XX& OFFICIAL INSTRUCTIONS. have rejoined : after which you are to make the best of your way to England ; and on your arrival, you are imme- diately to repair to this Office, in order to lay before us a full account of your proceedings, taking care, before you leave the Ship, to demand from the several Officers, Petty Ofiicers, and all other Persons on board, the Logs and Journals they may have kept, together with any Drawings or Charts they may have made ; which are all to be sealed up, and to be thereafter disposed of as We may think proper. i :l'f J' i i-J H Given under our Hands, the 24tli March, 1827. (Signed) Melville, Wm. Johnstone Hope, g. cockburn, G. Clerk, W. R. K. Douglas. To Captain William Edward Parry, Commander of His Majcsti/s Sloop Hccla. J. i By Command of their Lordships, (Signed) J. W. Croker. EXPLANATION OF TECHNICAL TERMS, MADE USE OF IN THE FOLLOWING NARRATIVE. Bay-Ice — Ice newly formed on tlie surface of the sea. The expression is, liowever, applied also to ice a ftwt or two in thickness. Beset — The situation of a ship when closely surrounded by ice. Blink-~A brightness in the sky usually seen over large bodies of ice, and over land covered with snow. Calf — A mass of ice lying under a floe, which, when disengaged, rises with violence to the surface of the water. See Tongue. Field — A sheet of ice generally of great thickness, and of an extent too great to be seen over from a ship's mast-head. Floe — The same as a field, except that its extent is smaller, and can be dis- tinguished from a ship's mast-head. Floe-piece — An expression generally applied to small jiicces of floes, not more than a furlong square. Hole of Water (or Tool) — A small space of " clear water," when the rest of the sea is covered with ice. Hummock — A mass of ice rising to a considerable height above the general level of a floe, and forming a part of it. Hunnuocks are originally raised by the pressure of floes against each other. LA^'D-IcE — Ice attached to land, either in floes or in heavy grounded masses. Lane of Water — A narrow channel among the masses of ice, through which a boat or ship may pass. Nipped — The situation of a shiji or boat when forcibly pressed by ice. Pack— A large body of ice, consisting of separate masses lying close together, and the extent of which cannot be seen. Sailino-Ice— A body of ice, of which the niasses arc sufliciently separated to allow a ship to sail among them. Stbeajis — A long and narrow collection of broken masses of ice. Tongue — A mass of ice jirojecting under water from an ice-berg or floe, and generally distinguishable at a great deptli. It difl'ers from a " calf " in being fixed to, or a part of, the larger body. Watek-sky — A dark appearance of the sky, indicating open water in that direction. Young Ice — Nearly the same as Bay-ice, except that it is only apphed to ice very recently formed. l.-t. m : ■!.' 15' ,fi if NARRATIVE, (Stc. The Hecla being ready to proceed down the River, she was taken in tow, at ten, a.m., on the 25th of March, by the Lightning, steam-vessel; and having received and returned the cheers of the Greenwich pensioners, the children of the Naval Asylum, and of various ships in the river, she made fast to the moorings at Northfleet at three, p.m. The following day was occupied in swinging the ship round on the various points of the compass, in order to obtain the amount of the deviation of the magnetic needle, produced by the attraction of the ship's iron, and to fix Mr. Barlow's plate for correcting it *. On the 27th the Hecla was visited by the Eight Hon. Viscount Melville, First Lord Commis sioner of the Admiralty, who was pleased to express his * The merits of this simple but valuable invention bein.. now too well kno to require any detailed account of the experiments, it is ^^lyTe™ for 2 to remark m this place, that the compass having the plate .tZlZnU under all circumstances, the correct magnetic beting. ^ '^ '" " ^'^"' B 1827. March. Sunday, 25th. Monday, 2GIh. Tiiesdaj-, 2/-th. NARRATIVE OF AN ATTEMPT I:: 'i::i., ' April, Monday, 2nd 1827. approbation of our equipment; and the two succeeding 28thS^ days were employed in receiving the powder and other gunner's stores, and in making various magnetical experi- ments Avith the instruments intended for the voyage. These being completed, we were taken in tow by the Comet, Friday, 30th. stcam-vessel, at eight, a.m., on the 30th, and anchored at the Little Nore, at one, p.m. Here we were indebted to the well-known kindness of Vice-Admiral Sir Robert INIoorsom for the supply of our few remaining wants ; and on the 2nd of April that officer did us the honour of a personal visit on board the Hecla. On the 3rd the ship's company received three months' wages in advance, together Wednesday, with their river-pay, and on the following morning, at half past four, we weighed and made sail from the Nore. By the kindness of Sir Thomas Byam IMartin, the Comptroller of Plis INIajesty's navy, which we had experienced throughout this, as well as our former equipments, the Comet steam- boat was ordered to tow us clear of the sands. By her assistance we reached Orfordness before dark ; and at six, P.M., she parted company from us, giving us three hearty cheers, and receiving our pilot, together with our despatches and letters. Being now fairly at sea, and flivoured by a southerly breeze, we shaped our course, under all sail, to the northward. We had at this time remarkably fine weather for the season of the year, and such a continuance of southerly winds, that 4th. TO REACH THE NORTH POLE. 8 we arrived ofF the island of Soroe, within which Ilammerfest lies, on the 1 7th, without having had occasion to make a tack till we entered the Fiord which forms the northern entrance. In the course of our passage hitherto, we noticed, when to the northward of about the 58th parallel, a very decided north-easterly current, which has usually been understood to exist here, and is often the means of setting ships over to- wards the coast of Norway. Its direction appeared to vary between E.N.E. and N.N.E., and its amount from five to thirteen miles per day. Another circumstance struck us as well worthy of remark, though it has doubtless been often remarked before, which is, that, in proceeding from the Nore, a little to the eastward of the meridian of Greenwich, the whole way up to the latitude of 70°, the variation of the magnetic needle continues nearly the same, namely, from about 24° to 29° westerly ; and, indeed, it undergoes very little alteration as far as 80°, where it is still 25°. But in the parallel of 70°, and, as we afterwards found in much higher ones, immediately or sailing to the eastward, the variation begins rapidly, though very regularly, to decrease, till at Ham- merfest, in the longitude of 23|° east, we find it only between 10° and 1 1°. These facts appear among the simplest, and yet the strongest, in favour of the theory of two magnetic poles in the northern hemisphere of the earth. I may further remark that this change in the variation of the needle, coincident with a change of meridian only, B 2 i82r. April. Tuesday, 17th. .ff- 'A .;; M \4 1627. April. Wednesday, 18th. 4 NARRATIVE OF AN ATTEMPT would afford, to those who are not furnished with better means, a very tolerable method of finding a ship's longitude, in any part of the North Atlantic, to the northward of the parallel of about 55°. This would be especially the case in ships having Mr. Barlow's plate attached to the compass ; if not, observations with the ship's head north or south, and made in fine weather, will give very nearly the true variation ; provided always that one fixed place has been selected for the azimuth compass, right amid-ships, and sufficiently high to be removed from the influence of immediate local attraction. The wind becoming light from the southward, and very variable, we were occupied the whole of the 18th in beating up towards Hammerfest. In the evening a Lapland boat came on board, and one of the men undertook to pilot the ship to the anchorage, which, after beating all night against Thursday, an ebb tide, we reached at three, A.M., on the 19th. Soon I'Jth. after we had anchored, ]\Ir. Crowe came on board, accom- panied by Mr. Akermand, the Russian Consul, and also the Collector of Customs, all of whom offered their services in any way we might require. Finding that our rein-deer had not arrived, I immediately despatched Lieutenant Crozier, in one of our own boats, to Alten, from whence they were expected ; a distance of about sixty English miles. At the same time we landed our observatories and instruments at Fugleness, near the establishment of Messrs. Crowe and Woodfall, the British merchants residing here ; and Lieute- TO REACH THE NORTH POLE. i ^londay, 23rd. nant Foster and myself immediately commenced our magne- tic and other observations, which were continued during the whole of our stay here. We completed our supply of water, and obtained a small quantity of venison, with abundance of good fish, (principally torsk and cod,) and some milk. We also purchased a set of snow-shoes for our travelling party, together with the Lapland shoes of leather, (called Kamooga*,) which are the most convenient and comfortable for wearing with them ; and we practised our people in the manner of walking in them in deep snow, which aflPorded them fine exercise and amusement. On the 23d, being the day appointed to be kept as the anniversary of His Majesty's birth-day, we dressed the ship in colours, and fired a royal salute. In the afternoon. Lieu- tenant Crozier returned in the boat from Alton, and was followed the next day by Mr. Woodfall, who brought with Tuesday, him eight rein-deer for our use, together with a supply of moss for their provender {Cenomyce Rangiferina). As, however, the latter required a great deal of picking, so as tb render it fit to carry with us over the ice, and as it was also necessary that we should be instructed in the manner of managing the deer, I determined on remaining a day or two longer for these purposes. Nothing can be more beautiful than the training of the Lapland rein-deer. With * It is remarkable that the Esquimaux word for boot is very like this — Kameega. I) II 6 NARRATIVE OF AN ATTEMPT M' m:.S' 1827. April. a simple collar of skin round his neck, a single trace of the same material attached to the " pulk," or sledge, and pass- ing between his legs, and one rein fastened like a halter about his neck, this intelligent and docile animal is perfectly under command of an experienced driver, and performs astonishing journeys over the softest snow. When the rein is thrown over on the ofF-side of the animal, he immediately sets ojff at full trot, and stops short the instant it is thrown back to the near side. Shaking the rein over his back is the only whip that is required. In a short time after setting off, they appear to be gasping for breath, as if quite ex- hausted ; but, if not driven too fast at first, they soon recover this, and then go on without difficulty. The quantity of clean moss considered requisite for each deer per day is four pounds, but they will go five or six days without provender, and not suffer materially. As long as they can pick up snow as they go along, which they like to eat quite clean, they require no water ; and ice is to them a comfortable bed. It may well be imagined, with such qualifications, how valuable these animals seemed likely to prove to us ; and the more we became accustomed, and I may say attached to them, the more painful became the idea of the necessity which was likely to exist, of ultimately having recourse to them, as provision for ourselves. Our preparations were completed on the 27th, but the wind continuing fresh from the north-western quarter in the to- -l> ,1 M' 11* "\' I R I m Plr '\' PORTofHAMM£]RFSST. ///;/ TTHf FosTh'lt. i{. ,y. 70^40 sy\ hi, tiu- |y>//> ot'tfh'Ai,uf:\\Wti/f /; ya .n J'}ft//tVit',i\f «< iiiriitHon A St\ile of /iiiir J^ittttJtili Milrs / ,, . . \f'tu>tittnlUmt K htttilfton jn J4J'4}f -^ \ / tiruf XJ/nffi mit,t' ) , 1/ .'/• , Xoti'.The fhtt.vtA' ot'thf ttii/'tio^it /s/a/it/x ttnf e.vitntm^i ritNiihnitUthrai'fMr^'htiMiin\xyAJhmtiU^fShwt/AtttiA>n. % I, () K X (>U X L K A X 1> piii'F tT/ii<*'M"iiiif' •':'(■■ f w» 4 8 NAUUATIVE OF AN ATTEMPT ■'■•It ' "-i ' I I ! A t ll If ! ;H'l:J .14 "i ;fN:. 1827, April neighbourhood. This latter also differs materially at dif- ferent seasons, according to the quantity of snow which is lying upon it. The southern entrance, by Hasvig, which is situated towards the south-western extremity of Soroe, is not to be so much recommended as that to the northward, on account of the greater distance which a ship has to go between the high lands, where the wind var'es in every turning, and sometimes blows in heavy squalls down the inlets, making it a tedious business to get in or out, even with a tolerably favourable breeze. Perhaps the best direc- tion for approaching the northern entrance, is to get into the latitude of 70° 55', which will lead a ship close to the north-eastern extreme of Soroe, at a short distance off which lies a remarkable craggy rock or islet, which was, at this season, almost entirely clear of snow. After passing to the eastward of it, it becomes somewhat of this shape, ; I and there will then be in sight another small but high rocky island to the S.E., having a smoothly rounded appearance at TO UEACII THE NORTH roi.K. the top in almost every point of view, luul which hears from the outer point of Miliv Island, near Ilam.nerfe.st, N. 8' K. (true). To the southward of this will also he soon another small and loio rocky island, which, as well as the round topped island, was now free from snow. A ship must leave these hoth to the eastward, keeping het ween tliem and Soroe, when a S.S.I!. course hy compass will load towards Milk Island, and the two small hut hi;2;h islands called the (Jreat and Jjttle liielm will then come in sight, which l)ein«i; kept in one, afford a good leadinu; mark for the port of llammer- fest, as shown in the accompanying survey made hy I-ieu- tenant Foster, in the (J riper, in lsj:3. The hower anchor may he dropped in eighteen to twenty fathoms, on a nuuldy hottoni, rather on the Tuglencss side, and a stream laid out to the S.S.E. ; it is also rcconnnended to make a hawser fast to a ring on the shore upon that side. There is said to be no danger from sunken rocks in any part of this navigation ; a remark which is considered equally ai)plicahle to the ^\holc of the coast of Lapland, to the northward of ()S\ The latitude of Fugleness, hy our observations, is 70' 40' 8" N. ; the longitude by chronometers 23° 45' 40" E. ; the dip of the magnetic needle 77° 12' N. ; and the variation 10' 11' 12' westerly. It was high water on the day of new moon at 240, p.m., the rise of tide being seven feet one inch. There is a tide and half tide, the stream running about three hours longer than the time of high or low water AlMll. ■i-^ ( si 10 NARRATIVE OF AN ATTEMPT ■I ' \^ ■, , I V » .., '"I' 1827. April. by the shore ; and, considering the depth of water, we found it stronger than might have been expected. Lieutenant Crozier's observations make the latitude of the town of Bosecop G9° 57' 37" : and the variation of the needle there was 9° 54' 30" westerly. It was high water at 9*30, p.m., on the 21st of April, the rise of tide being three feet and a half. In sailing out, along the island of Soroe, near the north- eastern point of it, where the dip of the gneiss (of which all these islands appear composed) is very distinctly exhibited, we observed it to incline to the S.^V^, at a measured ano-le of 27°- We found the wind at north on the outside, which, continuing for several days, led us to the W.N.W., and occasioned us to notice a remarkable belt of comparatively Avarm water, as shown in the following table. 'i " DAYS. April 2Uth ami 30th 30th and May 1st ^Ti-.y 1st to 3cl . . . 3cl and 4t]i . . . Detween tlie parallels of Uctwcen llie meridians of ■0 05 and 71 ■J N 71 9 — 71 40 n 40 — 72 38 72 38 — 73 29 1 2:3 and 2°2 10 E 22 10 — 18 40 18 40 — 14 10 14 10 — 8 20 Tcnippraturc of Kca water. Air. 30 to 37 38 — 39 39 —40 38 — 32 evaduallv 2=1 to 31 20 — :)2 231 — 20 24 — 28 During the whole of the time we remained in water of this higher temperature, the wind, though in general light, and the weather fine, was constantly coming in puft's of greater or less force, and then relapsing again almost into a Hi! 4! TO REACH THE NORTH POLE, 11 i I calm ; a circumstance so unusual in an open sea, that it ap- peared to us, at the time, to have some connexion with the temperature of the water compared with that of the air, as in the Gulf-stream. The horizon seemed hroken into little detached lumps, and the dip of the sea, as measured by Dr. "WoUaston's dip-sector, indicated a depression very consider- ably greater than that given in the Tables. In one instance the excess amounted to 2' 3", the temperature of the air being 23i°, and that of the water 40°. On the 5 til of JMay, being in latitude 73° 30', and longi- tude 7" 28' E., we met with the first straggling mass of ice, after which, in sailing about 110 miles in a N.N.AV. direction, there was always a number of loose masses in sight; but it did not occur in continuous " streams," till the morn- ing of the 7th, in latitude 74° 55', a few miles to the east- ward of the meridian of Greenwich. Early on the morning of the 9th, while running, with all the studding-sails set, through " sailing ice," we were taken aback with a sudden and violent squall of wind from the northward. Soon after, it fell calm, and a light air from the eastward having suc- ceeded for a short time, we were a second time taken aback with a fresh gale from the northward. At half past nine we saw two whale ships, which joined us in the course of the day. They proved to be the Alpheus, and the Active, of Peterhead. IJIy the former I wrote to the Secretary of the Admiralty, acquainting him with the Hecla's arrival in the C 2 13>7. May. Siiturcliiy, :)tll. i\'^;)n(lay, 7th. Wodnesilay, !)tli. ' ml''' %\ "H;! "•I ,. 12 NARRATIVE OP AN ATTEMPT hi ti ':A 1827. May. Tluirsday, Itith. ..id ay. latitude of 77°. On the following day several other whalers were in sight, and Mr. Bennett, the master of the Vener- able, of Hull, whom we had before met in Baffin's Bay, in 1818, came on board. From him I learned that several of the ships had been in the ice since the middle of April, some of them having been so far to the westward as the island of Jan Mayen, and that they were now endeavouring to push to the northward. They considered the ice to offer more obstacles to the attainment of this object than it had done for many years past *. None of the ships had yet taken a single w hale, w hich, indeed, they never expect to do to the southward of about 78°. In the afternoon, after waiting for some time for the ice to open, we again entered it, in company with all the whalers, and by the following morning had succeeded in pushing about fifty miles farther to the northward, though not without some heavy blows in " boring" through the ice. The weather had been almost constantly thick with snow since our leaving Hammerfest ; but, on its clearing up this morning, we saw the land about Black Point, the southern extreme of Prince Charles's Island or Foreland, i i ^ * I find it to be the universal opinion among the most experienced of our Whalers, that there is much less ice met with, of late years, in getting to the northward, in these latitudes, than formerly was the case. ]Mr. Scoresby, to whose very valuable local information, contained in his " Account of the Arctic Regions," I have been greatly indebted on this occasion, mentions the circumstance as a generally -received fact. TO REACH THE NORTH POLE. ]3 bearing N.E.b.E., distance about nine leagues. AVe were 1827. Miiv. S;i1nrday, here stopped by close ice, the weather becoming again very thick with snow, and a fresh gale blowing from the E.S.E. The wlialers, twelve in number, and two of these Dutch, hove to an hour or two before us, being now about their fishing-latitude. On the 12th we had strong gales to the southward, with thick snowy weather ; and the thermometer, which had generally been from 16° to 20° since our entering the ice, had now risen to 31^ We saw a black whale, and one of the ships sent her boats in pursuit of it ; this was only the third we had seen. The dovekies, (Colymbus Grylle,^ and eider-ducks, were very numerous. In the afternoon there was a slight swell perceptible, which led us to believe we were not far from open water inshore ; and on the weather clearing up on the following morning, this conjecture proved correct, nearly the whole space between us and Prince Charles's Eoreland, not less than six or seven leagues in breadth, being quite clear, except of " young ice ;" and this, thougli covering the greater part of the sea, was now so soft and broken up, as scarcely to impede a ship's progress. Being still favoured by a southerly wind, we proceeded with- out impediment, the same, or even a greater, breadth of open water continuing along the land. At five, a.ji., on the 14th, we passed jMagdalena Bay, and by ten o'clock had :\ron(i;iy, arrived off Hakluyt's Headland, round which we hauled Sur.cl'.iy, Utii. 9' ■%\ Wl f',:l t.\ \ M '.^ 14 NARRATIVE OF AN ATTEMPT Mav. to tlio south-eastward, to look for anchorage in Smereii- it " burg Plarbour. In this, however, we were disai)])ointed, Monday Htli, " ^ 1 1 » cuutiiuaa. the whole place being occupied by one unbroken floe of ice, still firmly attached to the land on each side. Here we made fast, though not without considerable difficulty, the wind, which was now freshening from the southward, blow- ing in such violent and irregular gusts off the high land, that the ship was scarcely manageable. Walruses, dovekies, and eider-ducks were very numerous here, especially the former; and four rein-deer came down upon the ice near the ship. We now prepared a quantity of provisions and other stores to land at Hakluyt's Headland, as a supply for my party on our return from the northward ; so that, in case of the ship being obliged to go more to the southward, or of our not being able at once to reach her, we should here be furnished with a few days' resources of every kind. Our intentions were, however, frustrated for the present ; for we had scarcely secured our hawsers, when a hard gale came on from the southward, threatening every moment to snap them in two, and drive us from our anchorage. AVe held on for several hours, till, at 9 p.m., some swell having set in upon the margin of the ice, it began to break off and drift away. Every possible exertion was instantly made to shift our stream-cable farther in upon the floe, but it broke away so quickly as to baffle every endeavour, and at 10 the if TO REACH THE NORTH POLE. 13 ship went adrift, the wind blowing still harder than before. Having hauled in the hawsers, and got the boats on board, we set the close-reefed topsails, to endeavour to hang to windward; but the wind blew in such tremendous gusts off' the high land as almost to lay the ship on her beam- ends ; so that we were obliged to reduce our canvass to the main-topsail and storm-sails, and let her drive to leeward •-. After wearing several times between the island called A'^ogcl Sang and a narrow stream of ice tliat lay to the westward and kept olf a considerable sea which was rolling on the outside of it, we had driven as far as the northern extreme of the island ; and at 1, a.m., the main body of packed ice was seen, only a mile or two under our lee. The situation of the ship now appeared a very precarious one, the wind still blowing with unabated violence, and with every appearance of a continuance of stormy weather. Under these circum- stances, it was the general opinion of the officers, as well as my own, that it was advisable to take advantage of the com- paratively smooth water within the stream of ice before- mentioned, and to run the ship into the pack, rather than incur the risk of having to do the same thing in a heavy sea. This plan succeeded remarkably well ; a tolerably smooth and open part of the margin being selected, the ship was forced lS-27. :\Iay. * It was probably some such gale as this which has given to Iluk- liiyl's Headland, in an old Dutch chart, the appellation of " Duyvel's Hock." 16 NARRATIVE OF AN ATTEMPT ':; ■, •ft ; • it;; . . •! \'' ii ■ J 1, f . ■ i' ( ''i I'm ,1 ■ 'i; if :)!' ill i-:! •■i: ■■''i;i" is2r. l\IilV. Tiicsilnv, i:.th." Kill. into it at three, a.m. ; when, after cncounterhig a few severe blows from the heavy washed pieces which always occur near the sea-edge, she was gradually carried onwards under all sail, and at four, \.m., we had got into a perfectly smooth and secure situation, half a mile within the margin of the " pack*-." The wind subsided in the course of the day, and clear and cloudless weather succeeded. ^Ve were glad to take advantage of our quiet situation to give the officers and men the rest which they much needed. The wind continuing from the southward, the ice soon drifted as far north as it could go, and mo then drove rapidly with it to the eastward, past Cloven Cliff, and along the northern coast of Spitz- bcrgcn. At noon our observed latitude was 80° 04' 13", and longitude by chronometers 12° 35' E., the depth of water being twenty-five fathoms, on a hard bottom. The tempe- rature of the air rose to 4 1° in the shade, and to 48° in the sun, which was the more remarkable from the low tempe- rature which followed this for several days afterwards. On tlie 16th the wind was light from the northward, and the thermometer falling to 17° in the course of the day, and to 14° at midnight, the pack was cemented togetlier by the ■I. * It is remarkable tliat the position of tlio Ilecla, and the circiinistanccs under vliidi she was placed on this occasion, were almost the same as those in which His jMajcsty's Ship the Dorothea received very serious damage in the expedi- tion of 1818; and hut for the smooth place which we fortunately found, we should probably have incurred similar injury. .if. r 'I TO REACH THE NORTH POLE. 17 f frost. The ship still drove with the ice to the eastward, and inshore withal, and we were now off the remarkable part of the land called lied Beach, which Mas at this season as white as an entire covering of snow could make it. A young bear was killed close to the ship, and some ivory gulls and eider- ducks were flying about, the latter in considerable flocks. It was impossible not to consider ourselves highly fortu- nate in having thus early, and with no great difficulty, suc- ceeded in reaching the highest latitude to which it was our object to take the ship. But, from what we had already seen at Smerenburg, it was also impossible not to feel much anxiety as to the prospect of getting her into any secure harbour, before the proper time of my departure to the northward should arrive. However, we could only wait patiently for the result of a few more days, and, in the mean time, every body was busily employed in completing the arrangements for our departure, so that, if an opportunity did offer of securing the ship, we might have nothing else to attend to. Our deer were in good order, having been thriving well ever since they came on board; they make excellent sailors, and do not seem to mind bad weather, always lying down quite comfortably whenever there is any sea. On the 18th, being only six or seven miles from the Red Beach, and the ice appearing close between us and the shore, I sent Lieutenant Ross with a party to endeavour to land, D isj:, May. Friiliv, IStli; ■ij 'm'i I .■'*! -i^i;l .-tl^A 18 NARRATIVE OF AN ATTEMPT ■ I- ' ; -r » 'I ..: I;*.';it i'i it .' 1827. May. Fricluy, IHth, continued. Satuidav, l!)th. ■ being desirous to know what this remarkable looking place was composed of. Lieutenant Eoss was not, however, enabled to land, there being a considerable lane of water inshore, too broad for the party to ferry over on pieces of ice. In order to try what our chances were, at the present low temperature, of procuring water upon the ice without expense of fuel, we laid a black-painted canvass cloth, and also a piece of black felt, upon the surface of the snow ; the temperature of the atmosphere being from 18° to 23". These substances had, in a couple of hours, sunk half an inch into the snow, but no water could be collected. I was desirous also of ascertaining whether any part of the real sea ice was so entirely fresh, when melted, as to be drank without injury or inconveni- ence. For this purpose we cut a block of ice from a large hummock, about ten feet high above the sea, and having broken, pounded, and melted it, without any previous washing, we found it, both by the hydrometer and by the chemical test (nitrate of silver) more free from salt than any which we had in our tanks, and which was procured from Hammerfest. I considered this satisfactory, because, in the autumn, the pools of water met with upon the ice, generally become very brackish, in consequence of the sea-water being drawn up into them by capillary action as the ice becomes more " rotten" and porous ; and we might, therefore, have to depend chiefly on melted ice for our daily supply. On the 19th, the wind freshened up strong from the TO REACH THE NORTH POLE. 19 t^^ t 'I W.N.W^ which is here rather upon the land, and the ice settled together and inshore, occasioning the ship such vio- lent pressure as few others could have withstood, and much endangering the rudder, which we had not been able to unship. In about half an hour, however, it remained quiet, leaving the ship so closely pressed in every part, that the lead for sounding could not any where be dropped until we had dug a hole for the purpose. The thermometer fell to 12°, with thick snowy weather. No change took place till the 21st, when, on the weather clearing u\), we found that the open water we had left to the westward was now wholly closed up, and that there was none whatever in sight. It was now also so close inshore, that on the 22d, Lieutenant Eoss, with a party of officers and men, succeeded in landing without difficulty. They found a small floe of level ice close to the beach, which appeared very lately formed. AValking up to a little conspicuous eminence near the eastern end of the beach, they found it to be composed of clay-slate, tinged of a brownish red colour. The few uncovered parts of the beach were strewed with smooth schistose fragments of the same mineral, and in some parts a quantity of thin slates of it lay closely disposed together in a vertical position. On the little hillock were two graves, bearing the dates of 1741 and 1762 on some of the stones which marked them, and a considerable quan- tity of fir drift wood lay upon the beach. D 2 1S27. May. s Monday, •J 1st. Tiu'silay, •JJd. w •■'•( so NARRATIVE OF AN ATTEMPT 'If '■, y'U* d |S1:. ,11 ^ii.;: i rl 1 ''^i^''' 18J7. May, AW'diK'siIiiv, Thurstlay, -'Jill. In the evening of the 22d, a light air at length sprung up from the eastward, and on the following morning hud, in a slight degree, increased, opening a few holes of water here and there, and giving us great hopes of our being released from our present confinement. To help the ice a little in opening, we set all the sails, which certainly produced some effect in the course of the day ; but the wind was so very light, that though it still continued on the 24th, nothing like an opening was afforded for us to get out. Indeed, the ship was still closely squeezed up by the ice all round her, though she moved a little to the westward now and then with it. The air of wind again dying away, and some of the holes again closing, I now clearly saw that there was, for the pre- sent, no reasonable prospect of our getting towards any harbour, and I could not but feel confident that, even if we did get to the entrance of any, some time must be occupied in securing the ship. It may be well imagined how anxious I had now become to delay no longer in setting out upon the main object of the expedition. I felt that a few days at the commencement of the season, short as it is in these regions, might be of great importance as to the result of our enterprise, while the ship seemed to be so far secure from any immediate danger, as to justify my leaving her, with a reduced crew, in her present situation. It appeared to me that the present case was one which their Lordships could \i\ TO REACH THE NORTH POLE. SI not foresee, nor provide against in my Instructions, and that I was, therefore, called upon to use my own judgment and discretion, now that it had arisen, and to pursue such a plan as might hest contribute to the success of our enterprise in its principal object. Tlie nature of the ice was, beyond all comparison, the most unfavourable for our purpose that I ever remember to have seen. It consisted only of loose pieces, scarcely any of them fifteen or twenty yards square, and when any so large did occur, their margins were sur- rounded by the smaller ones thrown up by the recent pres- sure into ten thousand various shapes, and presenting high and sharp angular masses at every othnr step. The men compared it to a stone-mason's yard, which, except that the stones were of ten times the usual dimensions, it indeed very much resembled. The only inducement to set out over such a road, was the certainty that floes and fields lay beyond it, and the hope that they were not far beyond it. In this respect, indeed, I considered our present easterly position as a probable advantage, since the ice was much less likely to have been disturbed to any great extent northwards in this meridian than to the westward, clear of the land, where every southerly breeze was sure to be making havock among it. Another very important advantage in setting off on this meridian appeared to me to be, that, the land of Spitzbergen lying immediately over against the ice, the is2r. May. mi } !«P?., 'I It Muv. Suiula\, 2;tli; latter could never drii't so much or so fast to tlie southward, as it might I'lU'ther to the westward. Upon these grounds it was that I was anxious to make an attempt, at least, as soon as our arrangements could he com- pleted; and the officers heing of the same oi)inion with myself, we hoisted out the boats early in the morning of the 27th, and having put the things into one of them, endea- voured, by way of experiment, to get her to a little distance from the ship. Such, however, were the irregularities of the ice that, even with the assistance of an additional party of men, it was obvious that we could not have gained a single mile in a day, and what was still more important, not without almost certain and serious injury to the boats by their strik- in<;' against the angular masses. Under these circumstances, it was but too evident to every one that it would have been higi. ly imprudent to persist in setting out, since, if the ice after all should clear away, even in a week, so as to allow us to get a few miles nearer the main body, time would be ultimately saved by our delay, to say nothing of the wear and tear, and expense of our provisions. I was, therefore, very reluctantly compelled to yield to this necessity, and to order the things to be got on board again. In the mean time I despatched Lieutenant Ross, with a couple of men, to make a rapid journey over the ice to the northward, in order to gain some information respecting the nature and state of TO REACH THE NORTH I'OI-E. tS it in that direction. Lieutenant Itoss returned at ni«jjlit, liavin<^ travelled about ten miles, in the course of which he passed over one good floe, from two to three miles wide, and the rest was of the same kind as near tlic ship. Upon the whole, his report did not offer us much encouragement to set off from our present station. On the following morning I sent Lieutenant Crozier, with a small party, to the E.N.L., with the same object ; but he had not travelled above four miles, and therefore not beyond the limit of our view from the shij), when the ice bcgiiming to open, I was obliged to recall him. The ice, however, soon settled back again into its former place, as it had done several times before, moving about two hundred yards one way or other, according to the winds, and perhaps the tide. Immediately that we had, on the 27th, proved experi- mentally the extreme difficulty of transporting our boats and stores over the ice which now surrounded us, I made up my mind to the very great probability tliere seemed to be of the necessity of adopting such alterations in our original plans as would accommodate them to these untoward cir- cumstances at the outset. The boats forming the main impediment, not so much on account of their absolute weight, as from the difficulty of managing so large a body upon a road of this nature, I made preparations for the possible contingency of our having to take only one, continuing the same number of men in our whole party. All that I saw I. 1827. M.iv. ^londav, •J-tli." ^i m ''f: B :n 24 NARRATIVE OF AN ATTEMPT Mav. W' reason to apprehend from having only a single boat on our outward journey, was some occasional delay in ferrying over spaces of water in two trips instead of one ; but we consi- dered that this would be much more than compensated by the increased rate at which we should go whenever we were upon ice, as we expected to be nine days out of ten. The principal disadvantage, therefore, consisted in our not all being able to sleep in the boat, and this we proposed to obviate in the following manner. We constructed, out of the Lapland snow-shoes, fourteen sledges, each sledge consisting of two pair, well fastened together. Upon these we proposed dragging .ilmost all the weight, so as to keep the boat nearly without any cargo in her, as we found by experiment that a man could drag about three hundred pounds on one of the sledges, with more facility than he could drag the boat when his proportion did not exceed one hundred pounds. Upon these sledges we proposed lodging half our party alternately each night, plac- ing them under the lee of the boat, and then stretching over them, as a sloped roof, a second awning which we fitted for the purpose. Upon this plan we likewise could afford to make our boat considerably stronger, adding some stout iron knees to the supports of her runners, and increasing our store of ma- terials for repairing her. The weight reduced by this arrange- ment, would have been a))Ove two thousand pounds, without taking away any article conducive to our comfort, except TO REACH THE NOUTH POLE. Sff the boat and her gecr. I proposed to the officers and men, who had been selected to accompany me, tliis cliangc in our equipment ; and I need scarcely say that they all clearly saw the probable necessity of it, and cheerfully acquiesced in its adoption, if requisite. On the 29th, I sent Lieutenants Foster and Crozit i' with the greater part of the ship's company, and with a third or spare travelling-boat, to endeavour to land her on Red Beach, together with a quantity of stores, including provisions, as a deposit for us on our return from the northward, should it so happen, as was not improbable, that we should return to the eastward. It is impossible to describe the labour attending this attempt. Suffice it to say that, after working for fourteen hours, they returned on board at midnight, hav- ing accomplished about four miles out of the six. The next day they returned to the boat, and after several hours' exertion landed her on the beach with the stores. What added to the fatigue of this service, was the necessity of taking a small boat to cross pools of water on their return, so that they had to drag this boat both ways, besides that which they went to convey. Having, however, had an opportiuiity of trying what could be done upon a regular and level floe which lay close to the beach, every body was of opinion, as I had always been, that we could easily travel twenty miles a day on ice of that kind. Every one was now occupied in completing our arrangc- £ IVIav. Tupscl.iv. •J'Mli.' Wi'dnosiliiv. 3Utli. Thursday, 31st. '■if m I n 3 . ( ^'i^i 26 NARRATIVE OF AN ATTEMPT 1827. May. % ■'^i'f.i !H., 4n' i .■: '■■V (i; •I'-.' Friday, .Tune 1st, ments on the new plan of taking only one boat, stowing all our provisions on the sledges, and adopting every possible expedient to save weight and labour. Another week was fast passing without any improvement in the prospect of our getting the ship free, so as either to carry us farther north, or to put her into harbour. It may here be remarked that our only chance of this latter seemed at the time to depend on our getting to the westward, since there were no known places of shelter on the northern side of Spitzbergen ; beside which it would be much more difficult to get hence in the autumn. Now it so happened, whether from any local cause or not I cannot say, that during the sixteen days we had already been beset, there had not been wind enough from the eastward to fill a skysail; added to which we found a decided easterly set, which carried the ship a little now and then in that direction. It will not, then, be wondered at if this apparent hope- lessness of getting the ship free for the present again sug- gested the necessity of my own setting out ; and I had once more, after an anxious consultation with my officers, resolved on making a second attempt, when the ice near us, which had opened at regular hours with the tide for three or four days past, began to set us much more rapidly than usual to the eastward, and towards a low point which runs off from Red Beach, near its eastern end, causing us to shoal the water, in a few hours, from fifty-two to twenty fathoms, and 1! ': TO REACH THE NORTH POLE. «7 on the following morning to fourteen and a half. By send- ing a lead-line over the ice a few hundred yards beyond us, we found ten fathoms water. However unfavourable the aspect of our affairs seemed before, this new change could not fail to alter it for the worse. The situation of the ship now, indeed, required ray whole attention ; for though the ice occasionally opened and shut within twenty or twenty- five yards of us on the inshore side, the ship herself was still very firmly imbedded by the turned-up masses which had pressed upon her on the I9th, and which, on the other side, as well as ahead and astern, were of considerable extent. Thus she formed, as it were, part of a floe, which went drifting about in the manner above-described. This was of little importance while she was in sixty fathoms of water, as she was for the first fourteen days of our besetment, and at a distance of five or six miles from the land ; but now that she had shoaled the water so considerably, and approached the low point within two or three miles, it became a matter of importance to try whether any labour we could bestow upon it would liberate the ship from her present imbedded state, so as to be at least ready to take advantage of slack water, should any occur, to keep her off the shore. All hands were, therefore, set to work with handspikes, capstan bars, and axes, it being necessary to detach every separate mass, however small, before the larger ones could be moved. The harassing and laborious nature of this operation is such E 2 1827. June. I; ' ti i S8 NARRATIVE OF AN ATTEMPT 1827. June. I Jt .;!?■ !■ r li as nothing but experience can possibly give an idea of, espe- ""-"^ cially when, as in this case, we had only a small pool of clear water near the margin, in which the detached pieces could be floated out. However we continued at work, with only the necessary intermissions for rest and meals, during this Sunday, 3rd. and the two following days, and on the evening of the third, had accomphshed all that the closeness of the ice would permit ; but the ship was still by no means free, numberless masses of ice being doubled under her, even below her keel, and which could not be moved without more space for working. While thus employed, we had once more deepened the water, the ice continuing to set more or less rapidly to the eastward, except for a few hours on the 2nd, when a fresh breeze spring- ing up from the S.E. carried us, with the ice, and by the help of all our sails, .about one mile to the N.W. ; but the moment the wind fell (which it did just as it had opened a few holes of water to the westward) we began again to move over the ground in the opposite direction. At midnight, Monday, 4th. ou the 3rd, the ice slackened about us very quickly, and the ship was immediately found to be setting more rapidly than ever to the eastward. In three-{j[uarters of an hour the water shoaled from fifty-two to twenty-five fathoms, and in ten minutes after we had nine and three-quarters, the ship driving at the rate of two miles an hour past a low point which runs off from under the high land of Grey •-.fi TO REACH THE NORTH POLE. 89 Hook. There being now a little open water at the margin of the floe in which we had been imbedded, we succeeded in freeing the ship, and then laid out hawsers in each direc- tion, in readiness for moving her, should she drive into still shoaler water. Happily, however, this was not the case, the ice soon after closing us in towards the entrance of Weyde Bay, and the water gradually deepening to thirty- seven, and then to sixty-seven fathoms. Painful as was this protracted delay in setting out upon the principal object of the expedition, the absolute necessity of it will scarcely, I think, be doubted by any person con- versant in such matters. So long as the ship continued undisturbed by the ice, nearly stationary, and in deep water, for several days together, I had, in my anxiety to lose not a moment's time, ventured to flatter myself with the hope that, in a case of such unlooked-for emergency, when every moment of our short and uncertain season was of impor- tance, I might be justified in quitting my ship at sea ; and in this opinion the zeal of my officers, both those who were to accompany me, and those who were to remain on board, induced them unanimously to concur. But the case was now materially altered ; for it had become plain to every seaman in the ship — first, that the safety of the Hecla, if thus left with less than half her working hands, could not be reckoned upon for an hour — and, secondly, that no human foresight could enable us to conjecture, should we 1827. June. i Vi i ■if n 30 NARRATIVE OF AN ATTEMPT '.'ii pU :•'. !-il : Juiiu. set out while she was thus situated, when or where we should find her on our return. In fact, it appeared to us at this time, as indeed it was, a very providential circum- stance, that the impracticable nature of the ice for travelling had offered no encouragement to persevere in my original intention of setting out a week before this time. While, therefore, it occasioned me inexpressible regret to be thus detained, I could not entertain a doubt that I was perform- ing an imperative duty in remaining on board ; for, to have done otherwise, under such circumstances, would have been to abandon the ship to her fate, on the one hand; and, on the other, to expose my own party to almost certain destruction. So that all I could do was to wait for some favourable turn which would, enable me to get the ship into security, and then to proceed to the northward, in full con- fidence of finding her on my return. I have before stated, that our hopes of finding a harbour had hitherto rested on our getting the ship to the westward. Such, however, was the decided tendency of the ice to drift in the contrary direction, that it now appeared next to impos- sible that we could effect that object in any reasonable time. Indeed, we had for a week past wholly lost sight of the open water about Cloven Cliff; but as we continued to drive to the eastward, we observed a constant darkness, and very frequently a dense fog-bank, in the horizon, from about a N.E.b.E. to a N.N.E. bearing, which we considered an TO REACH TIIE NORTH POLE. 31 indication of open water in that direction. To this quarter, therefore, we now more particularly turned our attention ; and on the 4th we were almost certain that we could, from the mast-head, discover the water, extending two or three points to the northward from Verlegen Hook. This cir- cumstance excited new hopes ; for could we only have had room to move about in, we did not doubt our being soon able to discover some place of shelter for the ship. For the two following days we continued closely beset, but still driving to the eastward across the mouth of Weyde Bay, which is here six or seven miles in breadth, and appeared to be very deep, the land in the centre receding to a distance of full eight leagues. In the afternoon of the 6th, we had driven within five miles of a point of land, beyond which, to the eastward, it seemed to recede considerably ; and this appearing to answer tolerably to the situation of Muscle or Mussell Bay, as laid down in most of the charts, I was very anxious to discover whether we could here find shelter for the ship. A lane of water leading towards the land at no great distance from us, I hauled a boat over the ice, and then rowed on shore, accompanied by Lieutenant Foster and some of the other officers, taking with me another small store of provisions, to be deposited here, as a future resource for my party, should we approach this part of the coast. Landing at half past six, p.m., and leaving Mr. Bird to bury the provisions. Lieutenant Foster and myself "walked 1827. June. Tiu'S(1;iy,.-.ili. Wi'diu'sdiiy, f.lli. f I 111 ■:;ii'' .■ \i 82 NARRATIVE OF AN ATTEMPT 1827. Juiif. -,L '!i-,. 'U-f without delay to the eastward, and on ascending the point, found that there was, as we had supposed, an indentation in the coast on the other side. We now began to con- ceive the most flattering hopes of discovering something like a harbour for the ship, and pushed on with all possible haste to examine the place further ; but, after three hours' walking, were much mortified, on arriving at its head, to find that it was nothing but an open bay, entirely exposed to t^ inroads of all the northern ice, and there- fore quite unfit for the ship. We returned to the boat greatly disappointed, and reached the Hecla at 1 . 30, a.m., on the 7th. This bay, which is very small, but appears the only one which answers to Muscle or MusscU Bay, lies ten miles to the S.W. of \^erlegen Hook, and is about two miles in depth, having a beach composed of small rounded stones, and covered with great quantities of drift-wood, which, indeed, is the case with every part of this coast on which we landed. Some of the trees, with their roots attached to them, were not less than eighteen inches in diameter ; and the smaller ones were very abundant, the whole being of the pine tribe. The rocks are composed of mica-slate, which Mr. Beverly remarked to dip to the eastward, generally at an angle of about 70°, and sometimes to lie still nearer a perpendicular direction. The land to the eastward of this part of the coast, as Phipps has justly remarked, assumes a very dif- ,■» . TO REACH THE NORTH POLE. 03 forcnt aspect from that to tlic westward ; the latter being the most rugged and acuminated that I ever saw, and this becoming of a more smooth and rounded outline, ^^'e were a good deal surprized, on landing, to find that large streams of water were rushing down the sides of all the hills, and that there were large ponds of it in every direction ; a cir- cumstance the less expected by us, since we had certainly never seen it half so abundant in any of our winter stations at this season ; not even at ^Mnter Island, which lies in latitude G6°.{, or nearly 14° to the southward of this. The water was running copiously, even at a height of three or four hundred feet above the sea, almost at midnight ; and the Saxifraga Oppositifolia was quite out in flower at a similar height. We saw several rein-deer, and killed a small one. It was high water at 10.40, p.m., the tide having risen two feet ten inches in about four hours. There was here an extensive floe of land -ice, filling the upper part of the bay, as shown by the broken lino in the chart ; but it was so thin and watery, that we could have cut through it, at least half a mile, in two days, had the place been such as to re- quire it. This operation I had always anticipated as likely to be requisite, wherever the ship should be placed. The variation of the magnetic needle, as observed upon tlie ice near this spot, was 18° 10' 30", westerly. From the hills we could plainly distinguish a considerable space of open water to the eastward of AY^rlegen Hook, as F lfi.7. lunt'. m 34 NARRATIVE OF AN ATfEMPT ;S )••■ Ik June 827. we had supposed to be the case when on board ; and I could not help feeling great confidence that, could we now have been enabled to place the Hecla in security, we might have got the boats into this water, which appeared to lead directly to the northward, and thus have reached the main ice with- out much difficulty. As it was, we were obliged to submit to the necessity of still awaiting some favourable change ; and those only, who have been in similar situations, can con- ceive how painful such a necessity was. I never remember to have experienced in these regions such a continuance of beautiful weather as we now had, during more than three weeks that we had been on the northern coast of Spitzbergen. Day after day we had a clear and cloudless sky, scarcely any wind, and, with the exception of a few days previously to the 23d of IMay, a warm temperature in the shade, and quite a scorching sun. On the 3d of June we had a shower of rain, and on the 6tli it rained pretty hard, for two or three hours. After the 1st of June we could procure abundance of excellent water upon the ice, and by the end of the first week the floe pieces were looking blue with it in some parts, and the snow had everywhere become too soft to bear a man's weight. On the 7th, the ship, still closely beset, had drifted much more to the eastward, being within a mile of the spot where the provisions had been deposited the preceding evening. There was now no other ice between us and the land, except Tliursday, 7th. TO REACH THK NDUTIl I'OI.K, w the floe to which ^e had hceii so h)nj» attiichcd ; and round this we wore occasionally obliged to warp, whenever a little slackening of the ice permitted, in order to prevent our get- ting too near the rocks. In this situation of suspense and anxiety we still remained until the evening of the 8th, when a breeze, at length, springing up from the southward, began to open out the ice from the point near which we lay. As soon as the channel was three or four hundred yards wide, we warped into the clear water and, making sail, rounded the point in safety, having no soundings with twenty fathoms, at one-third of a mile from a small rocky islet lying oft' it. In the mean time the wind had been driving the ice so fast off" the land as to form for us a clear communication with the open water before seen to the east- ward ; and thus were we at length liberated from our con- finement, after a close and tedious " besetmcnt" of twenty- four days. This escape appeared to give us all fresh animation, and we now entertained the most confident hopes of being able shortly to effect the object we had so long had at heart, that of securing the Hecla in some harbour previously to our departure in the boats ; an object which the events of the last few days had shown to be indispensably necessary, before I could venture to set out. With this view we stretched along the low point of A''erlegen Hook, round which we found some swell coming in from ^Vaygatz Strait, the wind F 2 I S.T. June. FriJay, sth. ■ l.z ;'|fW ?; ifl - *|l h '''1 m -.1 '^li n'* ■i^'fia 'pj ' S ''!'l fi !" ■^M 1^ SG NAUKATIVE OF AN ATTEMPT '.1 16 Jr. .hint'. Satunlav, yt|i. ■ blouinp; strong from the soiitliward, with heavy rain, during the night. A^V, therefore, hiy to under this hind till the wind had moderated, and the ^veatller cleared ; and early in the morning of the 9th, made sail to the N.N.E., towards the Seven Islands, finding a clear sea in that direction. On the low shore near A'^crlegen Hook, we saw a house, which appeared in a ruinous state, and which \v'e sui)posed to have belonged to some Hussian settlers. Near this Hook, too, we found, for the first time on the north coast of Spitzbergen, heavy grounded ice, such as we had formerly been accustomed to find upon all shelving shores. This circumstance appeared to us worthy of remark, as seeming to aftbrd a proof that the heavy or field ice seldom, if ever, comes actually home upon these shores ; for otherwise it would leave many traces of that kind. Wc were pleased to sec that, except these grounded masses, there was, along this shore, no other ice attached to the land. At noon, being in latitude 80° IG' 40' by observation, and the high land of Verlegen Hook bearing south (true) dis- tant from four to five leagues, we had no bottom with ninety fathoms of line. A haze clearing off about this time, we saw the land to the eastward, and hauled up for it, towards Brandyw inc Bay, with the intention of examining that part of the coast for a harbour. The " packed" ice was at this time four or five miles to the westward of us, and the blink was very strongly marked, and of a yellowish colour, over TO HEACII THE NOUTII TOI.K. 87 '.I i the ^^ll()lc of tlic iiortliorn and western horizons. At two, P.M., after st;uulin«i; about six miles to the eastward, \vc struck soundings in seventeen, and innnediately afterwards in fifteen fathoms. As no Uuid eould he seen within many leagues of us, we tacked till a boat could be got a-head to sound, and then kept to the I'.X.E., having from foiu'teeii to ten fathoms for several miles in that direction. The ■weatlier had now become hazy, and the wind light ; but wc could perceive, to t'c soMth-castw.trd, a (juantity of heavy ice, ajiparently aground, at four or five miles' distance; this wc supposed to be lying around the " T ow T land" of riiipjjs, which conjecture subsequently prov' >^ correct. The \veather becoming more thick, with rain, sleet, ar.f! snow, we were obliged to put ihc ship's hcaii to the N.'W ., and lie to ; and in drifting to the northward soon dropped of! i ra> deep water, the hand-leads not reaching the bottom. The weather continued so thick that, impatient as we were to stand in towards the eastern land, we could not venture to do so till eleven a.m., on the 10th, when we made sail towards Drandywine Bay, the wind being now from the W.S.^V., or nearly dead upon that shore. The ^^eather clearing up at ■ ' ., p.m., wc saw the eastern land, and soon after discovered the grounded ice off Low Island ; Wnl- den's Island v. as also plainly in sight to the X.E. The Bay seemed tkeply indented, and very Hkely to afFod nooks such is2r. ■hino. Suiiilay, lutli. Ul P M Ik 38 XAllRATIVE OF AX ATTEMPT •4 1 \h-:t. .Tin f . as wc ^vantcd ; and where so large a space of open water, and consequently some sea, had been exerting its influence for a considerable time, we flattered ourselves with the most sanguine hopes of now having access to the shores, sufficiently near, at least, for sawing into some place of shelter. How, then, shall I express our surprize and mortification in finding that the whole of the coast, from the islands northwards to Black Point, and apparently also as far as ^\'alden's Island was rendered inaccessible by one continuous and heavy floe, everywhere attached to the shores, and to the numberless grounded masses about the island, this immense barrier being in some places six or seven miles in width, and not less than twelve feet in thickness near the margin ! In standing in towards this floe, from the north-westward, we had no bottom with thirty-five fathoms of line ; but, after sailing out on the opposite tack about a mile, we suddenly struck soundings in ten, and before the ship's head came round, had decreased to seven fathoms. Lowering a boat, I immediately went away to sound, and found that some heavy masses of ice, near us, and lying close off the margin of the floe, were aground in six ftithoms, our distance from the north-eastern part of the island being about four or five miles. Nearer to the island the water deepened again to thirteen and fifteen fathoms ; so that this api)ears to be a bank lying by itself at that distance; and upon M-'*> TO REACH THE NORTH POLE. 39 which there is, perhaps, less water than I found, as the iioe prevented my sounding more to the eastward about the shoalest part. The prospect from our masthead at this time was cer- tainly enough to cast a damp over every sanguine expec- tation I had formed, of being soon enabled to place the Ilecla in security ; and more willingly than ever would I, at this period, have persuaded myself, if possible, that I should be justified in quitting her at sea. Such, however, was the nature of this navigation, as regarded the combined diffi- culties arising from ice and a large extent of shoal and un- surveyed ground, that, even with our full complement of officers and men on board, all our strength and exertions might scarcely have sufficed, in a single gale of wind, to keep the ship tolerably secure, and much less could I have ensured placing her ultimately in any proper situation for picking up an absent party ; for, if once again beset, she must, of course, be at the mercy of the ice. The conclusion was, therefore, irresistibly forced upon my mind, that thus to have left the ship would have been to expose her to imminent and certain peril, rendering it impossible to conjecture where we should find her on our return, and therefore rashly to have placed all parties in a situation from which nothing but disaster could reasonably be expected to ensue. The wind liaving now freshened up from the S.^N'^.IjAV., lS-.'7. luiio. if t,: !!■ 1.' ii I' 40 NARRATIVE OF AN ATTEMPT 182r. JllIK'. T>I(ni'.;iv, lull." whicli might be expected to bring tlie drift ice from tlie " pack " in upon the land, we stood to the X.A^^ to gain an offing, and, after saihng eighteen miles, came to a quantity of ice which was streaming off from the margin. A^'hen we tacked, at 1 1 p.m., our estimated latitude, by our run from Low Island, was 80° 3G' ; and there was at this time so much clear water to the northward and N.N.E. of us, that we might probably have run, without any obstruction, to 80^:i, had there been any object in our doing so. I now determined to take advantage of the westerly wind, and of the lee afforded by the ice, to stand back to the southward towards Waygatz Strait, where a dark pui-ple sky seemed to indicate clear water, and where, on this account, as well as from the clearness of the shores about Verlegen Hook, we hoped there might be access to the land near some harbour. In keeping in that direction, in the course of the night, we found that the ice was drifting very fast to the eastward ; and on the morning of the 11th, it was not without some difficulty that we got to windward of the shoal ground off the west end of Low Island ; so near had the ice now ap- proached it, though, forty-eight hours before, none was to be seen from the ship's deck, in a much more westerly posi- tion than this, ^^'hen we had proceeded a little farther to the southward, we found that the same effect had been produced in a much more surprising degree under all the m TO REACH THE XOllTH POLE 41 i II e lands about the entrance of "\^''aygati5 Strait, anil towards A^erlegcn Hook, where it was now^ not possible to a})proach the shores in any one place in sight from our masthead. ]My intentions being thus again baffled, and there being every probability that, if the westerly wind lasted, it would soon leave us no space in which to keep luider way, we now pushed back again to the northward, preferring to be beset in a high latitude, if we were to be beset at all. However, in the course of the I2t\\, the wind shifted to the north- ward ; of which circumstance I gladly took advantage to endeavour to get a sight of the main ice, and at the same time to examine about A>'alden Island, though A\ith little hopes of finding a harbour on so small a spot of land. This island was regarded by us at this time Avitli no common interest, since it now appeared probable tliat it would form one of the stations to which provisions and information would be carried, as an assistance to our party on their return from the northward. After beating through much ice, which was all of the drift or broken kind, and had all found its way hither in the last two days, we got into an open space of water inshore, and about six miles to the northward of Low Island; and on the morning of the 13th stretched in to- wards '\\'alden Island, around which we found, as wc had feared, a considerable quantity of fixed ice. It was certainly much less here than elsewhere ; but the inner, or eastern G .IlllH'. Tuesday, I Jill. Wi'diu'silaj', i:Jtli. :r ih 42 NARRATIVE OF AN ATTEMPT 1827. June. if -*■ side of the island was entirely enveloped by it. In fact, the very circumstance which tended to clear the northern and western sides of any land hereabouts, and to retain the ice on the northern and eastern, (namely, the exposure of the former, and the sheltered situation of the latter, rela- tively to the open water,) tended also to delay the accom- plishment of our wishes ; for it was against the sea and the pressure of ice from the south and west alone that it was very important at present to secure the ship, and from any such shelter we were still unavoidably shut out. Having from twenty-six to twenty-four fathoms at the distance of four miles from AValden Island, I was preparing two boats, with the intention of going to sound about its northern point, which was the most clear of ice, and not without a faint hope of finding something like shelter there ; but I was prevented by a thick fog coming on. Indeed, ever since we had got into open water, we had scarcely once seen the blue sky, and for ten hours out of every twelve we had experienced fog, sleet, or snow. Continuing, therefore, to beat to the northward, we passed occasionally a good deal of loose drift-ice, but with every appearance of much clear water in that direction; and the weather clearing about midnight, we observed in latitude 80° 43' 32". The Seven Islands were in sight to the eastward, and the " Little Table Island " of Thipps's bore E.N.E. (true), distant about nine or ten miles. It is a mere craggy rock, rising perhaps TO REACH TlIE NORTH POLE. 48 I i"* -! '" , from three to four hundred feet above the level of the sea, and with a small low islet lying off its northern end. This island, being the northernmost known land in the world, naturally excited much of our curiosity ; and bleak and barren and rugged as it is, one could not help gazing at it with intense interest. The wind freshened from the northward on the 14th, Thmsday. I4th. and as this was likely to clear the margin of the main ice, we still continued to beat up towards it under all sail, in the confident hope of soon meeting it, or at least of forming some idea, from appearances, where we might expect to do so in the boats. As we advanced to the northward, we fell in with more and more drift-ice ; but at noon, when in latitude, by observfition, 80° 49' 6", or one mile to the north- ward of Phipps's furthest, nothing like the heavy or main ice could be seen. In the evening the drift-ice stil? increased, and we passed one or two floes, but not of a heavy kind. At midnight we had reached the latitude of 81" 5' 32". Our longitude, by chronometers, at this time was 19" 34' East, Little Table Island bearing S.26"K. (true), distant six or seven leagues, and A\'alden Island S. 4 E *. The depth * I liavc been tluis particular in noticing the Ilechi's position, because our observations would appear to be, with one exception, the most northern on record at that time. Tiie Commissioners of Longitude, in their memorial to the King in Council, in the year 1821, consider that the " ])rogress of discovery has not arrived northwards, according to any well-authenticated accounts, so far as eighty-one degrees of north latitude." IVIr. Scoresby subsequently states his having observed in lat. 81' 12' 42". G 2 $ >■ ,'l /ii I' '[y • '.' I V i i '•!.■• V 44 NARKATIVE OF AN ATTEMPT Ih27. .luiii'. of water was ninety-seven fathoms, on a bottom of greenish mud ; and the temperature, at ninety-five fathoms, by Six's thermometer, was 29"8, that at the surface being 31", and of the air 28\ All that could here be seen to the north- ward was loose drift-ice. To the north-cast it was particu- larly open, and I have no doubt that we might have gone many miles further in that direction, had it not been a much more important object to keep the ship free, than to push her to the northward. We were, liowever, much disap- pointed in seeing no indication of the main ice from this station ; unless, indeed, the yellow blink which overspread the northern horizon, but which we had seen quite as bright when forty miles further south, could so be considered. There was, in fact, scarcely a loose mass to be seen, that could have ever belonged to a very heavy floe, such as the main ice is considered to be ; so that, although we were now twenty-five miles to the northward of the station in which Phipps remarked that " the ice appeared flat and unbroken," as seen from a considerable lieight on shore, all tliat we could discover was quite of a contrary description. Thus we were still at a loss to know the position of the main ice at this time ; while the nature and quantity of that through which we had been sailing for so many miles were extremely unfavourable to the progress of boats over it, whenever it should ])ecome " packed." We now stood back again to the southward, in order 1 TO REACH THE NORTH POLE. 45 again to examine the coast wherever we could approach it ; but found, on the 15th, tliat none of the land was at all accessible, the wind having got round to the W.N.AV. and loaded all the shores with drift-ice. Our attention was, indeed, pretty well occupied in keci)ing the ship at liberty ; which, however, she probably woidd not have been for twenty-four hours longer, had the westerly breeze continued ; for the ice came driving back very quickly from that quarter, and would have very soon beset us. Fortunately, however, on the evening of the 15th, it shifted to the eastward, and a fresh breeze blowing from that quarter sent it awiiy once more to the westward in a few hours, leaving us a clear space of water inshore. I now determined to examine, if possible, every part of the coast, while this easterly wind kept it clear of drift-iwC ; and wherever the shore could be approached, cither by water, or by walking over the ice, to search for a sheltered place for the ship, that we might at least know of such a place, and then take the first opportunity of getting into it. AN'^alden Island being the first part clear of the loose ice, we stretched in for it on the 16th, and, when within two miles, observed that about half that space was occui)ied by land ice, even on its north-western side, which was tlK only accessible one, the rest being wholly enclosed by it. How- ever, being desirous of obtaining a better view than our crow's-nest commanded, and also of depositing here a small June. Friday, I6II1. Safiirdav, lOtli. ■ n ■■'{■ M 1)' I'l! ' i. ''.' ■ I M> I \¥. r y ;t It . .i 'V 40 NAUUATn E OF AN ATTEMPT ]H-2T. June. IS' * supply of provisions, I left the ship at 1 p.m., accompanied by Lieutenant Foster in a second boat, and, landing upon the ice, walked over about three-quarters of a mile of high and rugged hunuuocks to the shore. Ascending two or three hundred feet, we had a clear and extensive view of the Seven Islands, and of some land far beyond them to the eastward; and here the whole sea was covered with one unbroken land-Hoc attached to all the shores, extending from the island where we stood, and which formed an abut- ment for it, each way along the land as far as the eye could reach. After this discouraging prospect, which wholly destroyed every hope of finding a harbour among the Seven Islands, we returned to the place where the men had depo- sited the provisions, and after making the necessary obser- vations for the survey, returned immediately on board. This island, which in some parts is about five hundred feet above the sea, and precipitous towards the middle, consists of coarse-grained granite, most of which is black and white : in the rest the felspar is of a bright flesh-colour, giving the rock a red hue, and the mica is very abundant and shining in both kinds. In one place, it seemed to dip to the north-east, at an angle of 30° ; but it was not very distinctly marked. A few plants, mosses, and lichens were found. Of the last-mentioned, the tripe-de-rcche {Gyrophora PrO' boscidea), the rein-deer moss (Cenomyce Rangiferina), and the black woolly-looking Cornicularia divergens, were most TO KKACII TIIK NOUTll POLK. 47 1 ■J abuiuliiiit. A few cider ducks and dovckies were the oidy 1827. . I line. animals seen ; but there were traces of rcin-dcer having "^-^ r- been upon the island. The latitude of the north--^ vest end is 80" 35' 38"; the longitude, by chronometer, 19' 51' 10" K., and the variation of the magnetic needle 17" 42' westerly ; the latter phenomenon still exhibiting a regular decrease as we advanced to the eastward. The soundings appeared deep around the island ; we had thirty-three fathoms at the margin of the land-ice. Observing from the island that the sea was perfectly clear to the northward, we now stood for Little Table Island, with some slight hope that the rock otf its northern end might afford shelter for the ship; at all events, being the most exposed, on account of its situation, it was the most likely to be free from ice. A thick fog prevented our get- ting near it till the morning of the 1 7th, when, having Suiuiny, approached it within a mile and a half, I sent Lieutenant Ross on shore to the little islet, which was (juitc clear of ice, and where he dei)osited another small store of ])rovisions, but found nothing Hkc shelter for the ship. The islet consists of gneiss, having garnets imbedded in some specimens ; ]\[r. JJeverly could not discover in what direction it dipped. This small rock, with specimens of which (as being the northern- most known land in the world) the boat returned loaded, is about one hundred feet above the sea, and the Table Island about four or five hundred, both occupying an extent irth. s •:r. : ,•;■! i 48 NAKUATIVK OF AN ATl'F.MPT I .'lino. of pi'iliaps oiR'-tliird of u scjiiavc luilo. T-ioutouaiit lioss tlcscribcd tlic rocks as covered Avilli abundance of vorv lame tiTpc-dc'-rochc, some rein-deer moss, and otlier licliens ; and there vas abundance of fi;ood Avater in jiools. A few brent- geese, eider-ducks, and a Lcstris Parasiticus, were all liic animals seen. A\'e place tliis island, by a meridian altitude observed on board this day, in latitude 80° 48'; but the observation was an indifferent one, and with the sea hori/on, which is never to In; trusted. A\'e had no bottom with thirty-five fathoms, at one mile distance, on the north and west sides, and lieutenant ]{oss found twelve fathoms alongside the rocks. This was the only island round which a ship might, at this time, have sailed ; all the others in sight being entirely enclosed by a barrier of fixed ice. Having no further business here, and the easterly wind still continuing, I thought the best thing we could do, would be to run again to the southward of Low Island, and try once more to approach the shores about the entrance of the A\'aygatz Strait. Wq, therefore, bore up under all sail to the south-west. It would be vain to deny that I had lately begun to entertain the most serious apprehensions, as related to the accomplishment of our principal object. The 17th of June had now arrived, and all that we saw afforded the most discouraging i)rospect as to our getting the Hecla into har- bour ; while every day's experience showed how utterly rash 14 TO UEACII Tf!K NORTH I'oLK. 49 a measure it would be to think of quitting her in her present situation, which, even uith all her ofHcers and men, was one of extreme precariousness and uncertainty. Although I was in the habit of daily and almost hourly connuunicatiou witli my officers, yet I thought it my duty once nu)re to require from them ofiiciall} their opinions upon tliis subject, which I found to agree entirely with my own. Indeed, there could not, luuler present circumstances, be two opi- nions upon the subject. Standing to the S.W. after passing Walden Island, we came, as usual, pretty suddenly into sixteen ithoms, when at the distance of six or seven miles from the north side of Low Island. In running for the grounded hummocks off tlic west extremity, which is. itself so low as to be scarcely discernible when any ice lies near it, we soon had from twelve to ten ; but in keeping out, in order to deepen the water, wc suddenly fell into seven, and, for more than an hour's quick run, did not get a cast above ten. There being at this time a considerable swell, and too much ice still adhering to the island to enable us to seek a shelter there, I did not choose to risk getting the ship on the ground, and therefore hauled to the southward, towards A'erlegen Hook, to prosecute our search for a harbour once more in that quarter. On the evening of the 18th, while standing in for the high land to the eastward of \''erlegcn Hook, which, with due attention to the lead, may be approached H .Timi' Mondiu, 1-th.' .1/. -•'w • 1837. ■ IllMO. Tiu"iilav, rjlli.' 00 NAUItATlVK OF AN .v'TKAliT 'Wi'ilnfsdny, iiutli. uith salety, we pcrceiviJil IVoiu the crov, h-iu*st what appi-arcd a low point, j)()!ssil)ly atKuding soino slicUer lor the .shij), and "which seemed to answer to an indentation of the coast laid down in an old J)nteh chart*, and there called Treurcnburg Bai/. On the follow inn- morning T proceeded to examine the place, accompanied by I-ieutcnant Eoss in a second boat, and, to our great joy, found it a considerable bay, w ith one part affording excellent land-locked anchorage, and, what was equally fortunate, sufficiently clear of ice to allow the ship to enter. Having sounded, the entrance, and deter- termincd on the anchorage, we returned to the ship to bring her in ; and I cannot describe the satisfaction which the inlbrmation of our success communicated to every individual on board. The main object of our enterprise now appeared almost within our grasp, and every body seemed anxious to make up, by renewed exertions, for the time we had una- voidably lost. The ship was towed and warped in with the greatest alacrity, and at 1. 40, a.m., on the 20th, we droj)ped the anchor in Ilecla Cove, in thirteen fathoms, on a bottom of very tenacious blue clay, and made some hawsers fast to the land-ice which still filled all the upper part of the bay. After resting a few hours, we sawed a canal, a quarter of a mile in length, through which the ship was removed into a * Nicuwc aftcckcniiig van Ilet Eyiand Spits-Bergcn, opgogcvcn door cic Comniaiuk-uis Giles en Outgcr Rep, en in't Liglit gcbragt en uytgegeven door Gerard Van Kculeii, Sec. Sec. II TO REACH TIIR NORTH I'OLK. 51 H belter situation, a bowcr-cablo taken on sbore and secured to tbe rocks, and an ancbor Avilb tbe ebain-cable laid out tbe otlier way. On tbe morning of* tbe 21st, ue bauUd tbe launeb up on tbe beacb, it being my intention to direct sucb resources of every kind to be landed, as would rendi-r our party ubolly independent of tbe sbip, eitber for returning to England or for wintering, in case of tbe sbip being driven to sea by tbe ice ; a contingency against wbicli, in tbesc regions, no precaution can altogelber provide. I directed Lieutenant Foster, upon Avbom tbe cbargc of tbe Ilecla was now to devolve, to land witbout delay tbe necessary stores, keeping tbe sbip sca-wortby by taking in an equal weigbt of ballast ; and, as soon as be sbould be satisfied of ber security from ice, to proceed on tbe survey of tbe eastern coast ; but sbould lie sec reason to doubt her safety, with a still further diminution of her crew, to relinquish the sur- vey, and attend exclusively to the ship. I also gave direc- tions that notices should be sent, in the course of the summer, to the various stations where our depots of provi- sions were established, acquainting mc with the situation and state of the ship, and giving me any other information which might be necessary for my guidance on our return from the northward. These and other arrangements being completed, I left the ship at five, i- m., with our two boats, which we named the Enterprise and i^ndeavour, ]Mr. Eevcrly being attached to my own, and Lieutenant Jloss, accompa- II 2 is:r. .lllllC. Tliinsilay, I .11 i: t 53 NAURATIVK or AN ATTEMPT * •.:: .i"^l; ,,ij r ■< June. iiii'd l)v ]\[i'. l)ii'(l, ill tlio otlu'v. ]k'sidos tlieso, I took Licii- IciKint Crozicr in one of tlio sliip's cutters, for the purpose of carryiiiii' some of our \veii>lit as far as >\'aldeii Island, and also a third store of provisions to be deposited on Low Island, as an intermediate station between ^Valden Island and the shij). As it was still necessary not to delay our return beyond the end of Au i f: f. f t i i 1 I; i it I 4 TO llEACH THE NORTH POLE. u3 4 i mcnts of limestone, intermixed with some of clay-slate ; and several small rounded pieces of pumice-stone were also found. The drift-wood lined the beach in great (piantities, the whole being of the pine tribe, as usual, and a Greenland whaler's harpoon was found lying a?nong it. Having deposited the provisions, we set off at four, a.m., paddling watch and watch, to give the people a little rest. It was still (|uite calm ; but there being nuich ice about the isUnul, and a thick fog coming on, we were several hours groping our way clear of it. The walruses were liere very numerous, lying in herds upon the ice, and plunging into the water to follow us as we passed. The sound they utter is something between l)ellowing and very loud snorting, which, together with their grim, beai led countenances and long tusks, makes them appear, as indeed they are, rather formi- dable enemies to contend with. Under our present circum- stances, we were very well satisfied not to molest them, ibr they would soon have destroyed our boats, if one had been wounded ; but I believe they are never the first to make the attack. We landed upon the ice still attached to ^N'al- den Island, at 3. 30, a.m., on the 23rd. Our fiat-bottomed boats rowed heavily with their loads, but proved perfectly safe and very comfortable. The men being nuich fatigued, w'c rested here some hours, and, after making our final arrangements with Lieutenant Crozier, parted with liim at three in the afternoon, and set off for Little Table Island. .luiu'. Siitni-iliu'. •-'Jril. " i I .; 1 1S27. June. 5i NARRATIVE OF AN ATTEMIT Finding tlicrc was likely to be so much open water in this neighbourhood in the autunni, I sent directions to Lieute- nant Foster to have a spare boat deposited at Walden Island, in time for our return, in case of any accident happening to ours. The land-ice, which still adhered to the Seven Islands, was very little more broken off than when the Ilecla had been liere a week before, and we rowed along its margin a part of the way to Fit tie Table Island, where we arrived at ten, p.m. ^Vc here examiiied and re-secured the pro- visions left on shore, having found our depot at Walden Island disturbed by the bears. The prospect to the north- ward at this time was very favourable, there being only a small (piantity of loose ice in sight ; and the weather still continuing calm and clear, with the sea as smooth as a mirror, we set off, without delay, at half past ten, taking our final leave of the Si)itzbergen shores, as we hoped, for at least two months. Steering due north, we made good pro- gress, our latitude b^ the sun's meridiaii altitude at midnight being 80° 5 1' 13". xV beautifully coloured rainbow appeared for some tin;e, without any r.i)pearance of rain falling. We observed that a considerable current was setting us to the eastward just after leaving the land, so that we had made a N.X.F. course, distance about ten miles, when we met with some ice, which soon becoming too close for further progress, we landed upon a high luunmock to obtain a better view. \ y" ,l(» TO KEACri TTIE NORTH POLK. 55 A\'c here perceived that tlic ice was close to the iiorlhwanl, but to the westward discovered some open water, which wc reached ai'ter two or three hours paddhng-, and found it a wide expanse, in which we sailed to the north^vard without obstruction, a fresh breeze having sprung uj) from the S.AV". The weather soon after became very thick, with continued snow, requiring great care in h)oking out for the ice, which made its appearance after two hours run, and gradually became closer, till at length we were stopped by it at noon, and obliged to haul the boats upon a small floe-piece, our latitude by observation being 81° 1:2' 51". Our plan of travelling being nearly the same throughout this excursion, after we first entered upon the ice, I may at once give some account of our usual mode of proceeding, it was my intention to travel wholly at night, and to rest by day, there being, of course, constant daylight in lliese regions dfu-ing the summer season. The advantages of this plan, Nvhich was occasionally deranged by circumstances, consisted first, in our avoiding the intense and oppressive glare from the snow during the time of the sun's greatest altitude, so as to prevent, in some degree, the painful in- flammation in the eyes, called " snow-blindness," which is common in all snowy countries, M^c also thus enjoyed greater warmth during the hours of rest, and had a bei tcr chance of drying our clothes ; besides which, no small ad- vantage was derived from the snow being harder at night 1827. .Time. ■m .N1 ' i^'i '»^ ;;A •'i 4 M ■ ll ii <^ li;i i m. m NARRATIVE OF AN ATTEMPT t I r •k: .4 I for travelling. The only disadvantage of this plan was, that the fogs vere somewhat more frequent and more thiek by night than by day, though even in this respect there was less difference than might have been supposed, the tern- perature during the twenty-four hours undergoing but little variation. This travelling by night and sleeping by diiy so completely inverted tiic natural order of things, that it ^ as difficult to persuade ourselves of the reality. Even the officers and myself, who were all furnished with pocket chronometers, could not always bear in mind at what i)art of the twenty-four hours we had arrived ; and there were several of the men who declared, and I believe truly, that they never knew night from day during the whole excursion *. AMien wo rose in tlic evening, we commenced oui day by prayers, after which we took off our fur sleeping-dresses, and put on those for travelling ; the former being made of camblet, lined with racoon-skin, and the latter of strong blue box-cloth. ^Vc made a point of always putting on the same stockings and boots for travelling in, whether they had dried during the day or not ; and I believe it was on\j ni five or * Had \vc siiccccdi'tl it! loacliiiifr tlie liiglicr latitudes, where the cliange of the sun's altitude (hiring tlic twenty-four hours is still less jierccjitible, it would have heen essentially neeessary to possess the eertain means of knowing this ; since an .1 ror of t velve hours of time would have carried us, when we intend. 1 to relurj, on a meridia;; opjiosite to, or 180° from, the right one. To obviate the possiljility of this, wc iind some chronometers constructed by Messrs. Parkinson and I'rodsliam, of which the hour-hand made only one revolution in the day, the twenty-four hours being marked round the dial-plate. ^■m»^^ :i ■ 1 ||||R 'U'jI y.|li .s i TO UEACII THE NORTH POLK. 87 ■| 'i 4 six instances, at tlie most, that they were not either still wet or luird-lVozen. This, indeed, was of no consequence, heyond the discomfort of first puttin<^ them on in this state, as they were sure to be thoroughly wet in a quarter of an hour after commencing our journey ; while, on the other hand, it was of vital importance to keep dry things for sleeping in. ]Jeing " rigged" for travelling, wc breakfasted upon warm cocoa and biscuit, and after stowing the things in the boats and on the pledges, so as to secure them, as much as possible, from wet, we set oif on our day's journey, and usually travelled from five to five and a half hours, then stopped an hour to dine, and again travelled four, five, or even six hours, accord- ing to circumstances. After this wc halted for the night, as wc called it, though it was usually early in the morning, selecting the largest surface of ice we happened to be near, for hauling the boats on, in order to avoid the danger of its breaking up by coming in contact with other masses, and also to prevent drift as much as possible. The boats were placed close alongside each other, with their sterns to the wind, the snow^ or wet cleared out of them, and the sails, supported by the bamboo nmsts and three })addles, placed over them as awnings, an entrance being left at the bow. Every man then immediately put on dry stockings and fur boots, after which wc set about the necessary repairs of boats, sledges, or clothes ; and, after serving the provisions for the succeeding day, we went to supper. jMost of tha I .Imu'. «! I if Y ! 58 NAUUATIVE OF AN ATTE.Ml'T i-.T. ofliccrs and lucii tlioii Mnokcd llicir nines, wliich served to Jmii'. ^>— r-' dry tlie boats and awnings very niiieli, and usually raised the teni[)eraturc ol' our lodgings 10' or 1.5'. This })art ofllie twenty-lour hours was often u time, and the only oni', of real enjoyment to us; the men told their stories and " fought all their battles o'er again," and the labours of the day, unsuc- cessful as they too often were, were foigotten. A regular ^vateh was set during our resting-tinie, to look out for bears or for the iee breaking up round us, as well as to attend to the drying of the clothes, each man alternately taking this duty for one hour. \Vc then concluded our day with prayers, and having })ut on our fur-dresses, lay down to sleep w ith a degree of comfort, which perhaps few persons would imagine possible under such circumstances ; our chief inconyenience being, that we were somewhat pinched for room, and therefore obliged to stow rather closer than was quite agreeable. The temperature, while mc slept, was usually from 3(3' to 1'/, according to the state of the external atnu)sphere ; but on one or tw o occasions, in calm and wju'm weather, it rose as high as (iO" to 06°, obliging us to throw off a part of our fur-dress. After we had slept seyen hours, the man ap])ointed to boil the cocoa roused us, when it was ready, by the sound of a bugle, when we connnenced our day in the manner before described. Our allowance of provisions for each man per day was as follow s : — ■ ^ V s [) s ll o iS •i' n V IS IS I < '? :i I r\i 't % TO REACH THE NORTH I'OLK. 00 Biscuit 10 ounces. Pcniniican 9 „ Sweetened Cocoa Powder 1 „ to make one pint. Eum 1 gill. Tobacco 3 oimces per week. Our fuel consisted entirely of spirits of wine, of which two pints formed our daily allowance, the cocoa l)ein«^ cooked in an iron boiler over a shallow iron lamp, with seven wicks; a simple apparatus, which answered our purpose remarkably well. We lUy found one pint of the spirits of wine sufficient for preparing our breakfast, that is, for heating twenty-eight pints of water, though it always commenced from the temperature of 3:3". If the weather was calm and fair, this quantity of fuel brought it to the boiling point in about an hour and a quarter ; but more generally the wicks began to go out before it had reached 200". This, however, made a very comfortable meal to persons situated as we were. Such, with very little variation, was our regular routine during the whole of this excursion. We set off on our first journey over the ice at ten, p.m., on the 24th, Table Island bearing S.S.W., and a fresh breeze blowing from W.S.AV., with thick fog, which afterwards changed to rain. The bags of pemmican were placed upon the sledges, and the bre.ad in the boats, with the intention of securing the latter from w^et ; but this plan we were very soun obliged to relinquish. We now commenced upon very I 2 Juno. Sunilav, •J4th." il; ■^;^ ^^^ w^^ \>.«< IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) ■ttitt I.I ■ 2.2 lit 14.0 HUu IL25 im 1.4 1^ HioiDgraphic Sciences Corporation 33 WEST MAIN STREET WEBSTER, N.Y. 145S0 (716) 873-4503 wiin"!" m 60 NARRATIVE OF AN ATTEMPT 1827. June. I' '! 1. ' I Mondfiy, 25th, Tuesday, 26th. slow and laborious travelling, the pieces of ice being of small extent and very rugged, obliging us to make three journies, and sometimes four, with the boats and baggage, and to launch several times across narrow pools of water. This, however, was nothing more than we had expected to en- counter at the margin of the ice, and for some distance within it ; and every individual exerted himself to the very utmost, with the hope of the sooner reaching the main or field ice. We stopped to dine at five, a.m., on the 25th, having made, by our log, (which we kept very carefully, marking the courses by compass, and estimating the dis- tances,) about two miles and a half of northing; and again setting forward, proceeded till eleven, a.m., when we halted to rest, our latitude by observation at noon being 81° 15' 13". Setting out again at half past nine in the evening, we found our way to lie over nothing but small loose rugged masses of ice, separated by little pools of water, obliging us constantly to launch and haul up the boats, each of which operations required them to be unloaded, and occupied nearly a quarter of an hour. In came on to rain very hard on the morning of the 26th ; and finding we were making very little progress, (having advanced not more than half a mile in four hours,) and that our clothes would be soon wet through, we halted at half past one, and took shelter under the awnings. The weather improving at six o'clock, we again moved forward, and travelled till a quarter past eleven, m \i i TO REACH THE NORTH POLE. 61 ^US when we hauled the boats upon the only tolerably large floe-piece in sight. The rain had very much increased the quantity of water lying upon the ice, of which nearly half the surface was now covered with numberless little ponds of various shapes and extent. It is a remarkable fact that we had already experienced, in the course of this summer, more rain than during the whole of seven previous summers taken together, though passed in latitudes from 7° to 15** lower than this. A great deal of the ice over which we passed to-day presented a very curious appearance and structure, being composed, on its upper surface, of number- less irregular needle-like crystals, placed vertically, and nearly close together ; their length varying, in different pieces of ice, from five to ten inches, and their breadth in the middle about half an inch, but pointed at both ends. The upper surface of ice having this structure sometimes looks like greenish velvet; a vertical section of it, which frequently occurs at the margin of floes, resembles, while it remains compact, the most beautiful satin-spar, and asbestos, when falling to pieces. At this early part of the season, this kind of ice afforded pretty firm footing, but as the summer ad- vanced, the needles became more loose and moveable, render- ing it extremely fatiguing to walk over them, besides cutting our boots and feet, on which account the men called them " penknives." It appeared probable to us that this pecu- liarity might be produced by the heavy drops of rain piercing is-2r. June. i it !''■ m '*:[>: I 'I. m thy m ■'■■| 'J~ NAKILVTIVE OF AN ATTEMPT if :^! .; : • i' i : « 1 Hit? , ■: ' &: -?i^-' ?*,-■''!. K '•'; If. I ■■' ,41 ; : d J k'l ■J \U IV. ff f i|i'!^ :■:> i i : i;. i ■VI ■;t . ■. «■ Il .■■, ■!■■ i^/' :? .1 ■ » :;:;ij IS'27. June, Fiidav, :2'Jtir, G4 NARRATIVE OF AN ATTEMPT visions, and this by a very circuitous route ; so that the road by which we made a mile of northing was full a mile and a half in length, and over this we had to travel at least five, and sometimes seven times. Thus, when we halted to dine, at two, A.M., after six hours' severe toil, and much risk to the men and boats, we had only accomplished about a mile and a quarter in a N.N.E. direction. After dining we proceeded again till half past six, and then halted, very much fatigued with our day's work, and having made two miles and a half of northing. One of the carpenter's mates was a good deal hurt by a loaded sledge running against him, which laid him uj) for a day or two. We were here in latitude, by account, 81° 23', and in longitude, by the chronometers, 21° 32' 34" E., in which situation the variation of the mag- netic needle was observed to be 15° 31', westerly. We now enjoyed the first sunshine since our entering the ice, and a great enjoyment it was, after so much thick and wet weather. We rose at half past four, p.m., in the hopes of pursuing our journey, but after hauling the boats to the edge of the floe, found such a quantity of loose rugged ice to the northward of us, that there was no possibiHty, for the present, of getting across or through it. Soon afterwards the whole of it became in motion, and driving down upon the floe, obliged us to retreat from the margin, and wait for some favourable change. We here tried for soundings, but found no bottom with two hundred fathoms of line. The ^^¥ .y TO REACH THE NORTH POLE. C5 lS-27. Juni'. weather was beautifully clear, and the wind moderate from the S.W. From this situation we saw the eastern- most of the Seven Islands, bearing S. b.W. ; but Little Table Island, though more to the northward, yet being less high, was not in sight. Observing a small opening at 10. 30, P.M., we launched the boats, and hauled them across several pieces of ice, some of them being very light and much decayed. Our latitude, by the sun's meridian altitude at midnight, was 81° 23'; so that we had made only eight miles of northing since our last observat'i n at noon on the 25th. The 30th commenced with snowy and inclement weather, Saturday, ^ ^ 30th. which soon rendered the atmosphere so thick, that we could no longer see our way, obliging us to halt till two, p.m., when we crossed several small pools with great labour and loss of time. We had generally very light ice this day, with some heavy rugged pieces intermixed ; and when hauling across these we had sometimes to cut with axes a passage for the boats among the hummocks. AVe also dragged them through a great many pools of fresh water, to avoid the necessity of going round them. The wind freshening up from the S.S.W., we afterwards found the ice gradually more and more open, so that, in the course of the day, v c made by rowing, though by a very winding channel, five miles of northing; but were again stopped by the ice soon after midnight, and obliged to haul up on the first mass that we siinday, ,^ 1st. Iv \'. 4. m fi; $ .ill .riiii 1 ee NARRATIVE OF AN ATTEMPT lhJ7. Julv. 1 i 1 1 1 could gain, the ice having so mucli motion that we narrowly escaped being " nipped." "S^^e had passed, during this day's journey, a great deal of light ice, but, for the first time, one heavy floe, from two to three miles in length, under the lee of which we found the most ojien water. A number of rotges and ivory-gulls were seen about the " holes " of water, and now and then a very small seal. We set out again at 11. 30, a.m., the wind still fresh from the S.W., and some snow falling ; but it was more than an hour before we could get away from the small piece of ice on which we slept, the masses beyond being so broken up, and so much in motion, that we could not at first venture to launch the boats. Our latitude, observed at noon, was 81° 30' 41". After crossing several pieces, we at length got into a good " lead " of water, four or five miles in length ; two or three of which, as on the preceding day, occurred under the lee of a floe, being the second we had yet seen that deserved that name. We then passed over four or five small floes, and across the pools of water that lay betwixt them. The ice was now less broken up, and sometimes tolerably level ; but from six to eighteen inches of soft snow lay upon it in every part, making the travelling very fatiguing, and oblig- ing us to make at least two, and sometimes three journies with our loads. We now found it absolutely necessary to lighten the boats as much as possible, by putting the bread- bags on the sledges, on account of the " runners " of the TO REACH THE NORTH POLE. 67 boats sinking so much dc^cpcr into the snow ; but our bread ran a great risk of being wetted by this plan. As soon as we landed on a floe-piece, Lieutenant Ross and myself generally went on ahead, while the boats were unloading and hauling up, in order to select the easiest road for them. The sledges then followed in our track, jMessrs. Beverly and Bird accompanying them ; by which the snow was much trodden down, and the road thus improved for the boats. As soon as we arrived at the other end of the floe, or came to any difficult jilace, we mounted one of the highest hummocks of ice near at hand, (many of which were from fifteen to five-and-twenty feet above the sea) in order to obtain a better view around us ; and nothing could well exceed the dreariness which such a view presented. The eye wearied itself in vain to find an object but ice and sky to rest upon ; and even the latter was often hidden from our view by the dense and dismal fogs which so generally prevailed. For want of variety, the most trifling circumstance engaged a more than ordinary share of our attention ; a passing gull, or a mass of ice of unusual form, bn vuie objects which our situation and circumstances magnified into ridiculous im- portance ; and we have since often smiled to remember the eager interest with which we regarded many insignificant occurrences. It may well be imagined, then, how cheering it was to turn from this scene of inanimate desolation, to our two Httle boats in the distance, to see the moving figures K 2 .liily. i iil;i ,iii ■ 'fi Pf! il,; I ( :■■ ' i V 68 NARRATIVE OF AN ATTEMPT i ''4 ■ ^'/\-'n I ::4 1827, of our men winding with tlicir sledges among the luim- W*^ mocks, and to hear once more the sound of human voices breaking the stilhiess of this icy wilderness. In some cases Lieutenant Ross and myself took separate routes to try the ground, which kept us almost continually floundering among deep snow and water. The sledges having then been brought up as far as we had explored, we all went back for the boats ; each boat's crew, when the road was tolerable, dragging their own, and the officers labouring equally hard with the men. It was thus we proceeded for nine miles out of every ten that we travelled over ice ; for it was very rarely indeed that we met with a surface sufficiently level and hard to drag all our loads at one journey, and in a great many instances, during the first fortnight, we had to make three journies with the boats and baggage ; that is, to traverse the same road five times over. We halted at eleven, p.m., on the 1st, having traversed from ten to eleven miles, and mado good, by our account, seven and a half in a N.b.W. direction. We again set for- Monday,2ii(i. Ward at ten, a.m., on the 2nd, the weather being calm, and the sun oppressively warm, though with a thick fog. The temperature in the shade was 35° at noon, and only 47° in the sun ; but this, together with the glare from the snow, produced so painful a sensation in most of our eyes, as to make it necessary to halt at one, p.m., to avoid being blinded. We therefore took advantage of this warm weather to let il TO UEACII THE NORTH POLE. the men wash themselves, and mend and dry their clothes, iHsr. . I Illy. and then set out again at half past three. The snow was, '"^r^ however, so soft as to take us up to our knees at almost every other step, and frequently still deeper ; so that wc ■were sometimes five minutes together in moving a single empty boat, with all our united strength. It being impos- sible to proceed under these circumstances, I determined, by degrees, to fall into our night-travelling again, from which we had of late insensibly deviated. We therefore halted at half past five, the weather being now very clear and warm, and many of the people's eyes beginning to fail. AN'e did not set out again till after midnight, with the intention Tucsday.srd. of giving the snow time to harden after so warm a day ; but we found it still so soft as to make the travelling very fatiguing. Our way lay at first across a number of small loose pieces, most of which were from five to twenty yards apart, or just suificiently separated to give us all the labour of launching and hauling up the boats, without the advan- tage of making any progress by water ; while we crossed, in other instances, from mass to mass, by laying the boats over, as bridges, by which the men and the baggage passed. By these means, we at length reached a floe about a mile in length, in a northern direction ; but it would be difficult to convey an adequate idea of the labour required to traverse it. The average depth of snow upon the level parts was about five inches, under which lay water four or five inches ;H''r ' ■ •' : 9 Mil ''J 1 ,1 i t '* ■LA f ■' ■^•[■'S 1827. July. 70 NAUUATIVK OF AN ATTEMIT deep; but the moment wc approached a hummock, the deplli to wliich ne sank increased to tlircc feet or more, rendering it difficult at times to obtain sufficient footing for one leg, to enable us to extricate the other. The pools of fresh water had now also become very large, some of them being a quarter of a mile in length, and their depth above our knees. Through these we were prevented taking the sledges, for fear of wetting all our provisions ; but we pre- ferred transporting the boats across them, notwithstanding the severe cold of the snow-water, the bottom being harder for the " runners " to slide upon. On this kind of road we were, in one instance, above two hours in proceeding a distance of one hundred yards. ^^'e halted at half past six, a.m., to dine, and to empty our boots and wring our stockings, which, to our feelings, was almost like putting on dry ones ; and again set out in an hour, getting at length into a " lane " of water one mile and a quarter long, in a N.N.E. direction. We halted for the night at half an hour before midnight, the people being almost exhausted with a laborious day's work, and our distance made good to the northward not exceeding two miles and a quarter. AVe allowed ourselves this night a hot supper, consisting of a pint of soup per man, made of an ounce of pemmican each, and eight or ten birds which we had killed in the course of the last week; and this was a luxury which jiersons thus situated could perhaps alone 1 ■ :..Pi TO UKACII TIIK NORTH Pol.K. 71 li k i.tii duly appreciate. \Vc hud scon, in the course of the day, a few rot'•'■ ir r. t 'hf.: « lis ,(J ^•J t ,1 f • ^827. long in an east and west direction, but not more than two ^■'Y--' hundred yards wide from north to south. After stopping an hour at midnight to dine, we were again annoyed by a W«^"es'iay, heavy fall of rain, a phenomenon almost as new to us in these regions, until this summer, as it was harassing and un- healthy. Being anxious, however, to take advantage of a lane of water that seemed to lead northerly, we launched the boats, and by the time that we had crossed it, which gave us only half a mile of northing, the rain had become much harder, and our outer clothes, bread-bags, and boats, were thoroughly wet. To keep our shirts dry (which was the more necessary as we had only one spare one between every two individuals) we got under the shelter of our awnings, and, the rain abating in half an hour, again proceeded, giving the men a small quantity of rum and a mouthful of biscuit, by way of refreshing them a, little in this uncomfortable con- dition. After this we had better travelling on the ice, and also crossed one or two larger holes of water than we had met with for a long time, and halted, for our night's rest, at half past seven, a.m., after nearly twelve hours hard, but not altogether unsuccessful labour, having traversed about twelve miles, and made good, by our account, seven and a half, in a N.W.b.N. direction. We had gradually met with fewer birds as we advanced to the northward ; to-day we saw only one kittiwake, and a boatswain, {lestris parasiticus,^ The floes now around us were heavier than any that we had ■i. .V. I TO REACH THE NORTH POLE. TO *i , ithi before passed ; perhaps about the same as those usually met with in Baffin's Bay. The rain ceased soon after we had halted, but was succeeded by a thick wet fog, which obliged us, when we continued our journey, to put on our travelling clothes in the same dripping state as when we took them off. The wind continued fresh from the south-eastward, and at nine, p.m., the weather suddenly cleared up, and gave us once more the inconceivably cheering, I had almost said the blessed sight of a blue sky, with hard well-defined white clouds floating across it. There was not, however, much dryness in the atmosphere, the dew point, by Daniell's hygrometer, being 35° at nine, p.m., when the temperature of the atmosphere was the same. We considered ourselves fortunate in having any floes to cross, though only one or ' two exceeded a quarter of a mile in length, and all very rugged and much covered with ponds of water ; but this was better than the more frequent and hazardous launching among small pieces. Halting at midnight to dine, we obtained the sun*s altitude, which placed us in latitude 82° 11' 51". On continuing our journey, after dinner, we still had small floe-pieces to pass over, several of which gave us much labour, and occupied considerable time, being just too widely separated to make bridges of the boats, so that launching them was unavoidable. We halted at six, a.m., after making, by our day's exertions, only three miles and a half of northing, and then obtained the dip of the magnetic 1827. July. Thursday, 12th. ■ii?i 1^ . :1 ■■} 80 NARRATIVE OF AN ATTEMPT If „ « ■ ( ' Mir ■r M" (If ?i ■ ■ 1827. July. needle 82° 16.3, and the variation 15° 6' westerly, our latitude at this time being 82° 14' 28", and our longitude by chronometers 22° 4' E. Some observations for the mag- netic intensity were also obtained at this place. This proved a remarkably clear and fine day, with a moderate breeze from the S.E, The thermometer was from 35° to 36° in the shade during most of the day, and this, with a clear sky overhead, was now absolute luxury to us. Setting out again at seven, p.m., we crossed a small lane of water to another floe, but this was so intersected by ponds, and by streams running into the sea, that we had to make a very circuitous route, some of the ponds being half a mile in length. If any- thing could have compensated for the delay these occasioned us, it would have been the beautiful blue colour peculiar to these super-glacial lakes, which is certainly one of the most pleasing tints in nature. Notwithstanding the immense quan- tity of water still upon the ice, and which always afforded us a pure and abundant supply of this indispensable article, we now observed a mark round the banks of all the ponds, shew- ing that the water was less deep in them, by several inches, than it had been somewhat earlier in the summer; and, indeed, from about this time, some small diminution in its quantity began to be perceptible to ourselves. We also encountered to-day a more than usual proportion of the *« penknife" ice, the needles of which were fourteen inches long, and so loose as to occasion great labour in walking and TO REACH THE NORTH POLE. 81 dragging the boats over it. A parhelion, slightly tinged with the prismatic colours, appeared on the western side of the sun, and remained for two or three hours. At ten, p.m., we exchanged a troublesome floe for still more troublesome loose ice, which kept us constantly launching and hauling up the boats, with extreme risk to them as well as to the provisions, and most harassing labour to the officers and men. Still our work went on cheerfully, our hope resting on at length meeting with something like continuous and level ice. We halted for our resting-time at six, a.m., on the 13th, having gained only two miles and a half of northing, over a road of about four, and this accomplished by ten hou.s of fatiguing exertion. We saw, in the course of this journey, besides an ivory-gull and a mallemucke, one of the very ' beautiful gulls first discovered by Lieutenant Ross at Arlag- nuk, in our voyage of 1823, and named, in compliment to him, Larus Rossii*. We were here in latitude, by the noon observation, 82° 17' 10", and could find no bottom with four hundred fathoms of line. The temperature of some water brought up from that depth in a copper bottle con- trived for the purpose, was 31° on coming to the surface, and its specific gravity, when weighed at the temperature of 41°, 1-0283. The temperature of the surface-water at the time was 32°^, and its specific gravity only 1-0004, owing to ♦ Narrative of the Second Voyage, p. 449 ; and Dr. Richardson's Zoological Appendix, p. 359. M 1827. July. Friday, 13th. i,.».'if ■Mi ' i 1 n'\ if ^. *• '!: 1 1^ 1 * ' V - I"* -.:.s f i k - V ■ ., . ■..J, ; : f ■ ■|':t ;r?.: "I ' 'I :. 1827. July. 8a NARRATIVE OF AN ATTEMPT the intermixture of fresh water from the ice. A thermometer, having its bulb placed upon the surface of the ice, stood at 33°, the air being 36° ; and the temperature of the streams and pools of fresh water was 32°|. We launched the boats at seven in the evening, the wind being moderate from the E.S.E. with fine clear weather, and were still mortified in finding that no improvement took place in the road over which we had to travel ; for the ice now before us was, if possible, more broken up and more difficult to pass over than ever. INIuch of it was also so thin as to be extremely dangerous for the provisions, and it was often a nervous thing to see our whole means of existence lying on a decayed sheet, having holes quite through it in many parts, and which the smallest motion among the surrounding masses might have instantly broken into pieces. There was however no choice, except between this road, and the more rugged though safer hummocks, which cost ten times the labour to pass over. Mounting one of the highest of these at nine p.m., we could discover nothing to the northward but the same broken and irregular surface ; and we now began to doubt whether we should at all meet with the solid fields of unbroken ice which every account had led us to expect in a much lower latitude than this. The weather was to-night remarkably clear, with the most regular and beautiful mackarel sky I ever saw ; and no land, nor any indication of it, was visible from a height of thirty to forty feet above the level of the sea, to which ele- ( •• 4 .J TO REACH THE NORTH POLE. 83 vation many of the hummocks rose. A very strong yellow ice-blink overspread the whole northern horizon. A\''c stopped to dine at half an hour past midnight, after more than five hours' unceasing labour, in the course of which time we had only accomplished a mile and a half due north, though we had traversed from three to four, and walked at least ten, having made three journeys a great part of the way. AVe had launched and hauled up the boats four times, and dragged them over twenty-five separate pieces of ice. After dinner we continued the same kind of travelling, which was, beyond all description, harassing to the officers and men. In crossing from mass to mass, several of which were separated about half the length of our sledges, the officers were stationed at the most difficult places to see that no precaution was omitted, which could ensure the safety of the provisions. Only one individual was allowed to jump over at a time, or to stand near either margin, for fear of the weight being too great for it ; and when three or four men had separately crossed, the sledge was cautiously drawn up to the edge, and the word being given, the men suddenly ran away with the ropes, so as to allow no time for its falling in, if the ice should break. In one or two instances this day, we were obliged to have recourse to the still more hazardous expedient of ferrying all our provisions across a narrow pool of water upon a small piece of ice, the situation being such that our boats could not be thus made use of. Wherever M 3 1827. July. Saturday, lltli. •' t ■ H % m^4 f-i '■ ] ■, t ■ H I i « ' ■;' t 84 NARRATIVE OF AN ATTEMPT 1627. July. the boats couUl possibly be hauled across with the provisions in thcni, we preferred this as a safer mode of proceeding ; but this very precaution had nearly cost us dear to-day, for while we were thus dragging one of them along, the ice on which she rested began to sink and then turned over on one side, almost upsetting the boat with the provisions in her. However, a number of the men jumped upon the ice, with great activity, in order to restore its balance by their weight, and having cautiously unloaded and hauled her back, we got her over in another place. Having at length succeeded in reach- ing a small floe, we halted at half past six, a.m., much wearied by nearly eleven hours' exertion, by which we had only advanced three miles and a half in a N.N.W. direction. The wind again freshened up strong from the S.E.b.E., with a thick fog, which shortly after changed to rain. We savr only a single mallemucke and a bear in our last journey ; the latter was wounded, but easily escaped our pursuit, and this to our no small disappointment, for we began to find our allowance of provisions too little to satisfy us, and would gladly have added to it by a supply of this kind. We rose at six p.m., and prepared to set out, but it rained so hard and so incessantly that it would have been impossible to move without a complete drenching. I had never before seen any rain in the Polar regions to be compared to this, which continued, without intermission, for twenty-one hours, sometimes falling with great violence, and in large drops, TO REACH THE NORTH POLE. 85 « especially about two a.m., on the 15th. It held up a little at five, and at six we art oul . but the rain soon recommenced, though less heavily than before. In proceeding over the floe on which \> c had slept, we found it alternately level and " hummoeky," the former affording sufficiently good travel- ling to allow us to carry all our baggage at one journey with great ease, one boat's crew occasionally assisting the other for a few yards together ; but the hummocks cost us im- mense labour, nothing but a " bowline haul" being sufficient, with all our hands, to get the boats across or between them. At eight the rain again became heavier, and we got under shelter of our awnings for a quarter of an hour, to keep our shirts, and other flannel clothes, dry ; these being the only things we now had on, which were not thoroughly wet. At ' nine we did the same, but before ten were obliged to halt altogether, the rain coming down in torrents, and the men being much exhausted by continued wet and cold, though the thermometer was at 36°, which was somewhat above our usual temperature. The wind shifted to the W.S.W. in the afternoon, and the rain was succeeded by a thick fog, after it had been falling for thirty hours out of the last thirty-one. At half past seven p.m., we again pursued our journey, and after much laborious travelling, were fortunate, considering the fog, in hitting upon a floe which proved the longest we had yet crossed, being three miles from south to north, though alternately rugged and flat. From this we launched i82r. July. Sunday, ISUii tl •■• (> 86 NARRATIVE OF AN ATTEMPT i5lj ■, - ''i„^.r n if «;*- m ' ') 3:; -J I . 1' ' ', 4 i|r. Hi.",; i*l-! i Hiii.,'!ii hi •t -■ ■■1 • . ■ ■;j 1827. July. 88 NARRATIVE OF AN ATTEMPT . ). very clear and transjjarent atmosphere, nothing but ice, with a few small patches of water, could be discerned in any direction. The floes were larger to-day, and the ice, upon the whole, of heavier dimensions than any we had yet met with. The general thickness of the floes, however, did not exceed nine or ten feet, which is not more than the usual thickness of those in Baffin's Bay and Hudson's Strait; while it is a great deal less than the ordinary dimensions of the ice about Melville Peninsula, and not half the thickness of that towards the western extremity of Melville Island, though these places lie from eight to twenty degrees south of our present latitude. We found the snow this night very soft, in consequence of the warmth of the weather and the late heavy rains ; making the travelling extremely labo- rious. In fact, the upper surface of the heavier floes is all snow ; so that every warm day, even to the very close of the summer, softens it to the depth of several inches. We also met to-night with a great deal more of the " penknife " ice, the margins of some of the floes exhibiting a section of it having the needles above eighteen inches in length, and all quite loose and easily detached by the hand. I may also here mention another peculiar kind of ice, consisting of oblong slabs, which appear to have been imbedded by heavy pressure in the surface of the floe, and have at length, by alternate thawing and freezing, become a part of it. These slabs, still retaining their angular shape, and assuming a TO REACH THE NORTH POLE. 89 smoothly polished and handsome surface, appear not unlike the lumps of feldspar in porphyry, on which account we called it " porphyritic " ice. For one or two nights past we had observed the clouds near and opposite to the sun to be tinged with a little red towards midnight ; the sun having probably been too high before this period. The 17th of July being one of the days on which the Eoyal Society of Edinburgh have proposed to institute a series of simultaneous meteorological observations, we com- menced an hourly register of every phenomenon which came under our notice, and which our instruments and other circumstances would permit, and continued most of them throughout the day. We this morning crossed a floe three miles in length, which was equal in extent to any we had seen: the thickness of this, as measured in a large hole near the middle of it, was only from five to six feet. We halted at seven, a.m., after a long and fatiguing journey, our distance made good in a north direction being six miles and a half. Being more fatigued than usual, and the last week having produced us no birds for supper, we allowed ourselves a mess of hot cocoa, which seemed quite a cordial to us. Our latitude, observed at noon, was 82° 32' 10", being more than a mile to the southward of the reckoning, though the wind had been constantly from that quart ^r during the twenty-four hours. We had seen, in our last journey, only one ivory-gull, one mallemucke, and another Koss gull. N 13-27. July. Tuesday, irth. 1 ■m. I 'm TS.! a - I I 90 NARRATIVE OF AN ATTEMPT 1S27. July. I.' ^Vcclncsday, ISth. i. •■.!. I The 17th proved one of the warmest and most pleasant days to the feelings that we had during the whole time we were iijion the ice; the thermometer in the shade being from 36° to 40° for several hours, and in the sun from 42° to 5 r. It produced, however, as usual, the serious dis- advantage of rendering the snow very soft, and increasing the fatigue of travelling. Besides this, on setting out at eight, P.M., we found our road to lie over some of the most broken ice we had ever yet encountered, obliging us to make bridge after bridge with the boats almost every thirty or forty yards, for three hours together, in which time we scarcely made half a mile of northing. The small floe-piece which we at length reached was a very rugged one, and the sun was so bright as to render the glare of the snow pain- fully oppressive to the eyes. The latitude, observed at midnight, was 82° 32' 15", or nearly the same as at noon, though we had certainly walked one mile to the northward. After midnight the road became, if possible, worse, and the prospect to the northward more discouraging than before ; nothing but loose and very small pieces of ice being in sight, over which the boats were dragged almost entirely by a "standing-pull." When we halted to dine, at two A.M. on the 18th, we were not sorry to see a fog coming on, our eyes having begun to fail for some time. Setting out again in an hour, we found no improvement in the travel- ling ; but being the more anxious to get past this harassing 'ill I '■m' 'M:^ i if:. '' W' ^ I : ■'i- *M ' 1 . i' ■i I ■.,l' % .; TO REACH THE NORTH POLE. 91 kind of road, we continued our work till half past eight, when we reached a small floe-picce, the only one in sight, and there halted for the night. Thus, after more than eleven hours' actual labour, requiring, for the most part, our whole strength to be exerted, we had travelled over a space not exceeding four miles, of which only two were made good in a N.N.W. direction. The men were so exhausted with their day's work, that it was absolutely necessary to give them something hot for supper, and we again served a little cocoa for that purpose. They were also put into good spirits by our having killed a small seal, which, the following night, gave us an excellent supper. The meat of these young animals is tender, and free from oiliness ; but it cer- tainly has a smell and a look which would not have been agreeable to any but very hungry people like ourselves. We also considered it a great prize, on account of its blub- ber, which gave us fuel sufficient for cooking six hot messes for our whole party, though the animal only weighed thirty pounds in the whole. These animals, of which we usually saw two or three in almost every day's journey, are, when very small, best procured by shooting them in the head with small shot ; but, if quite killed at once, they are apt to sink immediately and be lost. The temperature of this seal was 98°, immediately after death. The fog dispersing before noon, we had another clear and fine day, but, as usual, paid dear for this comfort by the N 2 1827. July. i i 1:V, ! i i, I', '\S hi" ■ ili'"' I m p IV-.I 1'''' ill '' _ - 1 «f 'i ('': 1827. July. f. 1 ^: \^^ I t I •1 j i' 1 . 1 ■i i . 1 1 i ■ i r • ' i ' i, 1 ■ ■• ;■- ^ ■■1 M 9« NARRATIVE OF AN ATTEMPT increased softness of the snow and the oppressive glare reflected from it. Setting out at half past seven in the evening, we found the sun more distressing to the eyes than we had ever yet had it, bidding defiance to our crape veils and wire-gauze eye-shades * ; but a more effectual screen was afforded by the sun becoming clouded about nine, p.m. Our way still lay over small loose masses, to which we were now so accustomed as scarcely to expect any other ; for it was evident enough that we "were not improving in this respect as we advanced northwards. At half past nine we came to a very difficult crossing among the loose ice, which, however, we were encouraged to attempt by seeing a floe of some magnitude beyond it. We had to convey the sledges and provisions one way, and to haul the boats over by another. One of the masses over which the boats came, began to roll about while one of them was upon it, giving us reason to apprehend its upsetting, which must have been attended with some very serious consequence ; fortunately, however, it retained its equilibrium long enough to allow us to get the boat past it in safety, not without several of the men falling overboard in consequence of the long jumps we had to make, and the edges breaking with their weight. Towards midnight we had some smart showers of rain, Thursday, with dry clear intervals between them, just as on an April 19th. * We found the best preservative against this glare to be a pair of spectacles, having the glass of a bluish-green colour, and with side-screens to them. TO REACH THE NORTH POLE. 93 day in England. This kind of weather, which continued for several hours, harassed the men very much, as it was too warm for working with their jackets on, and they wetted their shirt-sleeves when they took them off. I think the blue sky between the clouds this night was as transparent, and almost of as deep a blue as I ever saw it. We had nearly incurred a second disaster in launching one of the boats from an awkward-shaped mass, which brought her gunwale close to the water, and there kept her for a quarter of an hour in a very dangerous situation, without our being able to move her one way or the other, while the loose ice was in motion about us at the time. At length, however, we contrived to reach the floe, after consuming the best part of the day's journey in effecting it ; and when we halted to rest at half past seven a.m., twelve hours' labour had not been repaid by more than three miles and a half gained, on a N.N.E. course. It is remarkable that we had hitherto been so much fa- voured by the wind, that only a single northerly one, and that very moderate, and of short duration, appears upon our journals up to this day, when a breeze sprung up from that quarter, accompanied by a thick fog. Though this wind appeared to be the means of opening several lanes of water, of which we gladly took advantage when we set out at eight p.m., yet we were aware that any such effect could only be produced by the ice drifting to the southward, 1827, July. i r-h im>^ 'Ul r1' 'f^l pii: ■ -I P'. ■ ■!| ' >i 04 NARRATIVE OF AN ATTEJIPT ( f '/■■ i .;; •^ 1 ii Vf -■ - :•! ! .1^ ■■ :,..,. ■■! ' '> ,. ' ■;■' ^. . - v, '"t f . 1 ; 1 f- ■ ' * '■ \ • '• ■• 1 1 > , 1827. July, Friday, 20th. and would, therefore, have willingly dispensed with this ap- parent facility in proceeding. We found the temperature of the sea-Avater, in a large lane, to be 34°, and once as high as 34°i, which, as before remarked, is very unusual in the middle of a large body of ice. We hauled over one very heavy floe, about half a mile in length, of which the thickness was from fifteen to twenty feet, with huge hummocks at the margin, indicating a tremendous pressure at some time or other. On the morning of the 20th, we came to a good deal of ice, which formed a striking contrast with the other, being composed of flat bay-floes, not three feet thic!\., which would have afforded us good travelling, had they not jecentlv been broken into small pieces, obliging us to launch fre- quently from one to another. These floes had been the product of the last winter only, having probably been formed in some of the interstices left between the larger bodies ; and, from what we saw of them, there could be little doubt of their being all dissolved before the next autumnal frost. '\^'e halted at seven a.m., having, by our reckoning, accom- plished six miles and a half in a N.N.W. direction, the distance traversed being ten miles and a half. It may, therefore, be imagined how great was our mortification in finding that our latitude, by observation at noon, was only 82° 36' 52" t being less than Jive miles to the northward of our place at noon on the 17th, since which time we had certainly travelled twelve in that direction. TO REACH THE NORTH POLE. •TiUv. Under these discouraging circumstances, which we ( e- fuUy avoided making known to the men, we pursued vitb great cbeerlulness to tlie utmost of tlieir strength. A sohtary rotgc, two small seals, and a fish twelve inches long, (of which wc had before noticed one or two,) were the only living creatiu'cs seen to-day, notwithstanding the unusual extent of the open water. The ice over Avhich we had travelled was by far the largest and heaviest wc met with during our whole journey : this, indeed, was the only occasion on which wc saw anything answering, in the slightest degree, to the descriptions given of the main ice. 'I'he largest Hoe was from two and a half to three miles square, and in some places the thickness of the ice was from 15 to 20 feet. Still these were not " fields"; for in no one instance had wc any difficulty in seeing the margin of them in more directions than one, by mounting a toUn-ably high hununock ; and from a mutih less elevation than that of a ship's masthead, the whole extent and form of such floes would have been very easily discernible. How- ever, it was a satisfaction to observe that the ice had cer- tainly improved ; and wc now ventured to hope that, for the short time mJ we could still pursue our outward journey, our progress would be more commensurate with our exer- tions than it had hitherto proved. In proportion, then, to the hopes wc had begun to entertain, was our disappoint- ment in finding, at noon, that wc were in latitude 82° 43' 5 ", or not quite four miles to the northward of yesterday's TO RKACII THE NORTH POLE. yy obsorvatioii, instciul of the ten or eleven which wc had tra- velled ! However, we determined to continue to the last our utmost exertions, though we could never once encourage the men by assuring them of our making good progress, and, setting out at seven in the evening, soon found that our hope of having permanently reached better ice was not to be realized ; for the iloe on which we slept was so full of hunnnocks, that it occupied us just six hours to cross it, the distance in a straight line not exceeding two miles and a half At niidnight on the ;:?2d, we had a good observa^ ion in latitude 82° 43' 32", being, as usual, the mean of two observers. iVfter this, our road once more consisted of small rugged masses, and little pools of water, re(piiring many launches. In addition to these impediments, the wind, which hud been from the AV.N.AV. at our setting out, Jigain shifted to north, and freshened up considerably. Wc halted at seven, a.m., after a laborious day's work, and, I must confess, a disheartening one to those who knew to how little effect we were stru":- gling ; which, however, the men did not, though they often laughingly remarked that " we were a long time getting to this 83° !" IJeing anxious to make up, in some measure, for the drift which the present northerly wind was, in all pro- bability, occasioning, we rose earlier than usual, and set off at half past four in the evening. At half past five, p.m., we witnessed a very beautiful natural phenomenon. A broad white fog-bow first appeared opposite the sun, as was very 2 .Inly. Mniulay, •Jill. hmi li' I J <{■■■•: 100 NARRATIVE OF AN ATTEMPT 1827. July. Tuesday, 24 th. commonly the case; presently it became strongly tinged with the prismatic colours, and soon afterwards no less than five other complete arches were formed within the main bow, the interior ones being gradually narrower than those without, but the whole of them beautifully coloured. The larger bow, and the one next witliin it, had the red on the outer or upper part of the circle, the others on the inner side. Lieutenant Eoss measured the altitude of the outer arch, which was 20° 45' in the centre, its extent at the horizon 72°^, the altitude of the sun, which was bright at the time, being 20° 40'. The fog was quite wet, while the smaller bows were visible, which was only for about twenty minutes ; though the large one remained, as usual, for hours together. We were now once more annoyed by a quantity of br-^ken ice, so thin as to require increased caution in trustii. J our loads upon it ; indeed, we passed, during this night, some of the lightest ice we had yet seen. Several of us began to feel, in our eyes, the bad effects of having set out somewhat earlier in the day than usual. ]My own were so painful with having strained them in looking out for the road, that I was unable any longer to see my way, and was therefore obliged, for a time, to give up the pioneering duty to Lieutenant Boss. ^Ve halted at a quarter past three on the morning of the 24th, having made four miles and a half N.N.E., over a road of about seven and a half, most of which we traversed, as TO REACH THE NORTH POLE. 101 usual, tliree times. The only notice of animal life occurring in our journals in the course of this day's travelling, consists in our having " heard a rotge " ! The ^vincl continued fresh from the northward, with small snow, of which about two inches fell in twenty-four hours. We moved again at four, P.M., over a difficult road composed of small and rugged ice. Lieutenant Ross, in exerting himself to drag his boat along, received a severe squeeze between her gunwale and a hum- mock of ice, which gave Mr. Beverly reason to apprehend at first, from the numbness and sickness which ensued, that his spine might be affected ; but happily no such bad con- sequences followed this accident. So small was the ice now around us, that we were obliged to halt for the night at two, A.M., on the 25th, being iqion the only piece in sight, in any direction, on which we could venture to trust the boats while we rested. Such was the ice in the latitude of 82°,x ! A\^e had travelled, during this journey, two miles and three-quarters N.iE., and saw but one mallemuckc and one Ross gull in the course of it. The wind had now got round to the AV.N.W., with raw foggy weather, and continued to blow fresh all day. Snow came on soon after our halting, and about two inches had fallen when we moved again at half past four p.m. We continued our journey, in this inclement weather, for three hours, hauling from piece to piece, and not making more than three quarters of a mile progress, till our clothes and ]S2r. July, Weilnosdav, i':*' ■'! "; .-1;. ■■ ■ ;" ' ■C '■■ ^■t ' II , t ■ -■ '(''■ W- .|^i[' ■ txi.\ i .\ " ' .1 ■■1 .j^ i'i' .11 ; f '■ !_ , ■ ■t i 102 NARRATIVE OF AN ATTEMPT f (i ■;:& •;i 1827. July. Thursday, 2GUi. .3 ' .««'■ ■i I ■n\. bread-bags had become very wet, and the snow fell so thick that Me could no longer see our way. It was, therefore, necessary to halt, which we did at half past seven, putting the awnings over the boats, changing our wet clothes, and giving the men employment for the mere sake of occupying their minds. ^\e were housed just in good time ; for the wind soon after freshened to a gale at W.N.W., with sleet and rain, and a most inclement night succeeded. The weather improving to^vards noon on the 26th, we obtained the meridian altitude of the sun, by which we found our- selves in latitude 82° 40' 23" ; so that, since our last obser- vation (at midnight on the 22d), we had lost by drift no less than thirteen miles and a half; for we were now more than three miles to the southward of that observation, though we had certainly travelled between ten and eleven due north in this interval ! Again, we were but one mile to the north of our place at noon on the 21st, though we had estimated our distance made good at twenty-three miles. Thus it appeared that, for the last five days, we had been struggling against a southerly drift exceeding four miles per day. It had, for some time past, been too evident that the nature of the ice with which we had to contend was such, and its drift to the southward, especially with a northerly wind, so great, as to put beyond our reach any thing but a very moderate share of success in travelling to the north- TO REACH THE NORTH POLE. 103 "ward. Still, however, wc had been anxious to reach the highest latitude which our means would allow, and, with this view, although our whole object had long become unattainable, had pushed on to the northw^ard for thirty-five days, or until half our resources were expended, and the middle of our season arrived. For the last few days, the eighty-third parallel was the limit to which we had ventured to extend our hopes ; but even this expectation had become considerably weakened since the setting in of the last northerly w^ind, which continued to drive us to the south- ward, during the necessary hours of rest, nearly as much as we could gain by eleven or twelve hours of daily labour. Had our success been at all proportionate to our exertions, it was my full intention to have proceeded a few days be} ond the middle of the period for which -sve were provided, trusting to the resources we expected to find at Table Island. But this was so far from being the case, that I could not but consider it as incurring useless fatigue to the officers and men, and unnecessary wear and tear for the boats, to persevere any longer in the attempt. I determined, there- fore, on giving the people one entire day's rest, which they very much needed, and time to wash and mend their clothes, while the officers w^re occupied in making all the observa- tions which might be interesting in this latitude ; and then to set out on our return on the following day. Having communicated my intentions to the people, who were all 1827. July. m r •^liill'^' ' -W Hit' » ■■if It i ■ H\ ■>M ( ;i 1 ^i ,' Ml. ■■il 1 ! '1 h4 104 NARRATIVE OF AN ATTEMPT 1827, July. I I &I much (lisappointed in finding how little their labours had effected, we set about our respective occupations, and were much favoured by a remarkably fine day. The dip of the magnetic needle was here 82° 21.6, and the variation 18° 10' westerly, our latitude being 82° 40' 23", and our longitude 19° 25' East of Greenwich. ' The high- est latitude we reached was probably at seven, a.m., on the 23rd, when, after the midnight observation, we travelled, by our account, something more than a mile and a half, which would carry us a little beyond 82" 45'. Some obser- vations for the magnetic intensity were obtained at this station. We here found no bottom with five hundred fathoms of line ; the specific gravity of some water brought up from that depth was 1-0340, being at the temperature of 37° when weighed. A Six's thermometer attached to the lead failed to indicate the temperature below, owing to the mercury rising past the index. The sea-water from the surface was, as usual near the ice in the summer time, so nearly fresh as to require only three grains to be added to the hydrometer ; and at six fathoms below the surface it was 1*0225, at temperature 37°. At the extreme jioint of our journey, our distance from the Hecla was only 172 miles in a S. 8° W. direction. To accomplish this distance we had traversed, by our reckoning, two hundred and ninety-two miles, of which about one hundred were performed by water, previously to our entering the ice. As we travelled by far TO REACH THE NORTH POLE. 108 the greater part of our distance on the ice three, and not unfrequently five times over, we may safely nudtiply the length of the road by two and a half; so that our whole distance, on a very moderate calculation, amounted to five hundred and eighty geographical, or six hundred and sixty- eight statute miles, being nearly sufficient to have reached the Pole in a direct line. Up to this period we had been particularly fortunate in the preservation of our health; neither sickness nor casualties having occurred among us, with the exception of the trifling accidents already men- tioned, a few bowel complaints which were soon removed by care, and some rather troublesome cases of chilblains arising from our constant exposure to wet and cold. Our day of rest proved one of the warmest and most pleasant to the feelings we had yet had upon the ice, though the thermometer was only from 31° to 36° in the shade, and 37° in the sun, with occasional fog ; but to persons living constantly in the open air, calm and tolerably dry weather affords absolute enjoyment, especially by contrast with what we had lately experienced. Our ensigns and pendants were displayed during the day; and sincerely as we regretted not having been able to hoist the British flag in the highest latitude to which we had aspired, we shall perhaps be excused in having felt some little pride in being the bearers of it to a parallel considerably beyond that mentioned in any other well- authenticated record. is2r. July. Friday, •jrth. .it ,1 \} j'i I fin 14 ii ■■ 106 NARRATIVE OF AN ATTEIMPT 1827. July. :i::i 1 ! Srifiinlav, 28tli. ' During some intervals of very clear weather, we could perceive nothing like land in any direction from our present situation, and a strong yellow ice-blink always overspread the northern horizon. At three a.m., on the 27th, we ob- served a phenomenon resembling that mentioned on the 23rd, but much less perfect and distinct, three smaller fog- bows at times appearing within a large one, the legs of the arches being distinctly coloured as before. The sun's alti- tude at this time was 12°;^, that of the centre of the outer arch 28°, and its extent at the horizon 77°^. At 4. 30, p.m., we set out on our return to the southward, and I can safely say that, dreary and cheerless as were the scenes we were about to leave, we never turned homewards with so little satisfaction as on this occasion. To afford a chance of determining the general set of the current from this latitude, we left upon a hummock of ice a paper, sewn up in a water-proof canvas b.n.g, and then inclosed in a water-tight tin cannister, giving an account of the place where it was deposited, and request- ing any person who should find it, to send it to the Secre- tary of the Admiralty. The wind sprung up from the S.E., and, as usual with any change of wind, opened a few holes among the ice, which assisted us a little ; but, notwithstand- ing this, so unfavourable was the ice for travelling, that, when we halted at three a.m., on the 28th, we had only made three miles and a quarter of southing. The wind then gradually shifted to the N.E. and freshened up, with TO REACH THE NORTH POLE. lOT heavy snow, which continued to fall during the whole day. Nothing worthy of particular notice occurred on this and the following day, on each of which we travelled eleven hours, finding the water somewhat more open and the floes less rugged than usual. Two of these were from two to three miles in length, and in one instance the surface was sufficiently level to allow us to drag the boats for three quarters of a mile, with the sledges in tow. Towards the end of our journey on the morning of the 30th, we came to an extensive collection of light bay-ice, such as we had passed on our outward journey, only that it was now broken into much smaller pieces. It was probably, indeed, the same ice, as we saw our old tracks on some of the larger floes. Our latitude, observed at noon, was 82° 20' 37", or t twelve miles and a half to the southward of the preceding day's observation, though we had travelled only seven by our account ; so that the drift of the ice had assisted us in gaining five miles and a half in that interval. Setting out to continue our journey at five p.m., we could discover nothing from a high hummock but the kind of bay-ice before noticed, except the floe on which we had slept. We were therefore obliged to go along the margin of this floe, a long way out of our road to the south-eastward, to avoid the danger as well as labour of crossing it, and at length discovered some more secure ice beyond it, though still in small detached pieces. We saw to-day a great many r 2 1527. July. Siimlay, •J'Jth. Monday, 30th. '.' I'; i i I' 108 NARRATIVE OF AN ATTEMIT ' i ■•'■l^ ' . . •'. '■|: 1 ' '.-■ ■■■ t fS 1 .1 1827. July, small seals, and wounded several, but could not get them, though we tried as hard as hungry people could do. The wind had now backed to the north, and still blew fresh ; towards midnight it veered to the N.W., with small snow. The travelling was very laborious, but we were obliged to go on, till we could get to a secure floe for resting upon, Tuesday, which wc could not effect till half past four on the 31st, when, in eleven hours and a half, we had not made more than two miles and a quarter of southing. However, we had the satisfaction, which was denied us on our outward journey, of feeling confident that we should keep all that we gained, and probably make a good deal more ; which, in- deed, proved to be the case, for at noon we found our latitude by observation to be 82° 14' 25", or four miles to the south- ward of the reckoning. The variation of the magnetic needle observed here was 22° 23' 16" westerly, the longitude being 17° 18' 19" E., showing an increase in that phenome- non in going westward, in this as well as in lower latitudes. Our next day's journey, which we commenced at 6. 30, P.M., was one of the most laborious we had yet experienced, the ice being composed of loose rugged pieces, very danger- ous as well as difficult to pass over with the provisions, and requiring a " bowline-haul " with the boats during a great part of the journey. We halted at five, a.m., on the 1st of August, the officers and men being quite knocked up, and having made by our account only two miles of southing, Aujiiist. Wednesday, 1st. TO REACH THE NORTH POLE. 109 1827. Aiii:u»t. over a road not less than five in length. Heavy rain prevented our setting out again till eight in the evening, when the weather cleared up, the wind now blowing fresh from the ^V. S.W. "We had, as usual, a great quantity of loose ice to pass through, or over, before wc could get to anything like a floe. As we came along, we had seen some recent bear-tracks, and soon after discovered Bruin himself. Halting the boats, and concealing the people behind them, we drew him almost within gun-shot ; but after making a great many traverses behind some hummocks, and even mounting one of them to examine us more narrowly, he set off and escaped — I must say, to our grievous disap- pointment ; for we had already, by anticipation, consigned a tolerable portion of his flesh to our cooking kettle, over a fire of his own blubber. In the course of this day's journey we met with a quantity Tinnsday, of snow% tinged, to the depth of several inches, with some red colouring matter, of which a portion was preserved in a bottle for future examination. This circumstance recalled to our recollection our having frequently before, in the course of this journey, remarked that the loaded sledges, in passing over hard snow, left upon it a light rose-coloured tint, which at the time we attributed to the colouring mat- ter being pressed out of the birch of which they were made. To-day, however, we observed that the runners of the boats, and even our own footsteps, exhibited the same appearance ; .'ml. m 'i'N 110 NAUUATIVE OF AN ATTKMl'T 1927. Auirust. Thursday, ad. ■1^1 and on watchin«5 it move narrowly afterwards, we foiuid tlic same effect to be produced, in a greater or less degree, l)y heavy pressure, on almost all the ice over which we passed, though a niagnifying-glass could detect nothing to give it this tinge. The colour of the red snow which we bottled, and which only occurred in two or three spots, appeared somewhat different from this, being rather of a salmon than a rose colour, but both were so striking as to be the subject of constant remark. Halting at seven, a.m., after making only three miles and a half of southing, we observed the variation of the magnetic needle to be 20° 46' 54" westerly, being in latitude 82° 0', and longitude 17° 45' 33" East. A fog, which prevailed during most of the day, cleared away soon after our setting out, at eight in the evening, and we enjoyed, during the night, some of the most beautiful wea- ther that we experienced during our whole excursion, the wind being ligh'; from the S.W. The temperature of the air at midnight did not exceed 31°^ in the sun, and yet on the north side of the hummocks the water was dropping from the ice. The small ponds of fresh water on the ice were frozen, but there was little or no young ice, even in the smallest pools, upon the sea. We saw some seals, and five or six birds, among the rest two Ross gulls, during this journey. Halting at seven, a.m., on the third, after launch- ing and hauling up the boats a great number of times, we had not only the comfort of drying all our wet clothes, but were TO UKACII THK NOUTII POI.F,. Ill even able to wash ninny of our woollen tilings, wliicli dilod in a few hours. The lutitudi* observed at Jioon was 8;2" 1' 18", or twelve niiles and half to the southward vf our place on the 3ist, which was about three more than our lo^ ^ave, though there had been southing in the wind during the whole interval. '\Vc proceeded on our journey southward at eight, p.m., and were again favoured with a clear and beautiful night, though the travelling was as slow and laborious as ever, there being scarcely a tolerable floe lying in our road. Almost the only one over which we passed was so intersected by deep ponds and water-courses, that, although it was in other respects level, we were obliged to walk nearly t>vo miles to gain one of southing. The water was again dropping from the sunny side of the hummocks about midnight, the ther- mometer in the shade being 29°l„ and in the sun 30". The temperature of the sea- water was 32" i. The sun now be- came so much lower at night, that we were seldom annoyed by the glare from the snow. It was also a very comfortable change to those who had to look out for the road, to have the sun behind us, instead of facing it, as on our outward journey. We stopped to rest at a quarter past six, a.m., after accomplishing three miles in a south direction, over a troublesome road of nearly twice that length. It was almost calm, and to our feelings oppressively warm during the day, the thermometer within the boats rising as liigli as 60 , Ift27. A\iL,'Ust. Siiturday, -Ith. ■jh: i' I 112 NARRATIVE OF AN ATTEMPT 1S27. August. -f Sunday, 5th.' ! i': V hicli put our fur dresses nearly " out of commission," though the mercury exposed to the sun outside did not rise above 39°. Pursuing our journey at eight, p.m., we paid, as usual, for this comfort, by the extreme softness of the snow. The upper crust would sometimes support a man's weight for a short time, and then suddenly let him down two or three feet, so that we could never make sure of our footing for two steps together. We saw patches of the red snow in two or three different places, and always near the margin of a floe. The weather continued beautifully clear, with a light air from the eastward. The thermometer at midnight was 29°g in the shade, and 32° in the sun. No young ice appeared upon the sea, nor upon the larger ponds upon the ice, but the small ones were quite frozen over. For several hours after midnight we remarked to the southward, for the first time since we had entered the ice, a great deal of that ni)pearance which is called by our Greenland sailors the " tree-ing" of ice. It consists in the ice being apparently raised in the horizon by refraction ; sometimes so consider- ably, as it was in the present instance, as to resemble a per- pendicular wall of some height above the general level. It is usually considered an indication of open water in that quarter, though I believe it is by no means an infallible one. However, on this occasion we were willing to flatter ourselves that the popular notion might be the right one, as indeed it subsequently proved to be, though we scarcely dared to hope TO REACH THE NORTH POLE. 113 that we could as yet be very near the open water to the southward. The temperature of tlie sea in a large hole of water was 33°^, which is unusually high in a sea thus in- cumbered with ice. The floes were larger to-day than any we had seen for some time ; and one over which we passed was considered to be from two to three miles in length, though not in the direction of our course. We halted on another at seven, a.m., and observed at noon in latitude Sr 54' 47", which agreed very well with our reckoning, not- withstanding the southing in the winds for some days past. The temperature of the air in the sliade at noon was 35°, and in the sun as high as 42°. We moved again at eight, P.M., travelling over floes of tolerable size, but so covered with hummocks, water, and snow, that our progress was but , slow. Several of the men were also suffering much at this time from chilblains, which, from the constant wet and cold, as well as the irritation in walking, became serious sores, keeping them quite lame. With many of our people, also, the epidermis, or scarf-skin, peeled off* in large flakes, not merely in the face and hands, which were exposed to the action of the sun and the weather, but in every other part of the body ; this, however, was attended with no pain, nor with much inconvenience. One variety in our monotonous mode of travelling was afforded this day by our rowing across a lake of fresh water in the boats, in order to avoid passing some heavy hum- Q 1827. Aiic;ust. ■|.!'i 'I'll 11 114 NARRATIVE OF AN ATTEMPT 1827. August. t 7th. kf y-i 1 1 i 1 1 ■ [ mocks. It was a quarter of a mile long, and varied in depth from two to four feet, which, together with an island that happened to be in the middle of it, the rugged ice by which it was bounded, and the beautiful blue of the water, gave it a singular and picturesque appearance. We halted at a Monday, quarter past six, a.m., on the 6th, after making three miles of 6th. southing. A thick wet fog prevailed during the day, and the breeze freshened from the S.E.b.E. We again proceeded Tuesday, at eight P.M., and travelling till half past six on the follow- ing morning, had accomplished only three miles of southing over a difficult road of five in length. Some small rain fell during the night, but we were fortunate in getting housed before it came down more heavily, which it did the whole day. A fat she-bear crossed over a lane of water to visit us, and approaching the boats within twenty yards was killed by Lieutenant Eoss. The scene which followed was laugh- able, even to us who participated in it. Before the animal had done biting the snow, one of the men was alongside of him with an open knife, and being asked what he was about to do, replied that he was going to cut out his heart and liver to put into the pot, which happened to be then boiling for our supper. In short, before the bear had been dead an hour, all hands of us were employed, to our great satisfliction, in discussing the merits, not only of the said heart and liver, but a pound per man of the flesh ; besides which, some or other of the men were constantly frying steaks, TO REACH THE NORTH POLE. US 1827. August. during the whole day, over a large fire made of the blubber. The consequence of all this, and other similar indulgences, necessarily was, that some of them complained, for several days after, of the pains usually arising from indigestion ; though they all, amusingly enough, attributed this effect to the quality, and not the quantity of meat they had eaten. The fact, however, is, that the flesh of the bear is just as wholesome, though not quite as palatable, as any other ; and had they eaten moderately of it, as the officers did, they would have suffered no inconvenience whatever. However, notwithstanding these excesses at first, we were really thank- ful for this additional supply of meat ; for we had observed, for some time past, that the men were evidently not so strong as before, and would be the better for more sustenance, A second bear being attracted by the smell of our fire, was wounded, but luckily (for us !) escaped. We had also more birds about us than usual, and a narwhal, the only one we had seen since leaving the ship, was blowing in a small hole of water near us. The rain continued so hard, at our usual time of setting out, that I was obliged to delay doing so till six p.m., on the 8th, when it ceased a little, after falling hard for twenty-four Wednesday, hours, and less violently for twelve more. When we first launched the boats, our prospect of making progress seemed no better than usual, but we found one small hole of water leading into another in so extraordinary a manner that, Q 2 8tll. I !'f! ='l I', 116 NARRATIVE OF AN ATTEMPT ' ■; I ! 1^ ;5 1 i"^. ' J 1 1 1 i ,, (> ■',. ^ k': 1 .1- 1827. August. Tuesday, 9th. Friday, 10th. though the space in which we were rowing seemed to be al- ways coming to an end, we continued to creep through narrow passages, and when we halted to dine at half an hour before midnight, had only hauled the boats up once, and had made, though by a winding channel, four or five miles of southing. This was so unusual a circumstance, that we could not help entertaining some hope of our being at no great distance from the open sea, which seemed the more probable from our having seen seven or eight narwhals, and not less than two hundred rotges, a flock of these little birds occur- ring in every hole of water. The wind was from the south- ward, with a thick fog, and the clear water increased so much, as we proceeded, that at six, a.m., on the 9th, instead of hauling up the boats as usual, we served an extra supper, and then pursued our way. However, at nine o'clock, the wind having freshened from the southward, and there being only one floe in sight, with immense spaces of open water between the streams of loobie ice, I thought it better to halt upon the floe, than to incur the probable risk of being driven back, should we be obhged to rest on any of the smaller pieces. It was fortunate that we adopted this plan ; for, the wind still increasing from the southward, the loose ice con- tinued to drive past us to the northward, during the whole of this and the following day, at the rate of a mile and a half an hour ; and we were, therefore, very glad to retain our present quarters. The weather being wet, with fog, we ! I Q ir e TO REACH THE NORTH POLE. 117 1827. August. occupied the men in making additional sails out of our empty bread-bags, and in filling the empty vessels with water, since it now appeared more than probable that we were close to the open sea. At noon, on the 10th, we observed in latitude 81° 40' 13", which was only four miles to the northward of our reckoning from the last observation, although there had been almost constantly southing in the wind ever since, and it had been blowing strong from that quarter for the last thirty hours. This circumstance afforded a last and striking proof of the general tendency of the ice to drift southward, about the meridians on which we had been travelling. Another bear came towards the boats in the course of the day, and was killed. We were now so abundantly supplied with meat, that the men would again have eaten immoderately, had we not interposed the necessary authority to prevent them. As it was, our en- campment became so like an Eskimaux establishment, that we were obliged to shift our place upon the floe, in the course of the day, for the sake of cleanliness and comfort. The wind fiiUing towards midnight, we launched the boats at half past one, a.m., on the 11th, paddling alternately in Saturday, large spaces of clear water, and among streams of loose " sailing-ice." We soon afterwards observed such indications of an open sea as could not be mistaken, much of the ice being " washed" as by a heavy sea, with small rounded frag- ments thrown on the surface, and a good deal of " dirty ice" ■'i w ' ctm 1' 1 tl'. '•1 ■'J 'l , 1 ^1 'i "■ 118 NARRATIVE OF AN ATTEMPT 1827. August. i < . i ! i i 1 * occurring. W e also met with several pieces of drift-wood and birch-bark, the first since we had entered the ice ; and the sea was crowded with shrimps and other sea-insects, principally the Clio Borealis and Argonauta Arctica, on which numerous birds were feeding. After passing through a good deal of loose ice, it became gradually more and more open, till at length, at a quarter before seven, a.m., we heard the first sound of the swell under the hollow margins of the ice, and in a quarter of an hour had reached the open sea, which was dashing with heavy surges against the outer masses. We hauled the boats upon one of these, to eat our last meal upon the ice, and to complete the necessary supply of water for our little voyage to Table Island, from which we were now distant fifty miles, our latitude being 81° 34', and longitude 18°i; E. A light air springing up from the N.W., we again launched the boats, and at eight, A.M., finally quitted the ice, after having taken up our abode uj)on it for forty-eight days. The wind dying away, our progress wholly depended on the paddles, which made it very laborious for the men. At two, P.M., we came to some loose ice a mile or two wide, but so open as scarcely to oblige us to alter our course. At three the temperature of the sea had increased to 36°, the air being the same ; and at nine, p.m., both had risen to 38°, not a piece of ice being in sight in any direction. The weather continued quite calm, and the atmosphere very TO REACH THE NORTH POLE. 119 pleasant to our feelings. We saw a great many seals sport- ing about, as well as large flocks of rotges, the latter feeding on the Argonauta Arctica, which now swarmed in myriads. We also passed a great many pieces of drift-wood, and laid in a stock, as fuel, lest we should find none at Table Island. We had some fog during the night, so that we steered entirely by compass, according to our last observations by the chronometers, which proved so correct, that at five, a.m., on the 12th, on the clearing up of the haze, we made the island right ahead. At ten, a.m., when within three miles of it, the temperature of the air was as high as 4 1°, and the sea still continued at 38°. At eleven, a.m., we reached the island, or rather the rock to the northward of it, where our provisions had been deposited ; and I cannot describe the comfort we experienced in once move feeling a dry and solid footing. We found that the bears had devoured all the bread (one hundred pounds), which occasioned a remark among the men, with reference to the quantity of these animals' flesh that we had eaten, that " Bruin was only square with us." We also found that Lieutenant Crozier had been here since we left the island, bringing some mate- rials for repairing our boats, as well as various little luxuries to which we had lately been strangers, and depositing in a copper cylinder a letter from Lieutenant Foster, giving me a detailed account of the proceedings of the ship up to the 23rd of July. By this I learned that the Hecla had 1827. August. Siindav, IJtli." !.. • !'1« I I/: '.1 .'I 120 NARRATIVE OF AN ATTEMPT 182 7. August. .;: !i,; i-l been forced on shore on the 7th of July, by the breaking- up of the ice at the head of the bay, which came down upon her in one solid mass ; but by the unwearied and zealous exertions of the officers and men, she had again been hove off without incurring the slightest damage, and placed in perfect security. Finding the ship thus liable to be dis- turbed by ice. Lieutenant Foster had prudently relinquished the idea of leaving her for any length of time, so as to make an extended survey of the eastern coast, confining himself to the neighbouring parts of Waygatz Strait, which were more within his reach. Among the supplies with which the anxi- ous care of our friends on board had now furnished us, some lemon-juice and sugar were not the least acceptable ; two or three of the men having for some days past suffered from cedematous swellings of the legs, and evinced other symp- toms apparently scorbutic, and which soon improved after administering this valuable specific. Having got our stores into the boats, we rowed round Table Island, to look for a place on which to rest, the men being much fatigued ; but so rugged and inhospitable is this northern rock, that not a single spot could w^e find where the boats could possibly be hauled up, or lie afloat in secu- rity. I therefore determined to take advantage of the freshening of the N.E. wind, and to bear up for Walden Island, which we accordingly did at two, p.m. To the islet which lies off Little Table Island, and which is interesting TO REACH THE NOkTH POLK. ISl as being the northernmost known land upon the globe, I have applied the name of Lieutenant Koss in the chart ; for I believe no individual can have exerted himself more strenuously to rob it of this distinction, ^^'e liad scarcely made sail when the weather became extremely inclement, with a fresh gale and very thick snow, which obscured Walden Island from our view. Steering by compass, how- ever, we made a good land-fall, the boats behaving well in a sea ; and at seven, p.m., landed in the smoothest place we could find under the lee of the island. Everything be- longing to us was now completely drenched by the spray and snow ; we had been fifty-six hours without rest, and forty-eight at work in the boats, so that, by the time they were unloaded, we had barely strength left to haul them up on the rock. We noticed, on tliis occasion, that the men had that wildness in their looks which usually accompanies excessive fatigue ; and though just as willing as ever to obey orders, they seemed at times not to comprehend them. However, by dint of great exertion, we managed to get the boats above the surf; after which, a hot supper, a blazing fire of drift-wood, and a few hours' quiet rest (juite restored us. The next morning I despatched Lieutenant Pioss, with a party of hands, to the N.E. part of the island, to launch the spare boat which, according to my directions. Lieutenant Foster had sent for our use, and to bring round the stores R 1827. Auinist. ]\IontIiu-, i! I ■ i ft l,,V; •) I 122 NARRATIVE OF AN ATTEMPT 1827. August. deposited there, in readiness for our setting off for Low Island. They found everything quite undisturbed; but, by the time they reached us, the wind had backed to the westward, and the weather become very wet, so that I determined to remain here till it improved. The south-eastern, or lowest part of Walden Island, which we had not before visited, is composed of coarse-grained red and grey granite. INIr. Beverly remarked, that " on the face of the rock may be observed veins of a finer grey gra- nite, from twelve to twenty inches wide, bordered by a ribbon of whitish felspar, about three inches wide on each side, and dipping at an angle of 10° to the south-eastward." Heaps of large rounded masses of granite, in regular hori- zontal beds, are lying at the height of thirty to forty feet above the present level of the sea, but giving the idea of their having once been washed by it. A great number of female eider-ducks, with their flocks of young, were swimming about the island ; and the tripe de roche and cock- learia were here more luxuriant than we had ever seen them. Drift-wood was, as usual, in great abundance in every spot where it could effect a landing. We here ob- served the dip of the magnetic needle to be 81° 24'. 19 North ; and, in taking angles for the survey, discovered a very dangerous rock, with the sea breaking upon it, at the distance of a mile and a half from the island, which I have distinguished as the " Hecla Rock " upon the chart. No 'ii TO KEACH THE NOUTII POLE. 123 ice was here in sight, to the utmost limit of a very extensive view. At ten, A.M., on the 14th, the weather being fine, we launched our three boats, and left A^'alden Island ; but the wind backing more to the westward, we could only fetch into a bay on the opposite or southern shore, ^^here we hauled the boats up on very rugged rocks, under cliff's about six hundred feet high, and of the same granite formation as Walden Island. We found the eastern land of this bay to be an island separated by a narrow strait ; and this, and another to the westward of it, having no names in the chart, I have distinguished them by those of our fellow-travellers, IMessrs. Beverly and IJird. The wind shifted to the east- ward in the night, and at eight, a.m., on the loth, we set out for Low Island, where we arrived at four, p;m., landing upon the west point, which is composed of a schistose quartz rock, dipping at an angle of 70° to the S.E., with a fine smooth beach of small pebbles of quartz and clay- slate, strewed in every part with immense quantities of drift-wood. Beds of clay-slate occur further inland, of a blue, red, and yellow colour, and dipping in various direc- tions. Off this point, and at the distance of one mile, we observed several small rocky islets which had before escaped notice, being then covered with ice. In fact, the whole neighbourhood of this island should be approached very cautiously in a ship, the soundings being irregular and R 2 1827. August. Tiii'sday, llth. Woiliicsdnv, 13th. m V- i s b; f 4 1 ,'1. • ?.iii; I. t .. M'; J. L'i* lit. 124 NARRATIVE OF AN ATTEMPT Aiii;iist. TliuvMliiv, Kith.' uncertain. AVc here saw a bear, a great many tern and eider-ducks with their young, and several deer, two of which were killed. Jly the time we had i)rei)ared for setting out, the wind liad freshened almost to a gale, with every ap[)ear- ancc of dirty weather, which induced mc to remain liere for the night. Messrs. Koss and Ueverly took a long walk about the island, and found it much intersected by ponds and lagoons, with very little vegetation in any part. In the mean time I observed the dip of the magnetic needle, which was 81° 22.9; and at nino, a.m., on the following morning, set off for the Hecla ; but as we approached the point which I have distinguished by the name of " Shoal Point " on the chart, the wind shifted to the southward, and raised a sea which obliged us to bear up for the south point of Low Island, where we landed at one, p.m., on a long narrow beach, almost entirely composed of clay-slate, with a lagoon within it. Kear this point is a hill about one hundred and fifty feet above the sea, which is the highest and only conspicuous part of the island. The rocks which compose the hill are of reddish schistose quartz, approach- ing in some places to sandstone, the strata being disposed in a direction quite vertical. A^"e saw nothing here resem- bling the hexagonal stones mentioned by Dr. Irving, in Phipps's Voyage *, as occurring about the northern part of * Voyage towards the North Pole, p. 58. TO UEACU THE NORTH I'OLE. 125 tlic island. Having a commanding view from this emi- nence, \\c obtained angles lor the survey, and afterwards found that Lieutenant Crozier had observed the latitude not far from our present landing-place to be SO'' 15' 2i>". AVithin, or to the eastward of the island, is a considerable bay, in Avhich some heavy masses of ice were lying aground, reminding us more than any that we had seen about Spitz- bergen of the smaller bergs in JJafiin's JJay, though of much less dimensions. There appears to bo a great deal of shoal water in this neighbo'irhocd, and many detached rocks appear above water. No drift-ice wns in sight in any direction. The wind dying away on the morning of tK' 17th, we once more set out for the ship at nine, a.m.; but h. ^ing a second time nearly reached Shoal loin were again met by a strong breeze as we opened AVaygatz Strait, and were therefore obliged to land upon the lou f-hore to the south- ward of Low Island. It was, however, some time before wc discovered a spot on which any fresh water could be obtained ; for we found this coast to consist almost entirely of narrow strips of beach, within which are very extensive lagoons, and most of the water near them is brackish. 'I'he formation here was diiibr .iit from any we had yet met with about Spitzbcrgen ; the rocks consisting chieHy of a black marble with i\1iitc and red veins intersecting it, and the flat parts of the land covered with small detached 1827. Anvils*, Friday, 1 nh. .i ' im NAllUATIVE OF AN ATTEMPT 1827. August. I Saliirday, ISth. ^i '■i^f''t Sunday, I'Jth. fragments of decomposed limestone. In some places, also, there are beds of clay-slate of considerable extent. A nar- row line of marble rock here and there projects into the sea, like jetties thrown out by art, and having fine beaches between them. We found one piece of bituminous wood- coal, which burned with a clear, bright flame, and emitted a pleasant odour. On this and all the land hereabouts, where lagoons occur, enormous quantities of drift-wood line the inner beach, which is now quite inaccessible to the sea, and this wood is always more decayed than that which lies on the outer or present sea-beach ; by which it appears that the latter has been thrown up, to the exclusion of the sea, long since the inner wood was landed. A great many small rounded pieces of pumice-stone are also found on this part of the coast, and these generally occur rather above the inner line of drift-wood, as if they had reached the highest limit to which the sea has ever extended. On the ISth the wind increased to a strong breeze from the S.W., with rain nnd sleet, which afterwards changed to snow in some of the largest flakes I ever saw, completely changing the whole aspect of the land from summer to winter in a few houi 8. On the following morning we pre- pared to move at an early hour, but the wind backed more to the westward, and soon after increased to a gale, raising so much surf on the beach as to oblige us to haul the boats higher up. The rain, which fell heavily, keeping us pri- TO REACH THE NOllTH POLE. 127 1827. August. ^Monday, •JUIh. soncrs under our awnings, dissolved nearly all the snow on the low lands. As the wind now blew so much upon the shore, I was in momentary expectation of seeing some ice come in, but we were agreeably surprised to find that none appeared. This circumstance appeared to us the more remarkable from the extraordinary rapidity with which, in the month of June, the very lightest air from the west- ward brought the drift-ice in upon the land, rendering these shores quite inaccessible in the course of a few hours. On the 20th, tired as we were of this tedious confine- ment, and anxious to reach the ship, the wind and sea were still too high to allow us to move, and it was not till half past seven, a.m., on the 21st, that we could venture to Tuesday, launch the boats. Having now, by means of the drift-wood, converted our paddles into oars, and being occasionally favoured by a light breeze, with a perfectly open sea, we made tolerable progress, and at half past four, p.im., when within three or four miles of Hecla Cove, had the gratifica- tion of seeing a boat under sail, coming out to meet us. jNIr. AVcir soon joined us in one of the cutters ; and, after hearing good accounts of thp safety of the ship, and of the welfare of all on board, together with a variety of details, to us of no small interest, we arrived on board at seven, i»..m., after an absence of sixty-one days, being received with that warm and cordial welcome, which can alone be felt, and not described. •J 1st, v-r, m 128 NARRATIVE OF AN ATTEMPT I' » 1827. August. I * The distance traversed during this excursion was five hundred and sixty-nine geographical miles ; but allowing for the number of times we had to return for our baggage dur- ing the greater part of the journeys over the ice, we estimated our actual travelling at nine hundred and seventy-eight geo- graphical, or eleven hundred and twenty-seven statute miles. Considering our constant exposure to wet, cold, and fatigue, our stockings having generally been drenched in snow-water for twelve hours out of every four-and- twenty, I had great rea- son to be thankful for the excellent health in which, upon the whole, we reached the ship. There is no doubt that we had all become, in a certain degree, gradually weaker for some time past ; but only three men of our party now required medical care, two of them with badly swelled legs and gene- ral debility, and the other from a bruise ; but even these three returned to their duty in a short time. I cannot conclude the account of our proceedings w ithout endeavouring to do justice to the cheerful alacrity and un- wearied zeal displayed by my companions, both officers and men, in the course of this excursion ; and if steady perse- verance and active exertion on their parts could have accom- plished our object, success would undoubtedly have crowned our labour;,. I must also mention, to the credit of the officers of 'SN^oolwich dock-yard, who took so much pains in the con- struction of oui boats, that, notwithstanding the constant and severe trial to which their strength had been put — and TO REACH THE NORTH POLE. 129 a more severe trial could not well be devised — not a timber was Spring, a plank split, or tlie smallest injury sustained by them , they were, indeed, as tight and as fit for service when we reached the ship as when they were first received on board, and in every respect answered the intended purpose admirably. An abstract of our meteorological observations during this excursion, is given in the Appendix, together with those kept on board the Hecla. In this there is nothing so remarkable as the extraordinary quantity of rain, of which it may safely be said that twenty times as much fell in the course of this one summer, as during any preceding one we had passed in the polar regions, even in latitudes from 8° to 16° lower. 182-. August. On my arrival on board, I learned from Lieutenant Crozier that Lieutenant Foster, finding that no further disturbance from ice was to be apprehended, and after making an accu- rate plan of the bay and its neighbourhood, had proceeded on the survey of Waygatz Strait, and proposed returning by the 2Gth, the day to which I had limited his absence. I found the ship quite ready for sea, with the exception of getting on board the launch, with the stores deposited by s 180 NARRATIVE OF AN ATTEMPT 1827. August. t I my direction on the beach. Lieutenant Foster's report informed me that, after the ship had been hauled off the ground *, they had again suffered considerable disturbance for several days, in consequence of some heavy masses of ice driving into the bay, which dragged the anchors, and again threatened them with a similar accident. However, after the middle of July no ice had entered the bay, and, what is still more remarkable, not a piece had been seen in the offing for some weeks past, even after hard northerly and westerly gales. I must here not omit to do justice to the zealous and unwearied exertions which had been made by Lieutenant Foster, and every officer and man left on board, as well to preserve the Hecla from injury, under circum- stances of considerable danger, as to get on board all the stores ar'I ballast after they had been landed for the purpose of heaving her off ; in the course of which service, the con- duct of every individual was highly meritorious. It was also a source of great satisfaction to find everybody on board in good health, with the exception of Mr. Crawford, the Green- land Master, who had for some time past been in a declining * I cannot here omit to mention the invaluable advantage derivccl, on this occasion, from one of our cutters (a twenty-five feet boat) having been fitted on Mr. Cow's ingenious principle for wcigliing anchors in the centre, instead of the extremity of the boat. By this beautiful contrivance, six men could weigh the Hecla's bower-anchor, of thirty cwt., with ease, and transport it any distance with safety. Indeed, but for this facility, added to that aftbrded by Phillips's Capstan, the Hecla's reduced crew would j)robably have been unable to haul her off the ground at all on this occasion. TO REACH THE NORTH POLE. 131 state, and now evinced dropsical symptoms, indicating a gradual and rapid decay. No opportunity had been lost of making such observations as, in this latitude, may be considered interesting to science, and in collecting specimens of natural history ; in all w^hich pursuits the officers were constantly employed, during every moment that could be spared from the necessary duties of the ship. Among other magnetic observations, an interest- ing series of hourly experiments had been made on the diurnal changes of variation and intensity, and continued for several days without intermission, by Lieutenants Foster and Crozier. By these it appears that there is a diurnal oscilla- tion of the magnetic needle, usually amounting to about a degree and a half, and in some instances to 2°il ; the maxi- mum westerly variation occurring at about five, p.m., and the minimum about 4'' 22", a.m. The experiments on the change of intensity were not less satisfactory and conclusive ; exhibiting an increased action aliout 10'' 20 ", a.m., and a minimum intensity about midnight. There was also ob- served a remarkable coincidence between these two pheno- mena, the largest amount of diurnal variation and the greatest changes of intensity usually occurring on the same days . On the 22d, as soon as our people had enjoyed a good night's rest, we commenced bringing the stores on board from the beach, throwing out such a quantity of the stone ballast as was necessary for trimming the ship ; after which S 2 1827. August. Wedncsdaj', 2-2nd. Hi i % 1 1 ii ti; !' ^'t* 1 I 'f ^1 - , ■ 1 i i I' ■ ^l,fil ..J |!^ \'t\ Cb I IT I 1- 132 NARRATIVE OF AN ATTEMPT 1827. August. W^ Friday, 24tir. the cables and hawsers were cast off from the shore, and the ship hauled off to single anchor. Lieutenant Foster returned on board on the 24th, having surveyed the greater part of the shores of the Strait, as far to the southward as 79° 33'. This Strait was found to vary in breadth from four to eleven miles ; and Lieutenant Foster recognised distinctly almost every feature of the lands delineated in the old Dutch chart before alluded to, though the position of these is, in general, very erroneously laid down, both in latitude and longitude. Still, however, there is enough to shew that they have been delineated from a sketch actually made upon the spot. The land within the Strait, especially that which he saw to the southward of 79°i, Lieutenant Foster considered to be much higher than any of the northern shores of Spitzbcrgen, being in some parts probably not less than three thousand feet. He found in some places a good deal of alluvial soil, such as occurs at the base of the hills in almost every part of this coast on which wo have landed. Some islands near the middle of the Strait, to which I have ventured to affix the name of Lieutenant Foster, are composed of hornblende ; but at a short distance to the westward of these, a limestone formation occurred, with numerous fossils imbedded in the rock, upon a prominent headland forming the eastern point of entrance to Bear or Loom Bay, and which Lieutenant Foster distinguished by the name of Cape Fanshawe. A striking feature of the land on the western coast of the TO REACH THE NORTH POLE, 133 Strait consists in the numerous ice-bergs with which the chfFs are in many parts Hned. One of these, marked in the chart, is not less than nine miles in length, and one hundred and fifty feet high ; immense masses of ice were constantly falling from them at this season, with a sound resembling that of thunder. Several of these ice-bergs are faithfully laid down in the Dutch Chart. Lieutenant Foster saw some sea-horses, narwhals, and white whales, in the course of this excursion, but no black whales ; nor did we, in the whole course of the voyage, see any of these, except on the ground already frequented by our whalers, on the western coast of Spitzbergen. It is remark- able, however, that the " crown-bones," and other parts of the skeleton of whales, are found in most parts where we landed on this coast. The shores of the Strait, like all the rest in Spitzbergen, are lined with immense quantities of drift- wood, wherever the nature of the coast will allow it to land. That part of Treurenburg Jiay, to which I have aflixed the liame of Hecla Cove, is the only good anchorage it con- tains, the water being either too deep or too shoal in n.ost other parts. The Hecla's anchorage is perfectly land-locked and secure, except from the incursions of ice, which, in these regions, occasionally finds its way into every corner; but even in this respect, there was nothing to apprehend after the middle of July. The holding-ground is excellent, con- sisting of a tenacious blue clay, in which the anchors were 1827. August. •lii'i i i 134 NARRATIVE OF AN ATTEMPT 1827. August. i quite imbedded. The latitude of the flag-stafF marked in the riaii, on which a copi)er-])late was fixed, giving an ac- count of the Hechi's visit, is 79° 55' 20", and its longitude by our chronometers 10° 48' 45" east. The dip of the magnetic needle by that employed by Lieutenant Foster is 80° 45'.91, and by mine 81° 4'.58. The mean variation is 18° 4 G' 12" westerly. The time of liigh water at full and change is 2^ 26", the highest rise at spring tides being four feet two inches, and the smallest at the neaps seventeen inches ; both of these occurring at the fourth tide after the full moon, and the last quarter, respectively. The animals met with here, during the Hecla's stay, were principally rein-deer, bears, foxes, kittiwakes, glaucous and ivory gulls, tern, eider-ducks, and a few grouse. TiOoms and rotges were numerous in the offing. Seventy rein-deer were killed, chiefly very small, and, until the middle of August, not in good condition. They were usually met with in herds of from six or eight to twenty, and were most abundant on the west and north sides of the bay. Three bears were killed, one of wliich was somewhat above the ordinary dimensions, measuring eight feet four inches from the snout to the insertion of the tail. The vegetation was tolerably abundant, especially on the western side of the bay, where the soil is good ; a considerable collection of plants, as well as mineralsi was made by Mr. Halse, and of birds by Mr. M'Cormick. The following remarks by Mr. Beverly, made during our I'mhiiJwti.uth.^ rf.V .///>-,.'.■ n^'ifff 6v lohn .^unit, tlKfi^i^.-. it>**fJ..'if.k^, f t-i n.,a.-iX^Uf,t jl» TO UEACII TIIK NOUTII POLE. 196 short stay in ITccla Cove, after retiirninper stratum of the mountain. They are composed of ferruginous sand and hornblende, in such a state of decomposition as to crumble to powder under the blow of the hammer. " The range of mountains beyond this plain lies in an E.b.S., and afterwards in a more southerly, direction, form- ing the west shore of AV'aygatz Strait ; and, as far as I was able to ascertain, is composed of the same rock, which, being soft, gives their summit a smooth and rounded form. The debris extends about five hundred yards on the i)lain, and consists of loose fragments, rendering the ascent to the per- pendicular face of the rock very difficult. I'liat part of the IS27. AuL'utt. ir L 'J I t-l L > i^ ■■: 13« NAUUATIVE OF AN ATTEMIT I H27. Aiicjust. )l, hill wliicli fiiccs the harbour is composed of qVi^-io vt ;Ii, in some places schistose, in others massive, with a waxy fracture. This terminates abruptly about a mile and a lialf to the eastward, where the clay-slate formation commences, being of a deep lead colour, a firm texture, and less talcose than that on the plain. The inclination of this stratum, as well as that of the quartz rock, is to the south-east, at an angle of about sixty degrees. " The formatioj'. of the rocks on the opposite or western side of the bay, appeared, as far as I had an opportunity of examining them, to be much the same. At the foot of the hills there is a broad belt of flat alluvial ground, much of which consists of a fine deep soil, thickly covered with mosses and other vegetation ; upon this flat ground arc lying large boulders of mica-slate." The height of the hill nearest to Hecla Cove, as measured barometrically by Lieutenant Foster, is about two thousand feet ; but the barometer having subsequently been found defective, this measure can only be considered an approxi- mation. The hills on the south side of the bay are con- siderably higher than this. The neighbourhood of this bay, like most of the northern shores of Spitzbergen, appears to have been much visited by the Dutch at a very early period ; of which circumstance re- cords arc furnished on almost every spot where we landed, by the numerous graves which arc met with. There are thirty TO UEAUII THE NORTH I'OLR. 13T of these on a point of land on the north side of the bay *. The bodies arc usually deposited in an oblong wotnlcn cofKn, whieli, on account of the difficulty of di«^*;ing the ground, is not buried, but merely covered by large stones ; and a board is generally i)laced near the head, liaving, either cut or painted, upon it the name of the deceased, with those of his shij) and commander, and the month and year of his burial. Several of these were fifty or sixty years old ; one bore the date of 1738 ; and another, which I found on the beach to the eastward of llecla Cove, that of 1G90, the inscrij)tion distinctly appearing in i)rominent relief, occa- sioned by the preservation of the wood by the paint, while the unpainted part had decayed around it. The ofHcers who remained on board the Ilecla durinjr the summer described the weather as the most beautiful, and the climate altogether the most ugreeablc, they had ever experienced in the polar regions. Indeed, the ^Nfe- teorological Journal, of which an abstract for each month is annexed to this volume, shows a temperature, both of the air and of the sea-water, to which we had before been alto- gether strangers within the Arctic Circle, and which goes far towards showing that the climate of Spitzbergcn is a remarkably temperate one for its latitude f . It nuist, how- * rerliaps the name of tliis bay, from tlie Dutcli word Treurm, " to lament, or be mournful," may have some reference to the graves fonnil Ik'-p. t Mr. Crowe of Ilannnerfest, who lately passed a winter on the soutii-westcrn T IS jr. Auaust. . , '5 i % 138 NARRATIVE OF AN ATTEIMPT 1827. Aupist, Tuesday, •Jtith." Wodnesdav, ever, be observed that this remark is principally applicable to the weather experienced near the land, that at sea being rendered of a totally different character by the almost con- tinual presence of fogs ; so that some of our most gloomy days upod the ice were among the finest in Ilecla Cove, where, however, a good deal of rain fell in the course of the summer. The Hecla was ready for sea on the 25th of August ; but the wind blowing fresh from the northward and west- ward prevented our moving till the evening of the 28th, when, the weather improving, we got under way from Ilecla Cove, and being fiivoured with a light air from the S.E., stood along tiie coast to the westward. On the evening of the 29th, when off Eed Beach, we got on board our boat and other stores which had been left there, finding them undisturbed and in good order. The weather was beauti- fully fine, and the sun (to us for the first time for about four months) just dipped his lower limb into the sea at midnight, and then rose again. It was really wonderful to see that, upon this whole northern coast of Spitzbergen, where in jMay and June not a "hole" of clear water could be found, it would now have been equally difficult to dis- const of S])it'/l)cr