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ROWORTH, BEI.L-YARD, TEMPLE-BAR. »: T—^.-^^W-TJ-TW^^'" NARRATIVE ■m OP AN ATTEMPT TO REACH THE Ijorth pole, IN BOATS FITTED FOR THE PURPOSE, AND ATTACHED TO HIS majesty's SHIP HECLA, IN THE YEAR 1827, UNDER iglleOMM AND OP >. ,; CAPT. W. E. PARRY, R.N. F.R.S. AND COMMANDER OF THE EXrEDlTION. \, :»> THE SIXTH VOLUME. , ■ M' ■#'■?• '^i- LONDON: V V JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET. MDCCCXXIX. :-^v* *;•■; i. .* •^F^ # Sk i7»M- .J"^ ■' ,f Mi- • r^ --m I >*'■'■ >;■ 'i # ^^■« F *'\ '-t*!!',- INTRODUCTION. In April, 1826, I proposed to the Right Honourable Viscount Melville, First Lord Commissioner of the Admiralty, to attempt to reach the North Pole, by means of tra- velling with sledge-boats over the ice, or through any spaces of open water that might occur. My proposal was soon afterwards referred to the President and Council of the Royal Society, who strongly recommended its adoption ; and an Expedition being ac- cordingly directed to be equipped for this purpose, I had the honour of being ap- pointed to the command of it ; and my com- VI INTRODUCTION. mission for His Majesty's Ship the Hecla, which was intended to carry us to Spitz- bergen, was dated the 11th 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 subsequently took our departure in the boats, Captain Lutwidge, the associate of Captain Phipps in the Ex- pedition towards the North Pole in 1773, describes the ice to the north-eastward, to the distance of ten or twelve leagues, to have the appearance of " one continued plain of smooth unbroken 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, rathey vu INTRODUCTION. 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, jiin., a close and intelligent 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 Edin- burgh, and published in their Memoir s^f he enters at considerable length into the argu- ments in favour of the practicability of this enterprise, and in his subsequent work. * Phipps's Voyage towards the North Pole, pp 60, 56. . t Vol. ii. p. 328. .59, VIU INTRODUCTION. above quoted, repeats his conviction to the same effect.* To the respectable authori- ties already mentioned I may also add the testimony of several intelligent and experi- enced^whalers, whom I consulted as to the nature of the ice, with reference to this pro- ject ; 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 sug- gested for putting it into execution, 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 experience, 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 * Scoresby's Account of the Arctic Regions, i. 54-61, 242. INTRODUCTION. IX the attempt, and himself volunteered to con- duct it.* Following up, in the most essen- tial partic. liars, the plan of this distinguished traveller, the principal features of which will be best understood by reference to my Official Instructions, two boats were con- structed at Woolwich, under my superin- tendence, after an excellent model suggested by Mr. Peake, and nearly resembling what are called ** troop-boats," having great flat- ness of floor, with the extreme breadth car- ried well forward and aft, and possessing the utmost buoyancy, as well as capacity for 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-timber" of smaller size between each two. On the outside of the * This plan, as originally proposed by Captain Franklin, was given to me by Mr. Barrow, soon after my return from the Expedition of 1824-5. :*'■ »• TV t'^' ' X INTRODUCTION. frame thus formed, was laid a covering of Mackintosh's water proof canvass, 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 with- out. This method of planking the boats was proposed and executed by Mr. Lang, Master-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 first travelling boat, which was built by \\ ay of experiment, was planked differently from these two; the planks, which were of half-inch oak, being inge- niously *' tongued" together with copper, according to a method contrived by Mr. Peake, in order to save the necessity of caulking, in case of the wood shrink- INTRODUCTION. XI the keel, 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, owing to the irregularities of the ice, did not prove of any service, and were subsequently re- linquished. A " span" of hide-rope was at- tached to the fore part of the runners, and to this were affixed two strong ropes of horse-hair, for dragging the boat ; each in- dividual being furnished with a broad leathern shoulder-belt, which could rea- dily be fastened to or detached from the drag-ropes. The interior arrangement con- ing, rhis was the boat subsequently landed on Red Beach. . '>". xu INTRODUCTION. sisted only of two thwarts ; a locker at each end for the nautical 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 being seamen, and two marines) were selected for each boat's crew. It was pro- posed to take with us resources for ninety days ; to set out from Spitzbergen, if pos- sible, about the beginning of June ; and to occupy the months of June, July, and August, in attempting to reach the pole, and returning 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 \: INTRODUCTION. Xlll wheaten flour ; heef pemmican ;* sweetened cocoa-powder, manufactured by Messrs. Fortnum and Mason; and a small propor- tion of rum, the latter concentrated to fifty- five per cent, above proof, in order to save weight and' stowage. The proper instru- ments were provided, both by the Admi- ralty and the Board of Longitude, for mak- ing such observations as might be interest- ing 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. * For this article of our equipment, which contains a large proportion of nutriment in a small weight and compass, and is therefore invaluable on such occa- sions, we are much indebted to the kindness of Mr. J. P. Holmes, Surgeon, of Old Fish Street, who had resided several years in the Hudson's Bay Establish- ments, 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, with- out further cooking. XIV INTRODUCTION. Parkinson and Frodsham, with their usual liberahty, 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 respec- tive 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. Enterprize. Endeavour. Boat Bamboo mast, 1 spreat, 1 boat- hook, 1 steer-oar .... Fourteen paddles lbs. 1539 461 lbs. 1542 46i 41 41 INTRODUCTION. XV Eiiterprize. Endeavour. iH. W Sail (or awning) ..... Spare rope afid line .... Small sounding-line (750 fathoms in all) . . ■ Carpenters' tools, screws, nails, &c. Copper and felt for repairs . . Four fowling-pieces, with 2 bayo- nets Small articles for guns . . . Ammunition ...... Instruments Books ''Fur Suits for sleeping in (14 in each boat) . . Thicknailed boots (14 in each boat) Esquimaux do., with spare 5 1 soles, (14 in each boat) fl, 1 Flannel shirts (7 in each boat) Guernsey frocks (do. do.) Thick drawers (do. do.) Mittens (28 in each boat) Comforters (14 in each boat) L Scotch caps (do. do.) CA 0) a* lbs. 22 6 8 . 10 19 . 15 174 29 7 162 47 33 8i llj 14 5 1 4 lbs. 22 6 10 10 1^ 16 4 17^ 29 162 47 33 H 14 5 1 4 XVI INTRODUCTION. Entei'prize. Endeavour, lbs. lbs. A bag of small articles for the Officers, including soap, &c. &c. 4 4 Do. do. for the men do. 12 12 Biscuit 628 628 Pemmican . . . . ... 564 564 Rum 180 180 Cocoa-powder, sweetened . . 63 63 Salt 14 14 Spirits of wine 72 72 Cooking apparatus .... — 20 Tobacco 20 20 Medicine chest 19 — Pannikins, knife, fork, and spoon, (14 in each boat) .... 5 5 Weighing-dials and measures • 2 2 Various small articles for repairs, &c., not mentioned above • 14 — Packages for provisions, clothes, &c. 110 116 14)3753i 3753^ Weight, per man . . 268 lbs. . Exclusive of four sledges, weigh- ing 26 lbs. each. INTRODUCTION. XVll In drawing up my Journal for publication, I have, as before, thrown into an Appendix* the details of such meteorological, magnetic, and other observations, as our situation and circumstances enabled us to make ; and these, I trust, will not prove altogether un- worthy 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 scien- tific world, in the various branches of natu- ral knowledge, have imparted to our imper- fect 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 ex- ♦ See the 4to Edition. ■■# XVlll INTRODUCTION. amination 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, there- fore, 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 on this enterprize, coincided (with a single exception) with the opinion expressed by the Commissioners of Longi- tude, in their Memorial to the King, that ^' the progress of discovery had not arrived northwards, according to any well authen- ticated accounts, so far as eighty-one de- • INTRODUCTION. XIX gvees 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 81° 12' 42", by actual observation, and 81° 30', by dead reckoning. I therefore consider the latter parallel as, in all probability, the highest which had ever been attained, 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. OFFICIAL INSTRUCTIONS. By the Commissioners for executing the Office of Lord Higji Admiral of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, ^'C. Whereas the President and Council of the Royal Society have expressed an opinion that an Expedition, for the purpose of attempting to reach the North Pole, " can- not fail to afford many valuable results and settle important matters of philosophical in- quiry;" and whereas, conformably there- with, We have thought fit, from your desire to be employed on this service, and your zeal and experience in prosecuting disco- veries in the Arctic Regions, to entrust to your charge the conduct of the said Expe- dition, and to appoint you to the command of His Majesty's sloop Hecla ; you are \ li 6iiiCIAL INSTRUCTIONS. liereby .equired and directed, so soon as the said vrssel shall in all respects be ready for sea, to make the best of your way to th( 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 Hecla may be placed ; and having properly secured her, you are then to proceed with the boats, whose equipments 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 obser- vations as are specified in the Instructions for your former Voyages in the iN'^r^hern Regions, and such as will be poiiitca oat to you by the Council of the Royal Society, adc ^d to those which your own experience wiil i '%f* 176 Description of Low Island 178 Return to the Hecla 182 Distance travelled 183 Proceedings on board during our absence ...... 185 Mr. Cow's ingenious boat for weighing anchors, id. Lieutenant Foster's Survey of Waygatz Strait . . 188 Description of Treurenburg Bay ............ 190 — ' of Hecla Cove 192 L( A Li Q • D H R CONTENTS. xrxv Leave Hecla Cove % Arrive at Balta Sound . . . . ; 199 Leave Balta and arrive at Long Hope 200 Quit the Hecla and arrive in London 201 Death of Mr. George Crawford 202 Hecla paid off 203 Remarks on the nature, &c. of this enterprise . . id. NARRATIVE. The Hecla being ready to proceed down the river, she was taken in tow, at ten A.M. on the 25th of March, 1 827, by the Lightning steam-vessel ; and having received and re- turned the cheers of the Greenwich pen- sioners, 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 * The merits of this simple but valuable invention being now too well known to require any detailed account of the experiments, it is only necessary fo" me B 2 NARRATIVE OF AN ATTEMPT visited by the Right Hon. Viscount Mel- ville, First Lord Commissioner of the Ad- miralty, who was pleased to express his approbation of our equipment ; and the two succeeding days were employed in receiving the powder and other gunner's stores, and in making various magnetical experiments with the instruments intended for the voyage. These being completed, we were taken in tow by the Comet steam-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 Moorsom for the supply of our few remaining wants : and on the 2d of April that officer did us the honour of a personal visit on board the Hecla. On the 3d the ship's company received three months' w^ages in advance, together with their river-pay, and on the following morning, at half past four, we weighed and made sail from the Nore. By to remark, in this place, that the compass, having the plate attached to it, gave, under all circumstances, the correct magnetic bearing. TO REACH THE NORTH POLE, 3 the kindness of Sir Thomas Byam Martin, the Comptroller of his Majesty'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 Or-^ fordness before dark ; and at six P.M. she parted company from us, giving us three hearty cheers, and receiving our pilot, toge- ther with our despatches and letters. Being now fairly at sea, and favoured by a southerly breeze, we shaped our course, under all sail, to the northward. We had at this time remarkably fine wea- ther for the season of the year, and such a continuance of southerly winds, that we arrived off the island of Soroe, within which Hammerfest lies, on the 17th, without hav- ing 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 58 th parallel, a very decided north-easterly current, which has usually been understood to exist here, and is oflen p. 9 4 NARRATIVE OF AN ATTEMPT the means of setting ships over towards 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 circmnstance 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 on sailing to the eastward, the variation begins rapidly, though very regu- larly, to decrease, till at Hammerfest, in the longitude of 23|° east, we find it only be- tween 10° and 11°. 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. TO REACH THE NORTH POLE. I may further remark, that this change in the variation of the needle, coincident with a change of meridian only, 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 ; pro- vided always that one fixed place has been selected for the azimuth compass, right ^mid-ships, and sufficiently high to be re- moved from the influence of immediate local attraction. The wind becoming light from the south- ward, and very variable, we were occupied the whole of the 1 8th 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 an ebb 6 NARRATIVE OF AN ATTEMPT tide, we reached at three A.M. on the 19th. Soon after we had anchored, Mr. Crowe came on board, accompanied 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 Lieu- tenant 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 Fuglen*^ss, near the establishment of Messrs. Crowe and Wood- fall, the British merchants residing here ; and Lieutenant Foster and myself imme- diately commenced our magnetic 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 Ka- /i i i TO REACH THE NORTH POLE. 7 mooga,)* 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 afforded 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, Lieutenant Crozier returned in the boat from Alten, and was followed the next day by Mr. Woodfall, who brought with him eight rein-deer for our use, together with a supply of moss for their provender (ceno- myce rangiferlna). As, however, the latter required a great deal of picking, so as to render it fit to carrj 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 * It is remarkable that the Esquimaux word for boot is very like this — Kameega, 8 NARRATIVE OF AN ATTEMPT the Lapland rein-deer. With a simple collar of skin round his neck, a single trace of the same material attached to the " pulk," or sledge, and passing 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 off 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 suflPer 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 H !» TO REACH THE NORTH POLE. 9 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 uinmsitely having recourse to them, as pro- vision for ourselves. Our preparations were completed on the 27th, but the wind continuing fresh from the north-western quarter in the offing, we had no prospect of making any progress till the morning of the 29th, when we weighed at six A.M. I cannot omit this opportunity of expressing my acknowledgments to all the gentlemen at Hammerfest, whom I have before mentioned, for the ready assistance they afforded us on all occasions ; and also to Mr. Capellan, Sheriff of the district of West Finmarkj who accompanied Mr. Woodfall from Bosecop, where he resides, and where he behaved with extreme atten- tion to Lieutenant Cro.zier and his boat's crew. !i 10 NARRATIVE OF AN ATTEMPT After the detailed and interesting account already given of Hammerfest, and of the inhabitants of this part of Lapland, by Cap- tain de Capell Brooke,* it would be useless, as well as presumptuous in me, to attempt any thing further in this way. I shall, therefore, only add a few hydrographical remarks, which may be useful to ships bound to this port, and such as I should myself have been very glad to possess, when entering it on this occasion. Some local information of this nature is the more necessary, since the fishermen will not come out to any distance to pilot a ship to the anchorage. The little harbour of Hammerfest is by no means easy for a stranger to find, in the present imperfect state of our charts of the coast of Lapland, on account of the number of deep inlets, or ** fiords," by which the shores are indented, and the sameness in the appearance of most of the land in its neighbourhood. This latter also differs ma- * A Winter in Lapland and Sweden, &cq. TO REACH THE NORTH POLE. 11 terially at different seasons, according to the quantity of snow which is lying upon it. The Southern entrance, by Hasvig, which is situated towards the south-western ex- tremity of Soroe, is not to be so much re- commended as that to the northward, on account of the greater distance which a ship has to go between the high lands, where the wind varies 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 direction 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 remark- able 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 the shape of two cones, and there will then be in sight another small but high irocky island to the S.E., having a smoothly rounded appearance at the top in almost every point of view, and which bears 12 NARRATIVE OF AN ATTEMPT ^rom the outer point of Milk Island, near Hammerfest, N. 8° E. (true). To the southward of this will also be seen another small and low rocky island, which, as well as the round topped island, was now free from snow. A ship must leave these both * to the eastward, keeping between them and Soroe, when a S.S.E. course by compass will lead towards Milk Island, and the two small but high islands called the Great and Little Hielm will then come in sight, which being kept in one, afford a good leading mark for the port of Hammerfest, as shown in the survey made by Lieutenant Foster, in the Griper, in 1823. The bower anchor may be dropped in eighteen to twenty fathoms, on a muddy bottom, rather on the Fugleness side, and a stream laid out to the S.S.E. ; it is also recommended 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 na- vigation; a remark which is considered equally applicable to the whole of the coast of Lapland, to the northward of 68°. V c n TO REACH THE NORTH POLE. 13 The latitude of Fugleness, by our obser- vations, is 70° 40' 8" N. ? the longitude by chronometers 23° 45' 40" E, ; the dip of the magnetic needle 77° 12' N. ; and the varia- tion 10° 14' 12" westerly. It was high water on the day of new moon at 2*40, 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 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 69° 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 gneiss (of which all these islands appear composed) is very distinctly exhibited, we observed it to incline to the S.W., at a measured angle of 27°. We found the wind 14 NARRATIVE OF AN ATTEMPT l>ti 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 warm water. During the whole of the time we re- mained in water of this higher temperature, the wind, though in general light, and the weather line, was constantly coming in puffs of greater or less force, and then relapsing again almost into a calm ; a circumstance so unusual in an open sea, that it appeared 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 broken into little de- tached lumps, and the dip of the sea, as measured by Dr. Wollaston's dip-sector, indicated a depression very considerably greater than that given in the Tables, In one instance the excess amounted to 2' 3'\ the temperature of the air being 23j°, and that of the water 40°. On the 5 th of May, being in latitude rs"" 30\ and longitude 7° 28' E., we met with the first straggling mass of ice, after which, TO REACH THE NORTH POLE. 15 in sailing about 110 miles in a N.N.W. direction, there was always a number of loose masses in sight ; but it did not occur in continuous "streams," till the morning of the 7th, in latitude 74° 55', a few miles to the eastward of the meridian of Greenwich, Early on the morning of the 9th, while run- ning, 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 Al- pheus, and the Active, of Peterhead. By the former I wrote to the Secretary of the Admiralty, acquainting him with the Hecla's arrival in the latitude of 77°. On the fol- lowing day several other whalers were in sight, and Mr. Bennett, the master of the Venerable, of Hull, whom we had before met in Baffin's Bay, in 1818, came on 16 NARRATIVE OF AN ATTEMPT 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 endeavour- ing to push to the northward. They con- sidered 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 whale, which, 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 * 1 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 occa- sion, mentions the circumstance as a generally-received fact. li TO REACH THE NORTH POLE. 17 pushing about fifty miles farther to the north- ward, 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 bearing N.E.b.E., distance about nine leagues. We were here stopped by close ice, the weather becoming again very thick with snow, and a fresh gale blowing from the E.S.E. The whalers, 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 one we had seen. The dovekies (Colymbus Grylle) and eider-ducks, were very nu- merous. In the afternoon there was a 18 NARRATfvE OF AN ATTEMPT 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 be- tween us and Prince Charles's Foreland, not less than six or seven leagues in breadth, being quite clear, except of " young ice ;" and this, though 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 without impediment, the same, or even a greater, breadth of open water continuing along the land. At five A.M. on the 14th, we passed Magdalena Bay, and by ten o'clock had arrived off Hakluyt's Headland, round which we hauled to the south-eastward, to look for anchorage in Smerenburg Harbour. In this, however, we were disappointed, 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 ^l TO REACH THE NORTH POLE. 19 1 % r i 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 mo- ment to snap them in two, and drive us from our anchorage. We held on for se- veral hours, till, at nine 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 c 2 20 NARRATIVE OF AN ATTEMPT shift our Stream cable farther in upon the floe, but It broke away so quickly as to bafflle every endeavour, and at 10 the ship went adrift, the wind blowing still harder than before. Having hauled in the haw- sers, 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 from the high land as almost to lay the siiip on her beam-ends ; so that we were obliged to reduce our can- vass to the main-topsail and storm-sails, and let her drive to leeward.* After wearing several times between the island called Vogel Sang and a narrow stream of ice that lay to the westward and kept off a consi- derable sea w hich was rolling on the outside of it, we had driven as far as the northern extreme of the island; and at one A.M. the main body of packed ice was seen only a mile or two under our lee. The situation of the Siiip now appeared a very precarious * It was probably some such gale as tuis which has given to Hakluyt's Headland, in an old Dutch chart, the appellation of ** Duyvel's Hoek," !li TO REACH THE NORTH POLE. 21 one, the wind still blowing with unabated violence, and with every appearance of a continuance of stormy weather. Under these circumstances, it was the general opi- nion of the officers, as well as my own, that it was advisable to take advantage of the comparatively 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 remark- ably well ; a tolerably smooth and open part of the margin being selected, the ship was forced into it at three A.M. ; when, after encountering 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 A.Mc we got into a perfectly smooth and secure situation, half a mile within the mar- gin of a " pack."* * It is remarkable that the position of the Hecla, and the circumstances under -which she was placed on this occasion, were almost the samo as those in which His Majesty's ship the Dorothea received very serious 22 NARRATIVE OF AN ATTEMPT The wind subsided in the course of the day, and clear and cloudless weather suc- ceeded. We 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 we then drove rapidly with it to the eastward, past Cloven Cliff, and along the northern coast of Spitzbergen. 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 temperature of the air rose to 41° in the shade and to 48° in the sun, wh^ch was the more remarkable from the low temperature which followed this for several days afterwards. On the 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 together by the damage in the expedition of 1818 j and but for the smooth place which we fortunately found, we should probably have incurred similar injury. TO REACH THE NORTH POLE. 23 frost. The ship still drove with the ice to the eastward, and inshore withal, and we were now off the rr Tnarkable part of the land called Red Beach, which was 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 our- selves highly fortunate in having thus early, and with no great difficulty, succeeded in reaching the highest latitude to which it was our object to take the ship. But, frpm 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 meantime, everybody was busily employed in completing the arrange- ments for our departure, so that, if an opportunity did offer of securing the ship, 24i JJARRATIVE OF AN ATTEMPT I 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 comfortable whenever there is any sea. On the 1 8th, 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, being desirous to know what this remarkable looking place was composed of. Lieutenant Ross was not, however, enabled to land, there being a considerable lane 0/ 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 ter/^perature of the atmosphere being from 18° to 28°, These substances had, in a couple of hours, sunk half an inch into !rO REACH THE NORTH POLI!. 25 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 inconvenience. For this purpose we cut a block of ice from a large hummock, about ten feet high above the sea, and hav- ing 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 consi- dered 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 W.N. W., which is here rather upon the land, and the ice settled together and inshore, occasioning the ship such vio- 26 NARRATIVE OF AN ATTEMPT lent pressure as few others could have with- stood, 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 anywhere 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 up, 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 Ross, with a party of officers and men, succeeded in landhig without difficulty. They found a small floe of level ice close to the beach, which appeared very lately formed. Walk- ing 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, a t t ^fl TO REACH THE NORTH POLE. 27 and in some parts a quantity of thin slates of it lay closely disposed together in a ver- tical 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 quantity of fir drift wood lay upon the beach. In the evening of the 22d a light air at length sprung up from the eastward, and on the following morning had 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 confine- ment. To help the ice a little in opening we set all the sails, which certainly pro- duced 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 i 1 ^8 NARRATIVE OF AN ATTEMPT clearly saw that there was for the present no reasonable prospect of our getting to- wards any harbour, and I could not but feel confident that, even if we did get to the entrance of any, some time must be occu- pied 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 th 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 not foresee, nor pro- vide 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 best contribute to the success of our enter- prise in its principal object. The nature of the ice was, beyond all comparison, the TO REACH THE NORTH POLE. 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 surrounded by the smaller ones, thrown up by the recent pressure into ten thousand various shapes, and presenting high and sharp angular masses at every other step. The men compared it to a stone-mason's yard, which, except that the stor *3s were of ten times the usual dimensioiis, it indeed very much resembled, i I e only induce- ment to set out over such a road was the certainty that floes and fields lay beyond it, and the hope that they were noty<7r 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 be^^j? 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. 30 NARRATIVE OF AN ATTEMPT I meridian appeared to me to be, that, the land of Spitzbergen lying immediately over against the ice, the latter could never drift so much or so fast to the southward, as it might further to the westward. Upon these grounds it was that I was anxious to make an attempt, at least, as soon as our arrangements could be com- pleted; and the officers being of the same opinion with myself, we hoisted out the boats early in the morning of the 27th, and having put the things into one of them, en- deavoured, 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 addi- tional 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 striking against the an- gular masses. Under these circumstances, it was but too evident to every one that it would have been highly imprudent to per- sist in setting out, since, if the ice after all ■ M lliy wi ; i l gjW i _ I M V ^ _^ TO REACH THE NORTH POLE. 31 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 it in that direction. Lieutenant Ross returned at night, having 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 the 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 Lieute- nant Crozier with a small party to the E. N.E., with the same object; but he had not travelled above four miles, and there- r 1 I i I i ii 32 NARRATIVE OF AN ATTEMPT' fore not beyond the limit of our view from the ship, when the ice beginning to open, I was obhged to recall him. The ice, how- ever, 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 per- haps the tide. Immediately that we had, on the 27th, proved experimentally the extreme diffi- culty of transporting our boats and stores over the ice which now surrounded us, I made up my mind to the very great proba- bility there seemed to be of the necessity of adopting such alterations in our original plans as would accommodate them to these untoward circumstances 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 reason to apprehend from TO REACH THE NORTH POLE. 3S having only a single boat on our outward journey, was some occasional delay in ferry- ing over spaces of water in two trips instead of one ; but we considered that this would be much more than compensated by the in- creased rate at which we should go when- ever 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 to- gether. Upon these we proposed dragging almost 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, placing them under D 34 NARRATIVE OF AN ATTEMPT 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 run- ners, and inci^easing our store of materials for repairing her. The weight reduced by this arrangement would have been above two thousand pounds, without taking awa^ any article conducive to our comfort, excep the boat and her geer. I proposed to th( officers and men, who had been selected t; accompany me, this change in our equip- ment ; and I need scarcely say that they all clearly saw the probable necessity of it, and cheerfully acquiesced in its adoption, if re- quisite. On the 29th I sent Lieutenants Foster and Crozier, with the greater part of the ship*s company, and with a third or spare travelling-boat, to endeavour to lahd her on Red Beach, together with a quantity of stores, including provisions, as a deposit for us on our return from the northward, should TO REACH THE NORTH POLE. 35 K 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, having 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 opportunity of trying what could be done upon a regular and level floe which lay close to the beach, every body was of opi- nion, 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 complet- ing Giir arrangements on the new plan of taking only one boat, stowinr' all our pro- visions on the sledges, and adopting every D 2 3G NARRATIVE OF AN ATTEMPT possible expedient to save weight and la- bour. Ano'^her week was fast passing with- out any improvement in tlie prospect of our getting the ship free, so as edher to ^ irry us farther north, or to put lier into harbour. It may here be remarked, that our only chance of this latter seemed at the tine to depond on our getting to the westward, since there were no known placet? of shelter on die northern side of Spitzbergen ; beside v^ > ueh it would be much more difficult to get hence in the autumn. Now it so hap- pened, 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 de- cided easterly set, which carried the ship a little now and then in that direction. f It will not then be wondered at, if this apparent hopelessness of getting che ship free for the present again suggested tlie necessity of my own setting out : and I had once more, on the Is of June, after an ar/'ious consultatiori vl:. my officers, re- TO REACH THE NORTH POLE. 37 solved on making a second attempt, when the ice near us, which had opened at regu- lar hours with the tide for three or four days past, began to set us much more ra- pidly than usual to the eastward, and to- wards 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 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 my whole attention ; for though the ice oc- casionally opened and shut within twenty or twenty-five yards of us on the inshore side, the ship herself was still very firmly imbed- ded by the turned-up masses which had pressed upon her on the 19th, 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 28 NARRATIVE OF AN ATTEMPT drifting about in the manner above de- scribed. 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 a distance of five or six miles from the land ; but now that she had shoaled the water so considerably, and ap- proached 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 as nothing but experience can possibly give an idea of, especially 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 m TO REA.CH THE NORTH POLE, 39 work, with only the necessary intermissions for rest and meals, during this and the two following days, and on the evening of the 3d had accomplished 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 2d, when a fresh breeze springing up from the S.E. carried us, ivith the ice, aiA by the help of all our sails, about one mile ' 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) v^ e began again to move over the ground in the opposite direction. At midnight, on the 3d, the ice slackened about us very quickly, and tht ' "p was immedi- ately found to be setting more rapidly than ever to the eastward. In three-quarters of an hour the water shoaled from fifty- two to 40 NARRATIVE OF AN ATTEMPT twenty-five fathoms, and in ten minntes after we had nine and three-quarters, the shij) c]u\g at the rate of two miles an hoLii past a low point which runs off from luider the high land of Grey Flook. 'I'here being now a little open water at the margin of the flor iii vvnicn wo had been imbedded, we succeeded in freeing the ship, and then laid out hawsers in each direction, in readi- ness for moving her, should she drive into still shoaler w^ater. 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 thix . y- seven, and then to sixty-seven fathoms. Painful as was this protracted delay in setting out upon the principal object of the expedition, tho absolute necessity of it will scar eel} , I thi k, be doubted by any person conversant in such matters. So long as the ship continued undisturbed by the ice, nearly stationf^ry, and in deep water, for several da^ toc:ether, I had, in my anxiety to lose no*: a moment's time, ventured to flatter myself with the hope that, in a case 1 ^ REACH THE NORTH POLE. 41 of such unlooked-for emergency, when every moment of our short and uncertain season was of importance, 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 mate- rially altered ; for it had become plain to everv 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 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 circumstance, that the imprac- ticable 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 occa- sioned me inexpressible regret to be thus detained, I could not entertain a doubt that 4Ji NARRATIVE OF AN AT • KMl'T I was performing an imperative duty in re- maining on board ; for, to have done other- wise, 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 pro- ceed to the northward, in full confidence 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 impossible 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. bearinir, which we considered • • TO REACH THE NORTH POLE. A3 an indication of open water in that directior . To this quarter, therefore, we now moi i 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 east- ward 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 situa- tion of Muscle or Muss^^ll Bay, as laid ^lown in most of the charts, I was very anxious to discover whether we could here u NARRATIVE OF AN ATTEMPT "I 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 Lieu- tenant Foster and some of the other officers, taking with me another small store of pro- visions, 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 leav- ing Mr. Bird to bury the provisions, Lieu- tenant Foster and myself walked without delay to the eastward, and on ascending the point found that there was, as we had sup- posed, an indentation in the coast on the other side. We now began to conceive the most flattering hopes of discovering some- thing like a harbour for the ship, and pushed on with all possible haste to examine the place further ; but, after three hours' walk- ing, were much mortified, on arriving at its head, to find that it was nothing but an open bay, entirely exposed to the inroads of all the northern ice, and therefore quite unfit for the ship. We returned to the boat TO REACH THE NORTH POLE. 45 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 Mussell Bay, lies ten miles to the S.W. of Verlegen 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 he trees, with their roots attached to them, were not less than eighteen inches in diam'" ter ; and the smaller ones were very abu idant, the whole being of the pine tribe. The rocks are composed of mica-slate, wxiich 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 different aspect from that to the v/estward ; the latter being the most rugged and acuminated that I ever saw, and this becoming of a more smooth and 46 NARRATIVE OF AN ATTEMPT rounded outline. We were a good deal surprised, on landing, to find that large streams of water were rushing down the sides of all the hills, and that there were h^ge ponds of it in every direction ; a cir- cumstance the less expected by us, since we had certainly never seen it half so abun- dant in any of our winter stations at this season ; not even at Winter Island, which lies in latitude 66^°, or nearly 11° 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 mid- night ; and the Saxifraga Opposidfolia was quite out in flov/er 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 ^ uiving risen two feet ten inches in about four hours. There was here an ex- tensive floe of land-ice, filling the upper part of the bay, as shown by the broken line 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 require it. This ope- TO REACH THE NORTH POLE. 47 ration I had always anticipated as likely to be requisite, wherever the ship should be placed. The variation of the magnetic needle, as observed upon the ice near this spot, was 18° 10' 30" westerly. From the hills we could plainly distin- guish a considerable space of open water to the eastward of Verlegen Hook, as we had supposed to be the case when on board ; and I could not help feeling great confidence that, could w^e 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 without 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 conceive how painful such a necessity was. I never remember to have experienced in these regions such a continuance of beau- tiful weather as we now had, during more than three weeks that we had been on the northern coast of Spitz bergen. Day after 48 NARRATIVE OF AN ATTEMPT '■p'i day we had a clear and cloudless sky, scarcely any wind, and, with the exception of a few days previously to the 23d of May^ 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 6 th 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 be- tween us and the land, except the floe to which we had been so long attached ; and round this we were 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 TO REACH THE NORTH POLE. 49 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 off it. In the meantime the wind had been driving the ice so fast off the land as to form for us a clear communication v/ith the open water before seen to the eastward ; and thus were we at length liberated from our confinement, after a close and tedious '' besetment" of twenty-four days. This escape appeared to give us all fresh animation, and we now CLcertained 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 neces- sary before I could venture to set out. E 50 NARRATIVE OF AN ATTEMPT With this view we stretched along the low point of Verlegen Hook, round which we found some swell coming in from Waygatz Strait, the wind blowing strong from the southward, with heavy rain during the night. We therefore lay to under this land till the wind had moderated, and the wea- ther 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 Verlegen Hook, we saw a house, which appeared in a ruinous state, and which we supposed to have be- longed to some Russian 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 afford a proof that Ae heavy or field ice seldom, if ever, comes actually home upon these shores ; for otherwise it would leave many traces of that kind. We were pleased to TO REACH THE NORTH POLE. 51 see that, except these grounded masses, there was, along this shore, no other ice attached to the land. At noon, being in latitude 80° 16' 40" % observation, and the high land of Verlegen Hook bearing south (true) distant 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 east- ward, and hauled up for it towards Brandy- wine 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 yel- lowish colour, over the whole of the northern and western horizons. At two P.M., after standing about six miles to the eastward, we struck soundings in seventeen, and im- mediately afterwards in fifteen fathoms. i'is no land could be seen within many leagues of us, we tacked till a boat could be got ahead to sound, and then kept to the E.N.E., having from fourteen to ten fathoms for several miles in that direction. E 2 52 NARRATIVE OF AN ATTEMPT The weather had now become hazy and the wind Hght; but we could perceive, to the south-eastward, a quantity of heavy ice, apparently aground, at four or five miles distance : this we supposed to be lying around the " Low Island" of Phipps, which conjecture subsequently proved correct. The weather becoming more thick, with rain, sleet and snow, we were obliged to put the ship's head to the N.W., and lie to; and in drifting. to the northward soon dropped off into 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 Brandywine Bay, the wind being now from the W. S.W., or nearly dead upon that shore. The weather clear- ing up at 1.15 P.M., we saw the eastern land, and soon after discovered the grounded ice off Low Island ; Walden's Island was also plainly in sight to the N. E. The Bay seemed deeply indented, and very likely to TO REACH THE NORTH POLE. 53 afford nooks such as we wanted ; and where SO large a space of open water, and conse- qiently some sea, had been exerting its influence for a considerable time, we flat- tered 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 surprise and mortification in finding that the whole of the coast, from the islands northwards to Black Point, and apparently also as far as Walden'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 bar- rier beinf^ in some places six or seven miles in width, ynd not less than twelve feet in thicknesis near the margin ! In standing in towards this floe, from the north-westward, we had no bottom with thirty-live fathoms of line; but, after sail- ing out on the opposite tack about a mile, we suddenly struck soundings in ten, and before the ship's head came round, had 54 NARRATIVE OF AN ATTEMPT decreased to seven fathoms. Lowering a boat, I immediately went away to sound, and found that some liLuvy masses of ice near us, and lying close off the margin of the floe, were agroimd in six fathoms, 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 appears to be a bank lyir ; by itself at that distance, and upon which there is, perhaps, less water than I found, as the floe prevented my sounding more to the eastward about the shoalest part. The prospect from our masthead at this lime was certainly enough to cast a damp over every sanguine expectation I had formed, of being soon enabled to place the Hecla 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 difficulties arising from ice and a large extent of shoal and unsurveyed TO REACH THE NORTH POLE. 55 proper party ; course. it be ground, that even with our full complement of officers and men on board, all our strength and exertions miglit scarcely have sufficed, in a single cjale »f wind, to keep the ship tolerably ^ecure, and much less could I have eiisi '\ nl ring her ultimately in any n for picking up an ab^ • i>f ^n^e again beset, she must, o^ 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 im- minent and certain peril, rendering it impos- sible 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 having now freshened up from the S.W.bW., which might be expected to bring the drift ice from the " pack " in upon the land, we stood to the N.W. to gain an offing, and after sailing eighteen miles, came to a quantity of ice which was streaming off from the margin. When we tacked, at # ^. IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) 1.0 I.I 1.25 1^ 1^ 12.5 22 2.0 1.8 14 III L6 '/ Photographic Sciences Corporation 23 WEST MAIN STREET WEBSTER, N.Y. 14580 (716) 872-4503 56 NARRATIVE OF AN ATTEMPT eleven P.M., our estimated latitude, by our run from Low Island, was 80° 3&; 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 ob- struction, to 80|°, 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 purple 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 morn- ing 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 approached it, though, forty-eight hours before, none was to be seen from the ship's deck, in a mT'ch more westerly position than this. When we ..■V J- / -'f«-^:- TO REACH THE NORTH POLE. 57 ^ had proceeded a little farther to the south- ward, we found that the same effect had been produced in a much more surprising degree under all the lands about the en- trance of Waygatz Strait, and towards Ver- legen Hook, where it was now not possible to approach 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 under 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 12th, the wind shifted to the northward; 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 Walden Island, though with^ little hopes of finding a harbour on so small a spot of land. This island was regarded by us at this time with no common interest, since it now appeared probable that it would form 58 NARRATIVE OF AN ATTEMPT one of the stations to which provisions and information would be carried, as an assist- ance 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 north- ward of Low Island ; and on the morning of the 13th stretched in towards Walden Island, around which we found, as we had feared, a considerable quantity of fixed ice. It was certainly much less here than else- where ; but the inner, or eastern side of the island was entirely enveloped b^'^ it. In fact, the very circumstance whi(: jnded to clear the northern and western sides of any land hereabouts, and to retain the ice on the northern and eastern, (namely, the expo- sure of the former, and the sheltered situa- tion of the latter, relatively to the open w^ater,) tended also to delay the accom- plishment of our wishes ; for it was against the sea and the pressure of ice from the S-S-t- ,^__,/ja„_A -k t^ . TO REACH THE NORTH POLE. 59 J south and west alone that is was very im- portant at present to secure the ship, and from any such shelter we were still un- avoidably shut out. Having from twenty-six to twenty-four fathoms at the distance of four miles from Walden 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 find- ing something like shelter there ; but I was prevented by a thick fog coming on. In- deed, 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. Continu- ing, 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 wea- ther 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 Phipps's bore E.N.E. (true) distant about nine or ten .^ik^js^>^'*^Misii!B^^j&ii^^iMi-i<. i\^iketJitj^£&LtviL^'Jiti!j:Ji'j:.-iciSJii'tii£-:i.---. .'J&ll„.^jji«.ifj.,i"i f: MS ^^'!t4iie£^-ii_"iJi ■niyiiTiT- TO REACH THE NORTH POLE. 61 ■^ latitude of 81° 5' 32" . Our longitude by chronometers at this time was 19° 34' E., Little Table Island bearing S. 26° E. (true), distant six or seven leagues, and Walden Island S. 4° E.* The depth 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 northward was loose drift-ice. To the north-east it was particularly 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 * I have been thus particular in noticing the Hecla's position, because our observations would ap- pear to be, with one exception, the most northern on record at that time. The Commissioners of Longi- tude, in their memqrial to the King in Council, in the year 1821, consider that the " progress of discovery has not arrived northwards, according to any well- authenticated accounts, so far as eighty-one degrees of north latitude." Mr. Scoresby states his having observed in lat. 81° 12' 42". 62 NARRATIVE OP AN ATTEMPT northward. We were, however, much dis- appointed in seeing no indication of the main ice from this station, unless, indeed, the yellow blink which overspread the nor- thern 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 ap- peared flat and unbroken,'' as seen from a considerable height on shore, all that we could discover was quite of a contrary de- scription. 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 become ** packed." We now stood back again to the south- ward, in order again to examine the coast S-JUV .jiUiai.iilA:TL^pJMtt^*!L.i/ -^•^^'■^- ■'>•' TO REACH THE NORTH POLE. 63 wherever we could approach it ; but found, on the 1 5th, that none of the land was at all accessible, the wind having got round to the W.N.W., and loaded all the shores with drift-ice. Our attention was, indeed, pretty well occupied in keeping the ship at liberty ; which, however, she probably would 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 away once more to the westward in a few hours, leaving us a clear space of water mshore. I now determined to examine, if possible, every part of the co tst, while this easterly wind kept it clear of diift-ice ; and wherever the shore could be approached, either 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. • 64 NARRATIVE OF AN ATTEMPT m Walden Island being the .first part clear of the loose ice, we stretched in for it on the ICth, and, when within two miles, observed that about half that space was occupied by land ice, even on its north-western side, which was the only accessible one, the rest being wholly enclosed by it. However, being desirous of obtaining a better view than our crow's-nest commanded, and also of depositing here a small supply of provi- sions, I left the ship at one P.M., accom- panied by Lieutenant Forster in a second boat, and landing upon the ice, walked over about three-quarters of a mile of high and rugged hummocks to the shore. Ascend- ing 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-floe attached to all the shores, extending from the island where we stood, and which formed an abutment for it each way along the land as far as the eye could reach. After this discouraging prospect, which wholly de- TO REACH THE NORTH POLE. C5 stroyed every hope of finding a harbour among the Seven Islands, we returned to the place where the men had deposited the provisions, and afler making the necessary observations for the survey, returned imme- diately on board. This island, which in some parts is about five hundred feet above the sea, and preci- pitous towards the middle, consists of coarse- grained granite, most of which is black and white : in the rest the feldspar 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 roche {gy^ rophora proboscidea), the rein-deer moss (cenomyce rangiferina), and the black woolly-looking cornicularia divergens, were most abundant. A few eider ducks and dovekies were the only animals seen ; but there were traces of rein-deer having been upon the island. The latitude of the north- F ee NARRATIVE OF AN ATTEMPT west end is 80^ 35' 38" ; the longitude, by chronometer, 19° 51' 16" E. ; and the vari- ation of the magnetic needle 17° 42' wes- terly ; the latter phenomenon still exhibit- ing 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 off 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 getting near it till the morn- ing of the 17th, when, having approached it within a mile and a half, I sent Lieutenant Ross on shore to a little islet, which was quite clear of ice, and where he deposited another small store of provisions, but found nothing like shelter for the ship. The islet consists of gneiss, having garnets imbedded in some specimens ; Mr. Beverly could not % TO REACH THE NORTH POLE. 67 discover in what direction it dipped. This small rock, with specimens of which (as being the northernmost 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 of perhaps one- third of a square mile. Lieutenant Ross described the rocks as covered with abund- ance of very large tripe de roche^ some rein- deer moss, and other lichens; and there was abundance of good water in pools. A few brent-geese, eider-ducks, and a Lestris Parasiticus i were all the animals seen. We place this island, by a meridian altitude ob- served onboard this day, in latitude 80° 48'; but the observation was an indifferent one, and with the sea horizon, which is never to be trusted. We had no bottom with thirty- five fathoms, at one mile distant, on the north and west sides, and Lieutenant Ross found twelve fathoms alongside the rocks. This was the only island round which a ship might, at this time, have sailed ; all the F 2 68 NARRATIVE OF AN ATTEMPT 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 Waygatz Strait. We, 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 appre- hensions, as related to the accomplishment of our principal object. The 1 7th of June had now arrived, and all that we saw afforded us the most discouraging prospect as to our getting the Hecla into harbour ; while every day's experience showed how utterly rash a measure it would be to think of quitting her in her present situation, which, even with all her officers and men, was one of extreme precariousness and un- certainty. Although I was in the habit of daily and almost hourly communication with TO REACH THE NORTH POLE. 69 my officers, yet I thought it my duty once more to require from them officially their opinions upon this subject, which I found to agree entirely with my own. Indeed, there could not, under present circumstances^ be two opinions upon the subject. Standing to the S.W. after passing Walden Island, we came, as usual, pretty suddenly into sixteen fathoms, when at the distance of six or sevcm miles from the north side of Low Island. In running for the grounded hummocks off the 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, we 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 upon the ground, and therefore hauled to the south- ward, towards Verlegen Hook, to prosecute our search for a harbour once more in that 70 NARRATIVE OF AN ATTEMPT quarter. On the evening of the 1 8th, while standing in for the high land to the east- ward of Verlegen Hook, which, with due attention to the lead, may be approached with safety, we perceived from the crow*s- nest what appeared a low point, possibly affording some shelter for the ship, and which seemed to answer to an indentation of the coast laid down in an old Dutch chart J* and there called Treurenhurg Bay, On the following morning I proceeded to examine the place, accompanied by Lieutenant Ross in a second boat, and, to our great joy, found it a considerable bay, with 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 determined on the anchorage, we returned to the ship to bring her in; and I cannot describe the satisfaction which * Nieuwe afteekening van Het Eyland Spits- Bergen, opgegeven door de Commandeurs Giles en Outger Rep, en in't Light gebragt en uytgegeven door Gerard Van Keulen, &c. &c. TO REACH THE NORTH POLE. 71 the information of our success communi- cated 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 unavoidably lost. The ship was towed and warped in with the greatest alacrity, and at 1.40 A.M. on June 20th, we dropped the anchor in Hecla Cove, in thirteen fathoms, on a bot- tom 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 better situa- tion, a bower-cable taken on shore and secured to the rocks, and an anchor with the chain-cable laid out the other way. On the morning of the 21st, we hauled the launch up on the beach, it being my inten- tion to direct such resources of every kind to be landed, as would render our party wholly independent of the ship, either for returning to England or for wintering, in P^'VilP' wmmim^V' M-^ 72 NARRATIVE OF AN ATTEMPT case of the ship being driven to sea by the ice ; a contingency against which, in these regions, no precaution can altogether pro- vide. I directed Lieutenant Foster, upon whom the charge of the Hecla was now to devolve, to land without delay the neces- sary stores, keeping the ship sea-worthy by taking in an equal weight of ballast ; and, as soon as he should be satisfied of her security from ice, to proceed 6n the survey of the eastern coast; but should he see reason to doubt her safety, with a still fur- ther diminution of her crew, to relinquish the survey, and attend exclusively to the ship. I also gave directions that notices should be sent, in the course of the summer, to the various stations where our dep6ts of provisions were established, acquainting me 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 P.M., with our two boats, which we named the Enterprise and En- "'W; by the i these T pro- , upon LS now neces- thy by ; and, of her survey be see ill fur- nquish to the lotices mmer, i6ts of ng me p, and which )n our e and I left boats, 1 En- i*v' -if- •■ , ^- ^i r* ^ .:. 1 ■ '-^ ■ ■'^-^■ *»■ #^ .#»;. -i, ^1 -* V-iff^-" /I ■ # -%5''^* !-^*S faiS^ ^f^' . V *H.i#it» <»1 ^'S .>* w- ■^: TO REACH THE NORTH POLE. ■JO €4 ■ «Ji 73 deavour, Mr. Beverly being attached to my own, and Lieutenant Ross, accompanied by Mr. Bird, in the other. Besides these, I took Lieutenant Crozier in one of the ship's cutters, for the purpose of carrying some of our weight as far as Walden Island, , and also a third store of provisions to be- deposi^d on Low Island, as an intermediate I station between Walden Island and the ship. As it was still necessary not to delay our return beyond the end of August, the time originally intended, I took with me only seventy-one days' provisions; which, in- cluding the boats and every other article, made up a weight of 268 lbs. per man ; and as it appeared highly improbable, f^om what we had seen of the very rugged nature of the ice we should first have to encounter, that either the rein-deer, the snow-shoes, or the wheels, would prove of any service for some time to come, I gave up the idea of taking them. We, however, constructed out of the snow-sho^s four excellent sledges, for dragging a part of our baggage over the ice ; and these proved of invaluable service r K 74 NARRATIVE OF AN ATTEMPT to US, while the rest of the things just mentioned would only have been an incum- brance. ' ^ - Having received the usual salutation of three cheers from those we left behind, we paddled through a quantity of loose ice at the entrance of the bay, and then steered, in a perfectly open sea, and with calm and beautiful weather, for the western part of Low Island, which we reached at half-past two on the morning of the 22d. The low beach on which we landed was principally composed of rounded fragments of lime- stone, 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 quantities, the whole being of the pine tribe, as usual, and a Greenland whaler's harpoon was found lying among 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 quite calm ; but there being much ice about the island, and a thick fog coming on, we TO REACH THE NORTH POLE. 75 were several hours groping our way clear of it. The walruses were here very nu- merous, lying in herds upon the ice, and plunging into the water to follow us as we passed. The sound they utter is something between bellowing and very loud snorting, which, together with their grim bearded countenances and long tusks, makes them appear, as indeed they are, rather formidable enemies to contend with. Under our pre- sent circumstances, we were very well satis- fied not to molest them, for 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 Walden Island, at 3. 30 A.M. on the 23d. Our flat-bottomed boats rowed heavily with their loads, but proved perfectly safe and very comfortable. The men being much fatigued, we rested here some hours, and, after making our final arrangements with Lieutenant Crozier, parted with him at three in the afternoon, and set off for Little Table Island. Find- ing there was likely to be so much open ,Tv 76 NARRATIVE OF AN ATTEMPT f water in this neighbourhood in the autumn, I sent directions to Lieutenant Forster to have a spare boat deposited at Walden Is- land, in time for our return, in case of any accident happening to ours. The land-ice, which still adhered to the Seven Islands, was veiy little more broken off than when the Hecla had been here a week before, and we rowed along its margin a part of the way to Little Table Island, where we arrived at ten P.M. We here examined and re-secured the provisions left on shore, having found our dep6t at Walden Island disturbed by the bears. The pro- spect to the northward at this time was very favourable, there being only a small quan- tity of loose ice in sight ; and the weather still continuing calm and clear, with the sea as smooth as a mirror, we set off, with- out delay, at half-past ten, taking our final leave of the Spitzbergen shores, as we hoped, for at least two months. Steering due north, we made good progress, our latitude by the sun's meridian altitude at midnight being 80° 51' 13". A beautifully coloured •:r TO REACH THE NORTH POLE. n rainbow appeared for some time, without any appearance of rain falling. We ob- served that a considerable current was set- ting us to the eastward just after leaving the land, so that we had made a N.N.E. course, distance about ten miles, when we met with some ice, which soon becoming too close for further progress, we landed upon a high hummock to obtain a better view. We here perceived that the ice was close to the northward, but to the westward discovered some open water, which we reached after two or three hours paddling, and found it a wide expanse, in which we sailed to the tiorthward without obstruction, a fresh breeze having sprung up from the S.W. The weather soon after became very thick, with continued snow, requiring great care in looking 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° 12' 51". Our plan of travelling being nearly the ^ .JLi^i^leliiki'i\Js^i<£ 'ULK^'ii'iiC^jU. .. > 78 NARRATIVE OF AN ATTEMPT ^nrne throughout this excursion, after we fiib. ntored upon the ice, I may at once give some account of our usual mode of proceed!] ig. It was my intention to travel wholly at night, 'nd to rest by day, there being of course constant daylight in these regions during the summer season. The advantages of this plan, which was occa- sionally deranged by circumstances, con- sisted 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 inflam- mation in the eyes, called " snow-blindness," which is common in all snowy countries. We also thus enjoyed greater warmth during the hours of rest, and had a better chance of drying our clothes ; besides which, no small advantage was derived from the snow being harder at night for travelling. The only disadvantage of this plan was, that the fogs were somewh?*.t more frf^ ^j^f and more thick by night than by d^j , tnough even in this respect there was less differ- erce than might have been supposed, the TO REACH THE NORTH POLE. 79 e Be temperature during the twenty-four hours undergoing but little variation. This tra- velling by night and sleeping by day so completely inverted the natural order of things, that it was difficult to persuade our- selves of the reality. Even the officers and myself, who were all furnished with pocket chronometers, could not always bear in mind at what part of the twenty-four hours we had arrived ; and there were s( - veral of the men who declared, and I believe truly, that they never knew n ght from day during the whole excursion.* When we rose in the evening, we com- $ * Had we succeeded in reaching tb e higher lati- tudes, where the change of the sun's altitude during the twenty-four hours is still less perceptible, it would have been essentially necessary to possess the certain means of knowing this j since an error of twelve hours of time would have carried us, when we intended to return, on a meridian opposite to, or 18'^° from, the right one. To obviate the possibility of t lis, we had some chronometers constructed by Messrs. Parkinson and Frodsham, of which the hour-hand made only one revolution in the day, the twenty-four hours being marked round the dial-plate. 30 NARRATIVE OF AN ATTEMPT menced our day by prayers, after which we took oft' 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. We made a point of always putting on the same stockings and boots for travelling in, whether they dried during the day or not ; and I believe it was only in five or six in- stances, at the most, that they were not either still wet or hard-frozen. This, in- deed, was of no consequence, beyond the discomforture of first putting them on in this state, as they were sure to be thoroughly wet in a quarter of an hour after commenc- ing our journey; while, on the other hand, it was of vital importance to keep dry things for sleeping in. Being " rigged" for travel- ling, we breakfasted upon warm cocoa and biscuit, and after stowing the things in the boats and on the sledges, so as to secure them, as much as possible, from wet, we set off* on our day's journey, and usually travelled from five to five and a half hours, then stopped an hour to dine, and again TO REACH THE NORTH POLE. 81 travelled four, five, hours, Y even si cording to circumstances. Alter this we halted for the night, as we called it, though it was usually early in the morning, select- ing 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 masts and three paddles, 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 we set about the necessary repairs of boats, sledges, or clothes ; and, after serving the provisions for the succeeding day, we went to supper. Most of the officers and men then smoked their pipes, which served to dry the boats and awnings very much, and usually raised the temperature of our lodgings 10° or 15°. This part of the twenty-four hours was often iuiM£:d^u^^A^^^M n'vf . , . 8^ NARRATIVE OF AN ATTEMPT a time, and the only one, of real enjoyment to us ; the men told their stories and " fought all their battles o'er again," and the labours of the day, unsuccessful as they too often were, were forgotten. A regular watch was set during our resting-time, to look out for bears or for the ice breaking vip round us, as well as to attend to the drying of the clothes, each man alternately taking this duty for one hour. We then concluded our day with prayers, and having put on our fur-dresses, lay down to sleep with a degree of comfort, which perhaps few persons would imagine possible under such circumstances ; our chief inconvenience being, that we were somewhat pinched for room, and therefore obliged to stow rather closer than was quite agreeable. The tem- perature, while we slept, was usually from 36° to 45°, according to the state of the ex- ternal atmosphere ; but on one or two oc- casions, in calm and warm weather, it rose as high as 60° to QQ^, obliging us to throw off a part of our fur-dress. After we had slept seven hours, the man appointed to -■i'ir: ■ Yl^=*■. . ^ . , r--".—^!, . TO REACH THE NORTH POLE. 83 boil the cocoa roused us, when it was ready, by the sound of a bugle, when we com- menced our day in the manner before de- scribed. ' ' Our allowance of provisions for each man per day was as follows : — Biscuit 10 ounces. Pemmican 9 Sweetened Cocoa Powder 1 ounce, to make one pint. Hum 1 gill. Tobacco 3 ounces per week. Our fuel consisted entirely of spirits of wine, of which two pints formed our daily allowance, the cocoa being cooked in an iron boiler over a shallow iron lamp, with seven wicks ; a simple apparatus, which answered our purpose remarkably well. We usually 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 32°. 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 — n Kx At Sh NARRATIVE OF AN ATTEMPT wicks began to go out before it had reached 200°. This, however, made a very com- fortable 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 bear- ing S.S.W., and a fresh breeze blowing from W.S.W., with thick fog, which after- wards changed to rain. The bags of pem- mican were placed upon the sledges, and the bread in the boats, with the intention of securing the latter from wet ; but this plan we were very soon obliged to relinquish. We now commenced upon very 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 \Vater. This, however, was nothing more than we had expected to encounter at the margin of the ice, and for some distance within it; and everv individual exerted i I •>ir '^' •>*^-- ' '■'■?■ ^■'^Vf?^ t^l^^wiw'ttt tt' ■( ■ to REACH THE NORTH POLE. 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 distances,) 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. It came on to rain very hard on the morning of the 26th ; and finding we were making very little pro- gress, (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 t&ife£i^<-^:i;-^^-,.i..W:,^^-ii. ;. se NARRATIVE OF AN ATTEMPT o'clock, we again moved forward, and tra- velled till a quarter past eleven, 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, -If- =^— ^:_j^7r^^-^-- TO REACH THE NORTH POLE. 87 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 advanced, the needles became more loose and mov- able, rendering 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 peculiarity might be produced by the heavy drops of rain piercing their way downwards through the ice, and thus separating the latter into needles of the form above described, rather than to any regular crystallization when in the act of freezing ; which supposition seemed the more reason- able, as the needles are always placed in a vertical position, and never occur except from the upper surface downwards. We pursued our journey at half past nine P.M., with the wind at N.E., and thick weather, the ice being so much in motion as to make it very dangerous to cross with loaded boats, the masses being all very 88 NARRATIVE OF AN ATTEMPT small. Indeed, when we came to the mar- gin of the floe-piece on which we had slept, we saw no road by which we could safely proceed, and therefore preferred remaining where we were, to the risk of driving back to the southward on one of the smaller masses. On this ajccount we halted at mid- night, having waded three-quarters of a mile through water from two to five inches deep upon the ice. The thermometer was at 33°. In the course of this short journey we saw several rotges and dovekies, and a few kittiwakes, ivory gulls, and malle- muckes. =: ■. ■■ • /■^-rdi;^ >..^ .■,-.,.:,-::, ^ • The weather continued so thick that we could only see a few yards around us ; but the wind backing to the southward, and beginning to open out the loose ice at the edge of the floe, we proceeded at half past ten P.M., and after crossing several small pieces, came to the first tolerably heavy ice we had yet seen, but all broken up into masses of small extent. At seven A.M. on the 28th, we came to a floe covered with high and rugged hummocks, which opposed a formidable obstacle to our progress, oc- TO REACH THE NORTH POLE. 89 curring in two or three succes * ^e tiers, so that we had no sooner crossed one than an- other presented itself. Over one of these we hauled the boats with extreme difficulty by a " standing pull," and the weather being then so thick that we could see no pass across the next tier, w^e were obliged to stop at nine A.M. While performing this laborious work, which required the boats to be got up and down places almost perpen- dicular, James Parker, my coxswain, re- ceived a severe contusion in his back by the boat falling upon him from a hummock, and the boats were constantly subject to very heavy blows, but sustained no damage.* r, r , ■■ -; ..,■ .•■ ■' . : ._,..... ■ ^_,,..,.. -^ * I may here mention that, notwithstanding the heavy blows which the boats were constantly receiving, all our nautical and astronomical instruments were taken back to the ship without injury. This circum- stance makes it, perhaps, worth while to explain, that they were lashed upon a wooden platform in the after locker of each boat, sufficiently small to be clear of the boat's sides, and playing on strong springs of whalebone, which entirely obviated the effects of the severe concussions to which they would otherwise have been subject. • ^ ;-i=J.(?totW^^.r.iL*,-i';-,,'.. 90 NARRATIVE OF AN ATTEMPT r If The weather continued very foggy during the day, but a small lane of water opening out at no great distance from the margin of the floe, we launched the boats at eight in the evening among loose drift-ice, and after some time landed on a small floe to the east- ward, the only one in sight, with the hope of its leading to the northward. It proved so rugged that we were obliged to make three, and sometimes four journeya with the boats and provisions, and this by a very circuitous route ; so that the road, by which we made a mile of northiug, was full a mile and a half in length, and over this we had to travel at least five, and sv>metimes seven times. Thus, when we halted to dine at two A.M., after six hoars' 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 TO REACH THE NORTH POLE. il sledge running against him, which laid him up for a day or two. We were here in latitude, by account, 81° 23', and in longi- tude, 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 sun- shine 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 possibility, for the present, of getting across or through it. Soon after- wards 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 weather was beautifully clear, and the wind moderate from the S.W. From this situation we saw the easternmost of the Seven Islands, bear- .■i'.:jt.i.':j(-^—.'. .i*. :,k-: 92 NARRATIVE OF AN ATTEMPt 'f ing S. b. W. ; but Little Table Island, though more to the northward, yet being less high, was not in sight. Observing a small open- ing 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 meri- dian altitude at midnight, was 81*^ 23'; so that we had made only eight miles of northing since our last observation at noon on the 25th. The 30th commenced with snowy and inclement weather, 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. We also dragged them through a great many pools of fresh water, to avoid the necessity of going round them. The wind freshening TO REACH THE NORTH POLE. 93 J'J id up from the S.S.W., we afterwards found the ice gradually more and more open, so that, in the course of the day, we 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 could gain, the ice having so much motion that we narrowly escaped being " nipped." We had passed, during this day's journey, a great deal of light ice, and, for the first time, one heavy floe, from two to three miles in length, under the lee of which we found the most open 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 at 1 1.30 A.M. on the 1st of July, 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 pieces 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' 'iJliu: 'm' ■ 'HI :''i- . Kf^ti 94 NARRATIVE OF AN ATTEMPT 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 be- twixt 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 obliging us to make at least two, and sometimes three, journeys 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 boats sinking so much deeper 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 a-head, while the boats were unloading and hauling up, in order to select the easiest .M: TO REACH THE NORTH POLE. 95 road for them. The sledges then followed in our track, Messrs. Beverly and Bird ac- companying them ; by which the snow was much trodden down, and the road thus im- proved for the boats. As soon as we ar- rived at the other end of the floe, or came to any difficult place, 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 no- thing 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 disinal fogs which so gene- rally 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, became objects which our situation and circumstances magnified into ridiculous importance ; ar d we have since often smiled to remember the eager interest with which 96 NARRATIVE OF AN ATTEMPT we regarded many insignificant occurrences. It may well be imagined, then, how cheer- ing it was to turn from this scene of ina- nimate desolation, to our two little boats in the distance, to see the moving figures of our men winding with their sledges among the hummocks, and to hear once more the sound of human voices breaking the still- ness of this icy wilderness. In some cases Lieutenant Ross and myself took separate routes to try the ground, which kept us al- most 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 pro- ceeded for nine miles out of every ten tliat we travelled over ice ; for it was very rarely indeed that we met with a surface suffici- ently 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 journeys with the boats and baggage ; TO REACH THE NOKTH POLE. 97 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 made good, by our account, seven and ^ half in a N.b.W. direction. We again set forward at ten A.M. on the 2d, the weather being calm, and the sun oppres- sively 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 the men wash themselves, and mend and dry their clothes, and then set out again at half- past three. The snow was, however, so soft as to take us up to our knees at almost every other step, and frequently still deeper ; so that we were sometimes five minutes together in moving a single empty boat, with all our united strength* It being im- possible to proceed under these circum- H 98 NARRATIVE OF AN ATTEMPT Stances, 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 wea- ther being now very clear and warm, and many of the people's eyes beginning to fail. We did not set out again till after midnight, with the intention of giving the snow time to harden after so warm a day; but we found it still so soft as to make the travel- ling 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 sufficiently separated to give us all the labour of launching and hauling up the boats, without the advantage 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 direc- tion ; but it would be difficult to convey an adequate idea of the labour required to traverse it. The average depth of snow TO REACH THE NORTH POLE, 99 upon the level parts was about five inches, under which lay water four or five inches deep; but the moment we approached a hummock, the depth to which we sank in- creased to three 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 preferred 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 hun- dred yards. We 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" IT 100 NARRATIVE OF AN ATTEMPT 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. We 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 v eek ; and this was a luxury which persons thus situ- ated could perhaps alone duly appreciate. We had seen, in the course of the day, a few rotges, a dovekie, a loom, a malle- mucke, and two or three very small seals. We rose and breakfasted at nine P.M; but the weather had gradually become so inclement and thick, with snow, sleet, and a fresh breeze from the eastward, that we could neither have seen our way, nor have avoided getting wet through, had we moved. We, therefore, remained under cover ; and it was as well that we did so, for the snow 30on after changed to heavy rain, and the TO REACH THE NORTH POLE. lot wind increased to a fresh gale, which un- avoidably detained us till 7.30 P.M. on the 4th, when we found, on setting out, that there was nothing but loose drift-ice for us to haul over ; nor from the highest hum- mock could we discover a single floe, much less a field, towards which to direct our course. On two or three small floe-pieces which we did cross, none of which were a quarter of a mile in extent, we found the hummocks occurring, ridge after ridge, with only fifty or sixty yards of level ice between them. The rain had produced even a greater effect than the sun, in softening the snow. Lieutenant Ross and myself, in per- forming our pioneering duty, were frequently so beset in it, that sometimes, after trying in vain to extricate our legs, we were ob- liged to sit quietly down for a short time to rest ourselves, and then make another at- tempt; and the men, in dragging the sledges, were often under the necessity of crawling upon all-fours, to make any pro- gress at all. Nor would any kind of snow- shoes have been of the least service, but 102 NARRATIVE OF AN ATTEMPT rather an incumbrance to us, for the surface was so irregular, that they would have thrown us down at every other step. We had hitherto made use of the Lapland shoes, or kamoogas, for walking in, which are ex- cellent for dry snow ; but there being now so much water upon the ice, we substituted the Esquimaux boots, which had been made in Greenland expressly for our use,* and which are far superior to any others for this kind of travelling. Just before halting, at six A.M. on the 5th, the ice at the margin of the floe broke, while the men were hand- ing the provisions out of the boats ; and we narrowly escaped the loss of a bag of cocoa, which fell overboard, but fortunately rested on a " tongue." The bag being made of Mackintosh's waterproof canvass, the cocoa did not suffer the slighest injury.^ We had • - ' ■'■",:. » . • • For these we are greatly indebted to the kindness of Lieutenant Holboll, of the Danish Navy, through whose means we obtained them from Greenland. f Of this invaluable manufacture, which consists, I believe, in applying a solution of elastic gum, or caoutchouc, between two parts of canvass, it is im- * ^ TO REACH THE NORTH POLE. 103 seen, in the course of our last journey, a few rotges^ a loom, an ivory-gull, a malle- mucke, and a tern (Sterna Arctica), We here observed the dip of the magnetic needle to be 82° 4'. 7, and the variation 13° 16' westerly; the latitude being 81° 45' 15", and the longitude, by chronometers, 24° 23' E., by which we found that we had been drifted considerably to the eastward. In this situation we tried for soundings with four hundred fathoms of line, without reach- ing the bottom; the temperature at that depth, by Six's thermometer, was 30°, that at the surface, at the time, being 32|°, and oftheair34°. We rose at five P.M., the weather being clear and fine, with a moderate breeze from the south ; no land was in sight from the highest hummocks, nor could we perceive any thing but broken loose ice in any direc- tion. We hauled across several pieces possible to speak too highly. I know of no material which, with an equal weight, is equally durable and water-tight. In the latter quality, indeed, it is alto- gether perfect, so long as the material lasts. ■# 104 NARRATIVE OF AN ATTEMPT whi'^h were scarcely fit to bear the weight of the boats, and in such cases used the pre- caution of dividing our baggage, so that, in case of the ice breaking or turning over, we should not lose all at once. The farther we proceeded, the more the ice was broken; indeed, it was much more so here than we had found it since first entering the " pack.*' The labour required to drag the boats over the hummocks, and from one mass to ano- ther, w^as so great that we were obliged to have recourse to what seamen call a " bow- line-haul" for many minutes together ; whicii so exhausted the men, that it was necessary for them every now and then to sit down and take breath. After stopping at midnight to dine, and to obtain the meridian altitude, we passed over a floe full of hummocks, a mile and a half in length ; but any kind of floe was relief to us after the constant difficulty we had experienced in passing over loose ice. Many of the hummocks were smooth regular cones, much resembling in shape the aroma- tic pastiles sold by chemists : this round- ness and regularity of form indicate age^ to HEACtt THE NORTH POLE. 105 all the more recent ones being sharp and angular. We had now for several days ceased to observe any ice covered with nriud or soil, called by the sailors ** dirty ice,'* which was frequently met with during the first week after our leaving the open water. We often, however, noticed parts of the ice, which, at a distance, appeared of an iron-rust colour ; but on coming near it, and taking up some in the hand, we could detect no- thing with a magnifying glass. After several hours of very beautiful weather, a thick fog came on early on the morning of the 6th July, and at five A.M. we halted, having got to the end of the floe, and only made good two miles and a half to the northward. The men were greatly fatigued by this day's exertions, and we served an extra ounce of bread and one of pemmican for their supper; an addition to the original allov^ance which we were fre- quently obliged to make, after this time, to prevent our going to bed hungry. The fog Continued very thick all day ; but being un- willing to stop on this account, we set out 106 NARRATIVE OF AN ATTEMPT again at half-past six in the evening, and passed over several small flat pieces with no great difficulty, but with much loss of time in launching and hauling up the boats. The fog still continued very thick, and the ice of the same broken kind as before ; till, towards the end of our day's journey, we landed on the only really level floe we had yet met with. It was, however, only three quarters of a mile in length, but being almost clear of snow, afforded such good travelling, that, although much fatigued at the time, we hauled the boats, and all the baggage, across it at one journey, at the rate of about two miles an hour, and halted at the northern margin at five A.M., on the 7th. The prospect beyond was still very unfavourable, and at eight in the evening, when we again launched the boats, there was not a piece of large or level ice to be seen in a northern direction. After an hour, we arrived at a very difficult pass, which required all our strength, as well as care, to accomplish. We had first to launch the boats into the water over a high and rugged I TO REACH THE NORTH POLE. 107 margin, and then to haul them across a number of irregular and ill-connected masses, sometimes making bridges of them for the conveyance of ourselves and our provisions, and once having to cut a passage through a ridge of hummocks which lay across our path. We were thus more than two hours in proceeding a distance not exceeding one hundred and fifty yards. Notwithstanding these discouraging difficulties, the men laboured with great cheerfulness and good- will, being animated with the hope of soon reaching the more continuous body which had been considered as composing the "main ice" to the northward of Spitzbergen, and which Captain Lutwidge, about the same meridian, and more than a degree to the southward of this, describes as " one conti- nued plain of smooth, unbroken ice, bounded only by the horizon."* We halted at six A.M., on the 8th, in time to avoid a great deal of rain which fell dur- ing the day, and again proceeded on our * Phipps's Voyage towards the North Pole, p. 60. t. "#? 108 ^ff NARRATIVE OF AN ATTEMPT journey at eight in the evening, the wind being fresh from the E.S.E., with thick wet weather. We now met with detached ice of^a still lighter kind than before, the only floe in sight being much to the east- ward of our course. This we reached, after considerable labour, in the hope of its leading to the northward, which it did for about one mile, and we then came to the same kind of loose ice as before. We ob- served in one place a little mud in some small holes in the ice, being the first we had seen for a week. On the morning of the 9th July, we enjoyed the indescribable comfort of two or three hours* clear dry weather, but had scarcely hung up our wet clothes, after halting at five A.M., when it again came on to rain ; but as every thing was as wet as it could be, we left them out to take their chance. We again allowed ourselves the luxury of a hot supper, having shot eight or nine birds since our last. The rain continued most of the day, but we set out at half-past seven P.M., crossing loose ice, as usual, and much of the surface con- '^^^ TO REACH THE NORTH POLE. 109 sisting of the detached vertical needles be- fore described. After an hour, the rain became so heavy, that we halted to save our shirts, which were the only dry jdothes belonging to us. Soon after midnight, the rain being succeeded by one of the thickest fogs I ever saw, we again proceeded, grop- ing our way almost yard by yard from one small piece of ice to another, and were very fortunate in hitting upon some with level surfaces, and also a few tolerable-sized holes of water. At half-past two we reached a floe, which appeared at first a level and large one ; but on landing we were much mortified to find it so covered with immense ponds, or rather small lakes of fresh water, that to accomplish two miles in a north di-* rection, we were under the necessity of walking from three to four, the water being too deep for wading, and from two hundred yards to one-third of a mile in length. To- wards the northern margin we came among large hummocks, having very deep snow about them, so that this floe, which had ap- peared so promising, proved very laborious^ *f 4', no NARRATIVE OF AN ATTEMPT travelling, obliging us, in some parts, to make three journeys with our loads ; that is, to traverse the same road five times over. We halted at six A.M., having made only one mile and three quarters in a N.N. W. direction, the wind still blowing fresh from the eastward, with a thick fog. We were in latitude 82"" 3' 19", and longitude by chronometers 23° 17' E., and we found the variation of the magnetic needle to be 1 3° 41 ', westerly. We moved again at seven P.M., with the weather nearly as foggy as before, our road lying across a very hummocky floe, on which we had considerable difficulty in getting the boats, the ice being extremely unfavourable both for launching and hauling them up. We afterwards passed over two or three other small floes, and crossed a . lane of water a mile long in an east and west direction, but not more than two hun- dred yards wide from north to south. After stopping an hour at midnight to dine, we were again annoyed by a heavy fall of rain, a phenomenon almost as new to us in these regions, imtil this summer, as it was harass- TO REACH THE NORTH POLE. Ill ing and unhealthy. Being anxious, how- ever, to take advantage of a lane of water that seemed to lead northerly, we launched the hoats, 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 neces- sary 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 condition. 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, hav^ ing 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 112 NARRATIVE OF AN ATTEMPT with fewer birds as we advanced to the north- ward; to-aay we saw oiiiy one kittiwake, and a boatswain, (lestr'is parasiticus). The ;*ioes now around us were heavier than any that we had 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 S5^ 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 I *:■ >'■ TO REACH THE NORTH POLE. 113 ruggect 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' uV\ On continuing our journey, after dinner, we still had small floe-pieces to pass over, se- veral 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 unavoid- able. We halted at six A.M., after mak- ing, by our day's exertions, only three miles and a half of northing, and then ob- tained the dip of the magnetic 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 magnetic inten- sity 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, I 114 NARRATIVE OF AN ATTEMPT with a clear sky verhead, was now abso- lute luxury to us. Setting out again at seven P.M#, we crossed a small lane of wa- ter to another floe, but this was so inter- sected by ponds, and by streams running into the sea, that we had to make a very cir- cuitous 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 natur?. Notwithstanding the im- mense quantity of water still upon the ice, and which always afForcfed us a pure and abundant supply of this indispensable ar- ticle, we now observed a mark round the banks of all the ponds, showing 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 our- selves. We also encountered to-day a more than usual proportion of the " pen- TO REACH THE NORTH POLE. 115 knife" ice, the needles of which were four- teen inches long, and so loose as to occa- sion great labour in ' alking and 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 con- stantly 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 hours 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 Arlagnuk, in our voy- age of 1823, and named, in compliment to i2 116 NARRATIVE OF AN ATTEMPT i^ ^li him, Larus RossiL* We were here in lati- tude, by the noon observation, 82° 1 7' 1 0", and could find no bottom with four hundred fathoms of line. The temperature of some water brought up from that depth in a cop- per bottle contrived for the purpose, was 31® on coming to the surface, and its spe- cific gravity, when weighed at the tempe- rature of 41°, 1*0283. The temperature of the surface-water at the time was 32J°, and its specific gravity only 1*0004, owing to 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 th j streams and pools of fresh water was 32 J ^, We launched the boats at seven in the even- ing, the wind being moderate from the E.S.E. with fine clear weather, and were still mortified in finding that no improve- ment took place in the road over which we had to travel ; for the ice now before us '^ *i- * Narrative of the Second Voyage, p. 449 ; and Dr. Richardson's Zoological Appendix, p. 359. — 4to. TvO REACH THE NORTH POLE. 117 was, if possible, move broken up and more difficult to pass over than ever. Much of it was also so thin as to be extremely dan- gerous 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 sur- rounding 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. Mount- ing one of the highest of these at nine P.M., we could discover nothing to the north- ward but the same broken and irregular surface ; and we now began to doubt whe- ther we should at all meet with the solid fields of unbroken ice which every account had led us to expect in a much lower lati- tude 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 118 NARRATIVE OF AN ATTEMPT the level of the sea, to which elevation many of the hummocks rose. A very strong yel- low ice-blink overspread the whole northern horizon. We stopped to dme at half an hour past midnight, after more than five hours un- ceasing 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. We 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 descrip- tion, 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 pre- caution 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 ll TO REACH THE NORTH POLE. 119 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 in- stances this day we were obliged to have recourr>e to the still more hazardous expe- dient 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 the boats could possibly be hauled across with the provisions in them, 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 120 NARRATIVE OF AN ATTEMPT '!! : i !i; and hauled her back, we got her over in another place. Having at length succeeded in reaching 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 fresh- ened up strong from the S. E. b. E., with a thick fog, which shortly after changed to rain. We saw only a single mallemucke and a bear in our last journey ; the latter was wounded, but easily escaped our pur- suit, and this to our no small disappoint- ment, 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, espe- TO REACH THE NORTH POLE. 121 cially about two A.M., on the 15th of July. It held up a little at five, and at six we set out ; but the rain soon recommenced, though less heavily than before. In proceeding over the floe on which we had slept, we found it alternately level and ** hummocky," the former affording sufficiently good tra- velling 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 I ummocks cost us immense labour, nothing but a " bowline haul" being si:th«ient, with all our hands, to get the boats across or be- tween them. At eight the rain again be- came 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 wfirc 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 122 NARRATIVE OF AN ATTEMPT 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 travel- ling, 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 into a lane of water half a mile long from east to "»vest, but which only gave us a hundred ^nd fifty yards of northing. We had then several other smaller pools to cross, and on one occasion were obliged to cut a place for hauling up the boats, the margin consisting of a tier of high and continuous hummocks. In hauling one of the boats over a " tongue" of ice, where she only floated in part, her bottom-boards were raised by the pressure against the ice below, but so strong and elastic was their construction that she did not suffer the slightest external injury. We TO REACH THE NORTH POLE. 123 Ji frequently, during fogs, saw a broad white fog-bow opposite the sun ; but one which appeared to-night was strongly tinged with the prismatic colours. The floe on which we stopped to dine, at one A.M. on the 16th, was not more than four feet thick, and its extent half a mile square ; and on this we had the rare advan- tage of carrying all our loads at one journey. At half past six the fog cleared away, and gave us beautiful weather for drying our clothes, and once more the cheerful sight of the blue sky. We halted at half past seven, after being twelve hours on the road, having made a N. b. W. course, distance only six miles and a quarter, though we had traversed nine miles. The thermome- ter was unusually high in the shade, having risen to 37|° ; in the sun it stood at 47° ; a blackened bulb raised it to 5 1 ^° ; and the same thermometer, held against the black painted side of the boat, rose to 58 J°. This was during a calm ; but almost the smallest breath of wind immediately reduced them all below 40°. We saw, during this last lU NARRATIVE OF AN ATTEMPT 11^ journey, a mallemucke and a second Ross gull : and a couple of small flies (to us an event of ridiculous importance) were found upon the ice. We here observed the vari- ation of the magnetic needle to be 17° 28' westerly, being in latitude, by observation, 82° 26' 44" (or two miles to the southward of our reckoning), and in longitude, by chronometers 20° 32' 13" east. We again pursued our way at seven in the evening, having the unusual comfort of putting on dry stockings, and the no less rare luxury of delightfully pleasant weather, the wind being moderate from the S.S.E. It was so warm in the sun. though the tem- perature in the shade was only 35°, that the tar was running out of the seams of the boats; and a blackened bulb held against the paint-work raised the thermometer to 72°. We were to-day also unusually for- tunate in meeting with some open water, one lane of which gave us, though by a very crooked course, a mile and a half of north- ing, besides other smaller ones. The sea- water, in one of the largest of these lanes, to REACH THE NORTH POLE. 125 was at the temperature of 34P, being almost the only instance I remember of such an occurrence in a sea thus loaded with ice, and at so short a distance from it. We now no longer saw any birds in the " holes" of water, as we had done farther south. From a hummock forty feet above the level of the sea, and with a very clear and transpa- rent atmosphere, nothing but ice, with a few small patches of water, could be dis- cerned 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 Hud- son's Strait; while it is a great deal less than the ordinary dimensions of tiie ice about Melville Peninsula, and not half the thickness of that towards the western ex- tremity 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 conse- 126 NARRATIVE OF AN ATTEMPT ^ quence of the warmth of the weather and the late heavy rains ; making the travelling extremely laborious. 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 exhi- biting 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 smoothly polished and hand- some surface, appear not unlike the lumps cf 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 TO REACH THE NORTH POLE. 127 h 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 Royal Society of Edinburgh have proposed to institute a series of simul- taneous meteorological observations, we commenced an hourly register of every phe- nomenon which came under our notice, and which our instruments and other circum- stances 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 direc- tion being six miles a^nl a half. Being mora fatigued than usual, and the last week having produced us no birds for supper, we allowed oi selves a mess vof hot cocoa, which seemed quite a corc'Jal to us. O'^r latitude, observed at noon, was 82° 32' iU", being us NARRATIVE OF AN ATTEMPT ! more than a mile to the southward of the reckoning, though the wind had been con- stantly from that quarter during the tiveTity- four hours. We had seen, in our last jour- ney, only one ivory-gull, owe niail^^iimclvi, and another Ross gull. The 17th proved one of the warmest and most pleasant days to the feelings that we had during the whole time we were upon the ice; the Aeirao- Yueter in the shade being from 3G^ to 40*^ for .several hours, and in the sun from 42° to 61^, It produced, however, as usual, the serious disadvantage 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 pi was so bright as to render the glare of 1 1 snow painfuUy ■•■,■.'; '.Ms! TO REACH THE NORTH POLE. 129 oppressive to the eyes. The latitude, ob- served at midnight, was 82° 32' 15", or nearly the same as at noon, though we had certainly walked one mile to the northward. V After midnight the road became, if pos- sible, worse, and the prospect to the north- ward more discouraging than before; no- thing 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 tra- velling; but being the more anxious to get past this harassing kind of road, we conti- nued our work till half-past eight, when we reached a small floe-piece, 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 tvvo were made good in a N.N.W. i^*jt-.' 130 NARRATIVE OF AN ATTEMPT 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 oihness ; but it certainly 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 blubber, 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 ani- mals^ 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 immedi- ately and be lost. The temperature of this seal was 98°, immediately after death. The fog dispersing before noon, we had TO REACH THE NORTH POLE. 131 another clear and fine day, but, as usual, paid dear for this comfort by the increased softness of the snow and the oppressive glare reflected from it. Setting out at half past seven in the evening, we foun(^ the sun more distressing to the eyes than we had ever yet had it, bidding defiance to our crape veils and wire-gause 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 accus- tomed as scarcely to expect any other ; for it was evident enough that we were not im- proving in this respect as we advanced northwards. At half past nine 'wv 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. On^ i the masses * 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. K 2 i, .t.^ ft. M 13^ NARRATIVE OF AN ATTEMPT over which the boats came, began to roll about while one of them was upon it, giving us reaso'-i ? o It is remarkable that we had hitherto been so much favoured 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, accom- panied by a thick fog. Though this wind appeared to be the means of opening se- veral 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, and would, there- fore, have willingly dispensed with this ap- 134 NARRATIVE OF AN ATTE^ITT parent facility in proceeding. We found the temperature of the sea-water, in a large lane, to be 34°, and once as high as 34J°, 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 hum- mocks at the margin, indicating a tremen- dous pressure at some time or other. On the morning of the 20 th 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 thick, which would have afforded us good travelling, had they not recently been broken into small pieces, obliging us to launch frequently from one to another. These floes had been the pro- duct of the last winter only, having probably been formed in some of the interstices lefl 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. We halted at seven A.M., having, by our reckoning, accomplished six TO REACH THE NORTH POLE. 135 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", 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. Under these discouraging circumstances, which we carefully avoided making known to the men, we pursued our journey at eight P.M., the wind blowing from theN.W.b.N. with overcast but clear weather. A little small snow fell during the night, composed of very minute irregular needles. We were, as usual, much annoyed by the numerous loose pieces over which we had to pass, but a large proportion of these being composed of flat bay-ice, we made tolerable progress. At eleven P.M. we could see nothing be- fore us but this thin ice, much of which was not fit to bear the weight of o^ir boats and provisions, and more caution than ever was requisite in selecting the route by 136 NARRATIVE OF AN ATTEMPT which we were to pass. At five A.M., on the 21st, having gone a-head, as usual, upon a bay-floe, to search for the best road, I heard a more than ordinary noise and bustle among the people who were bringing up the boats behind. On returning to them, I found that we had narrowly, and most providentially, escaped a serious calamity ; the floe having broken under the weight of the boats and sledges, and the latter having nearly been lost through the ice. Some of the men went completely through, and one of them was only held up by his drag-belt being attached to a sledge which happened to be on firmer ice. Fortunately the bread had, by way of security, been kept in the boats, or this additional weight would un- doubtedly have sunk the sledges, and pro- bably some of the men with them. As it was, we happily escaped, though we hardly knew how, with a good deal of wetting ; and, cautiously approaching the boats, drew them to a stronger part of the ice, after which we continued our journey till half past six A.M., when we halted to rest, hav- TO REACH THE NORTH POIE. 137 I ing travelled about seven miles N.N.W. We here found the dip of the magnetic needle to be 82° 21'.8, and the variation 1 9° 5' westerly, our longitude by chronome- ters being 19° 52' east, and the latitude 82° 39' 10", being only two miles and a quarter to the northward of the preceding day's observation, or four miles and a half to the southward of our reckoning. Our sportsmen had the good fortune to kill another seal to-day, rather krger than the first, which again proved a i nost wel- come addition to our provision* and fuel. Indeed, after this supply of t^ e latter, we were enabled to allow ourselves every night a pint of warm water for supper, each man making his own soup from such a portion of his bread and pemmican as he could save from dinner. Setting out again at seven in the evening, we were not sorry to find the weather quite calm, which sailors account " half a fair wind;" for it was now evident that nothing but a southerly breeze could enable us to make any tolerable progress, or to regain what we had lately lost. The 138 NARRATIVE OF AN ATTEMPT weather was warm and pleasant, though the thermometer was only 35°, At half past eight we observed a fog-bank ri.sing to the southward, and another equally fast to the north. While we were anxiously watching to see which would prevail, that from the south first came over us, with a light air from that quarter ; this, however, was of short duration, the weather again becoming calm and perfectly clear in an hour after- wards. We observed this night, and only on three or four other occasions, the most brilliant prismatic colours imaginable, re- flected from the snow crystals on the ice, the tints being principally the red, oran^«:e , green, and violet. This phenomenon, which occurred when the sun was low, (and, I suppose, onlv with crystals of a peculiar form,) is always seen, of course, between the sun and the observer, and the reflecting surfaces cover a space which assumes a kind of semi-elliptical form. It becomes more distant and less distinct as the sun and is rises. then altogether lost. This beautiful natural appearance may possibly TO REACH THE NORTH POLE. 139 be familiar to many persons ; but as it was new to "«, I have described it just as it oc- curred. Our travelling to night was the very best we had during this excursion ; for though we had to launch and haul up the boats frequently, an operation which, under the most favourable circumstances, necessarily occupies much time, yet the floes being large and tolerably level, and some good lanes of water occurring, we made, accord- ing to the most moderate calculation, be- tween ten and eleven miles in a N.N.E. direction, and traversed a distance of about seventeen. We halted at a quarter past eight A.M., after more than twelve hours' actual travelling, by which the people were extremely fatigued ; but while our work seemed to be repaid by any thixig like pro- gress, the Hi jn laboured with great cheer- fulness to the utmost of their strength. A solitary rotge, two small seals, and a fish twelve inches long, (of which we had before noticed one or two,) were the only living creatures seen to-day, notwithstanding the ^-Vfci,i. uo NARRATIVE OF AN ATTEMPT unusual extent of the open water. The ice over which we had travelled was by far the largest and heaviest we met with during our whole journey ; this, indeed, was the only occasion on which we saw anything answering, in the slightest degree, to the descriptions given of the main ice. The largest floe 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 in- stance had we any difficulty in seeing the margin of them in more directions than one, by mounting a tolerable high hummock; and from a much less elevation than that of a ship's masthead, the whole extent and form of such floes would have been very easilv discernible. However, it was a sa- tisfaction to observe that the ice had cer- tainly improved ; and we now ventured to hope that, for the short time that we could still pursue our outward journey, our pro- gress would be more commensurate with our exertions than it had hitherto proved. In proportion, then, to the hopes we had \ TO REACH THE NORTH POLE. in begun to entertain, was our disappointment in finding, at noon, that we were in latitude 82° 43' b'\ or not quite four miles to the northward of yesterday's observation, in- stead of the ten or eleven which we had travelled! 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 hav- ing permanently reached better ice was not to be realized; for the floe on which we slept was so full of hummocks, that it occu- pied us just six hours to cross it, the dis- tance in a straight line not exceeding two miles and a half. At midnight, on the 22d of July, we had a good observation in lati- tude 82° 43' 32", being, as usual, the mean of two observers. After this, our road once more consisted of small rugged masses, and little pools of water, requiring many launches. In addition to these impediments, the wind, which had been from the W.N.W. at our setting out, again shifted to north, and ^» 142 NARRATIVE OF AN ATTEMPT ^. freshened up considerably. We halted at seven A.M. on the 23d, after a laborious day's work, and, I must confess, a dis- heartening one to those who knew to how little effect we were struggling; which, however, the men did not, though they often laughingly remarked that " we were a long time getting to this 83° !" Being anxious to make up, in some measure, for the drift which the present northerly wind was, in all probability, occasioning, we rose earlier than usual, and set off at haif-past four in the evening. At half-past fi^e P.M. we wit- nessed a very beautiful natural phenomenon. A broad white fog-bow first appeared op- posite the sun, as was very commonly the case ; presently it became strongly tinged with the prismatic colours, and soon after- wards 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 within it, had the red on the outer or upper part of the circle, the others TO REACH THE NORTH PtDXE. 143 on the inner side. Lieutenant Ross mea- sured the altitude of the outer arch, which was /?0° 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 re- mained, as usual, for hours together. We were nov7 once more annoyed by a quantity of broken ice, so thin as to require increased caution in trusting our loads upon it; in- deed, 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 pain- ful 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 Ross. We 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 ■<» 144 NARRATIVE OF AN ATTEMPT seven and a half, most of which we tra- versed, as usual, three times. The only notice of animal life occurring in our jour- nals in the course of this day's travelling, consists in our having " heard a rotge" ! The wind continued fresh from the north- ward, 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. Lieu- tenant Ross, in exerting himself to drag his boat along, received a severe squeeze be- tween her gunwale and a hummock of ice, which gave Mr. Beverly reason to appre- hend at first, from the numbness and sick- ness which ensued, that his spine might be affected ; but happily no such bad conse- quences 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 upon the onjy 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|° ; We had travelled, during this journey, two TO REACH THE NORTH POLE. 145 miles and three-quarters N.JE., and saw but one mallemucke and one Ross gull in the course of it. Tiie wind had now got round to the W.N.W., with raw foggy weather, and con- tinued 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 bread-bags had become very wet, and the snow fell so thick that we could no longer see our way. It was, therefore, necessary to halt, which we did at half past seven, putting the awn- ings over the boats, changing our wet clothes, and giving the men employment for the mere sake of occupying their minds. We 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 towards noon on the 2Gth, we 146 NARRATIVE OF AN ATTEMPT i- obtained the meridian altitude of the su:;, by wliif'b we found ourselves in latitude 82° 40' ^3"; so that, since our « st observa- tion (at midnight on the 22dj, 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 21 sl, 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 mil' s iKT day. it luid, for some time past, been too evi- dent that the nature of tb? 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 northward. Still, however, we had been anxious to reach the highest latitude which our means TO REACH THE NORTH POLE. 147 would allow, and, with this view, although our whole object had long become unattain- able, had pushed on to the northward for thirty-five days, or ui 11 half our repources were expended and the middle of our sea- son arrived. ^^or the last few days the eighty-third pai was the limit to which we had venti > txiend our hopes ; but even this expeci \ had become consider- ably weakened since the setting in of the last northerly wind, which continued to drive us to the southward, 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 beyond the middle of the period for which we 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 use- less fatigue to the officers and men, and unnecessary wear and tear for the boats, to persevere any longer in the attempt. I de- l2 u IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) /. 1.0 I.I 1.25 1^ lis IIIIIM 18 JA |||||i6 V ^ <5> .^. Photographic Sciences Corporation 23 WEST MAIN STREET WEBSTER, N.Y. 14580 (716) 872-4503 iV ^ v rs* ^. 6^ "i*,^ 148 NARRATIVE OF AN ATTEMPT termined, therefore, 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 were occupied in making all the observations 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 much disappointed 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 highest latitude we reached was probably at seven A.M., on the 23d, 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 observations for the mag- netic intensity were obtained at this station. We here found no bottom with five hundred i TO REACH THE NORTH POLE. 149 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 hydro- meter ; and at six fathoms below the sur-- face it was 1*0225, at temperature 37°. At the extreme point of our journey, our dis- tance from the Hecla was only 1 72 miles in a S. 8° W. direction. To accomplish this distance, we had traversed, by our reckon i ing, 292 miles, of which about 100 were performed by water, previously to our en- tering the ice. As we travelled by far the greater part of our distance on the ice three, and not unfrequently five, times over, we may safely multiply the length of the road by two and a half; so that our whole dis- tance, on a very moderate calculation, amounted to five hundred and eighty geo- 150 NARRATIVE OF AN ATTEMPT graphical, 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 fortu- nate in the preservation of our health ; nei- ther sickness nor casualties having occurred among us, with the exception of the trifling accidents already mentioned, a few bowel complaints, which were soon removed by care, and some rather troublesome cases of chilblains arising from our constant expo- sure to wet and cold. Our day of rest (27th of July,) proved one of the warmest and most pleasant to the feelings we had yet had upon the ice, though the thermometer was onl" from 31° to 36° in the shade, and 37"^ the sun, with occasional fog ; but to persons living constantly in the open air, calm and tolera- bly dry weather affords absolute enjoyment, especially by contrast with what we had lately experienced. Our ensigns and pen- dants were displayed during the day ; and sincerely as we regretted not having been able to hoist the British flag in the highest TO REACH THE NORTH POLE. 151 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. During some intervals of very clear wea- ther, we could perceive nothing like land in any direction from our present situation, and a strong yellow ice-blink always over- spread the northern horizon. At three A.M., on the 27th, we observed a pheno- menon resembling that mentioned on the 23d, but much less perfect and distinct, three smaller fog-bows at times appearing withiii a large one, the legs of the arches being distinctly coloured as before. The sun's altitude at this time was 12|°, that of the centre of the outer arch 28°, and its ex- tent 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 cheer- less 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 •■-fMjfyy-rT7*'v"'^r'^'^*' 152 NARRATIVE OF AN ATTEMPt set of the current from this latitude, we left upon a hummock of ice a paper, sewn up in a water-proof canvass bag, and then inclosed in a water-tight tin cannister, giving an ac- count of the place where it was deposited, and requesting any person who should find it, to send it to the Secretary of the Admi- ralty. The wind sprung up from the S.E., arid, as usual with any change of wind, opened a few holes among the ice, which assisted us a little ; but, notwithstanding this, so unfavourable was the ice for tra- velling, 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 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 tra- velled eleven hours, finding the water some- what more open and the floes less rugged tlian 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 ■ ■ ■VTr^r^^T'-'i "^r"77?> TO REACH THE NORTH POLE. 153 , 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 out- ward 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 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 in- terval. 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 cross- ing it, and at length discovered some more 154 NARRATIVE OF AN ATTEMPT secure ice beyond it, though still in small detached pieces. We saw to-day a great many 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, which we 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, indeed, proved to be the case, for at noon we found our latitude by observation to be 82° 14' 25", or four miles to the southward of the reckoning* The variation of the magnetic needle ob- served here was 22® 23' 16" westerly, the longitude being 17° 18' 19" E., showing an TO REACH THE NORTH POLE. 155 increase in that phenomenon in going west- ward, in this as well as in lower latitudes. Our next day's journey, which we com- menced at 6.30 P.M., was one of the most laborious we had yet experienced, the ice being composed of loose rugged pieces, very dangerous 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 hav- ing made by our account only two miles of southing, 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 W.S.W. Wc had, as usual, a great quantity of loose ice to pass through, or over, before we 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 ; 156 NARRATIVE OF AN ATTEMPT but after making a great many traverses behind some hummocks, and even mount- ing one of them to examine us more nar- rowly, he set off and escaped — I must say, to our grievous disappointment; 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 our journey on the 2d of August we met with a quantity of snow, tinged, to the depth of several inches, with some red colouring matter, of which a por- tion was preserved in a bottle for future examination. This circumstance recalled to our recollection our having frequently before, in the course of this journey, re- marked that the loaded sledges, in passing over hard snow, left upon it a light rose- coloured tint, which at the time we attri- buted to the colouring matter 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 ; and on watching it more narrowly after- TO REACH THE NORTH POLE. 157 wards, we found the same effect to be pro- duced, in a greater or less degree, by heavy pressure, on almost all the ice over which we passed, though a magnifying-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° 6', 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, dur- ing the night, some of the most beautiful weather that we experienced during our whole excursion, the wind being light from the S.W. The temperature of the air at midnight did not exceed 31 J° in the sun, and yet on the north side of the hummocks 158 NARRATIVE OF AN ATTEMPT the water was dropping from the ice. Tlie 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 launching and hauling up the boats a great number of times, we had not only the comfort of drying all our wet clothes, but were even able to wash many of our woollen things, which dried in a few hours. The latitude observed at noon was 82° 1' 48", or twelve miles and half to the southward of our place on the 31st, which was about three more than our log gave, though there had been southing in the, wind during the whole interval. We 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 . \' - ^i. .*-. •'- TO REACH THE NORTH POLE, 159 deep ponds and water-courses, that, al- though it was in other respects level, we were obliged to walk nearly two miles to gain one of southing. The water was again dropping from the sunny side of the hum- mocks about midnight, the thermometer in the shade being 29J°, and in the sun 36°. The temperature of the sea- water was 32 J°. The sun now became 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 be- hind us, instead of facing it, as on our out- ward journey. We stopped to rest at a quarter past six A.M., on the 4th, after ac- complishing 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 high as 66°, which 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 160 NARRATIVE OF AN ATTEMPT eight P.M., we paid, as usual, for this com- fort, 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 dif- ferent 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 29J° 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 on the 5 th we remark- ed to the southward, for the first time since we had entered the ice, a great deal of that appearance which is called by our Green- land sailors the " tree-ing" of ice. It con- sists in the ice being apparently raised in the horizon by refraction ; sometimes so considerably, as it was in the present in- stance, as to resemble a perpendicular TO REACH THE NORTH POLE. 161 wall of some height above the general level. It is usually considered an indica- tion of open water in that quarter, though I believie it is by no means ah infallible one. However, on this occasion we were willing to flatter ourselves that the popular notion might be the right one, as indeed it subse- quently proved to be, though we scarcely dared to hope that we could as yet be very near the opevi water to the southward. The temperature of the sea in a large hole of water was 33° J, which is unusually high in a sea thus incumbered 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 81° 54' 47", which agreed very well with our reckoning, notwithstand- ing the southing in the winds for some days past. The temperature of the air in the shade at noon was 35°, and in the sun as high as 42°. We moved again at eight M 162 NARRATIVE OF AN ATTEMPT 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 r. 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 hummocks. It was a quarter of a mile lon^, 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 t)ie beautiful blue of the water, gave it a TO REACH THE NORTH POLE. 163 singular and picturesque appearance. We halted at a quarter past six A.M., on the 6th, after making three miles of southing. A thick wet fog prevailed during the day, and the breeze freshened from the S.E.b.E. We again proceeded at eight P.M., and tra- velling till half-past six on the following 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 bear cross'ed over a lane of water to visit us, and approaching the boats within twenty yards was killed by Lieutenant Ross. The scene which followed was laughable, 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 ■■r O !i 164 NARRATIVE OF AN ATTEMPT \ hour, all hands of us were employed, to our great satisfaction, 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, during the whole day, over a large fire made of the blubber. The con- sequence of all this, and other similar indul- gences, necessarily was, that some of them complained, for several days after, of the pains usually arising from indigestion ; though they all, amusingly enough, attri- buted 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 what- ever. However, notwithstanding these ex- cesses at first, we were really thankful 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. TO REACH THE NORTH POLE» 1G5 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 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 ano- ther in so extraordinary a manner that, though the space in which we were rowing seemed to be always 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 wind- ing channel, four or fiye miles of southing. This was so unusual a circumstance, that If 166 NARRATIVE OF AK ATTEMPT 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 nar- whals, and not less than two hundred rotges, a flock of these little birds occurring in every hole of water. The wind was from the southward, 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 loose ice, I thought it better to halt upon the floe, than to incur the probable risk of being driven back, should we be obliged to rest on any of the smaller pieces. It was fortunate that we adopted this plan ; for, the wind still increasing from the south- ward, the loose ice continued to drive past us to the northward, during the whole of this and the following day, at the rate of a TO REACH THE NORTH POLE. 167 mile and a half an hour ; and we were, therefore, very glad to retain our present quarters. The weather being wet, with fog, we 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 of August, 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 autho- rity to prevent them. As it was, our en- m IHI ml 1G8 NARRATIVE OF AN ATTEMPT campment becamS so like an Esquimaux establishment, that we were obliged to shift our place upon the floe, in the course of the day, for the sake of cleanliness and com- fort. , ,. u. ' V • The wind falling towards midnight, we launched the boats at half-past one A.M, on the 11th, paddling alternately in 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 fragments thrown on the sur- face, and a good deal of " dirty ice" oc-? curring. We 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 i.:* .-lavii -,^;^:-, . TO REACH THE NORTH POLE. lev 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 ne^ cessary supply of water for our little voyage to Table Island, from which we were now distant fifty miles, our latitude being 81^ 34', pd longitude 18J^ E. A light air spring- 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 upon 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 wea- ther continued quite calm, and the atmos- •u'riMC'-^ > 170 NARRATIVE OF AN ATTEMPT III phere very pleasant to our feelings. We saw a great many seals sporting 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. " ^^ ^ - -^ ^ - r < * We had some fog during the night, so that we steered entirely by compass, ac- cording 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 41°, 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 can- not describe the comfort we experienced in once more feeling a dry and solid footing. We found that the bears had devoured all the bread (one hundred pounds), which oc- casioned a remark among the men, with re-* To REACH THE NORTH POLE. 171 ference 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 materials for repairing our boats, as well as various little luxuries to which we had lately been strangers, and depositing in a copper cylin- der a letter from Lieutenant Forster, giving me a detailed account of the proceedings of the ship up to the 23d of July. By this I learned that the Hecla had 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 da- mage, and placed in perfect security. Find- ing the ship thus liable to be disturbed by ice. Lieutenant Forster had prudently re- linquished the idea of leaving her for any length of time, so as to make an extended survey of the eastern coast, confining him- self to the neighbouring parts of Waygatz 172 NARRATIVE OF AN ATTEMl'T St 'N which were more within his reach. Am^mg the supplies with which the anxious care of our friends on board had now fur- nished us, some lemon-juice and sugar were not the least acceptable ; two or three of the men having for some days past suffered from oedema tous swellings of the legs, and evinced other symptoms apparently scorbu- tic, and which soon improved after adminis- tering 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 we find where the boats could possibly be hauled up, or lie afloat in security. 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 vliich Hes off Little Table Island, and which h ii ».. .^stinj, as being the northernmost known land upon the globe, I have applied the name of Lieu- .^'^-ant Ross in the chart; for I believe no TO REACH THE NORTH POLE. 173 ihdividual can have exerted himself more strenuously ^ rob it of this distinction. We had scarce V made sail when the weather became extremely inclement, with a fresh gale and very thick snow, wliich obscured Walden Island from our view. Steering by compass, however, 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 th( island. Everything belonging to us was now completely drenched by tlie 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 this 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 tin es not to comprehend them. However, b} dint of great exertion, we managed to get the boats above the surf; after which, a hot supper, 174 NARRATIVE OF AN ATTEMPT a blazing fire of drift-wood, and a few hours' quiet rest, quite restored us. The next morning, the 13th, I despatched Lieutenant Ross, with a party of hands, to the N.E. part of the island, to launch the spare boat which, according to my direc- tions. Lieutenant Foster had sent for our use, and to bring round the stores 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 im- proved. The south-eastern, or lowest part of Walden Island, which we had not before visited, is composed of coarse-grained red and grey granite. Mr. Beverly remarked, that ** on the face of the rock may be ob- served veins of a finer grey granite, 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 TO REACH THE NORTH POLE. 175 of 10° to the south-eastward." Heaps of large rounded masses of granite, in regular horizontal beds, are lying at the height of thirty to forty feet above the present level of the sea, but giving the idea of their hav- ing once been washed by it. A great num- ber of female eider-ducks, with their flocks of young, were swimming about the island ; and the tripe de roche and cochlearia were here more luxuriant than we had ever seen them. Drift-wood was, as usual, in great abundance in eveiy spot where it could effect a landing. We here observed 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 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 Walden Island ; but the wind back- 176 NARRATIVE OF AN ATTEMPT I ing more to the westward, we could only fetch into a bay on the opposite or southern shore, where we hauled the boats up (mi very rugged rocks, under cliffs 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 ^f our fellow-travellers, Messrs. Beverly and Bird. The wind shifted to the eastward in the night, and at eight A.M., on the 15th, we set out for Low Island, where we arrived at four P.M., landing upon the west point, which is com- posed 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 im- mense 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 TO REACH THE NORTH POL&.- 177' rocky islets which had before escaped no- tice, 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 un- certain. We here saw a bear, a great many tern and eider-ducks with their young, and several deer, two of which were killed. By the time we had prepared for setting out, the wind had freshened almost to a gale, with every appearance of dirty weather, which induced me to remain here for the night. Messrs. Ross and Beverly 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 nine 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 w^e landed 178 NARRATIVE OF AN ATTEMPT at one P.M., on a long narrow beach, almost entirely composed of clay-slate, with a la- goon within it. Near this point is a hill about one hundred and fifty feet above the sea, which is the highest and only conspi- cuous part of the island. The rocks which compose the hill are of reddish schistose quartz, approaching in some places to sand- stone, the strata being disposed in a direc- tion quite vertical. We saw nothing here resembling the hexagonal stones mentioned by Dr. Irving, in Phipps's Voyage,* as oc- curring about the northern part of the is- land. Having a commanding view from this eminence, we obtained angles for the survey, and afterwards found that Lieute- nant Crozier had observed the latitude not far from our present landing-place to be 80° 15' 25". Within, or to the eastward of the island, is a considerable bay,^ in which some heavy masses of ice were lying aground, reminding us more than any that we had seen about Spitzbergen of the smaller bergs in Baffin's Bay, though of * Voyage towards the North Pole, p. 58. TO REACH THE NORTH POLE. 179 much less dimensions. There appears to be a great deal of shoal water in this neigh- bourhood, and many detached rocks appear above water. No drift-ice was in sight in any direction. The wind dying away on the morning of the 17th, we once more set out for the ship at nine A.M. ; but having a second time nearly reached Shoal Point, were again met by a strong breeze as we opened Waygatz Strait, and were therefore obliged to land upon the low shore to the southward of Low Island. It was, however, some time before we 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 ex- tensive lagoons, and most of the water near them is brackish. The formation here was different from any we had yet met with about Spitzbergen ; the rocks consisting chiefly of a black marble with white and red veins intersecting it, and the flat parts of the land covered with small detached fragments of decomposed limestone. In K 2 180 NARRATIVE OF AN ATTEMPT some places, also, there are beds of clay- slate of considerable extent. A narrow 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 de- cayed than that which lies on the outer or present sea-beach ; by which it appears that the latt^^r has been thrown up, to the exclu- sion of the sea, long "ince the inner wood was landed. A great many smdl 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 18th of August the wind increased to a strong breeze from the S.W., with rain and sleet, which afterwards changed to snow TO REACH THE NORTH POLE. 181 in some of the largest fiakes I ever saw, completely changing the whole aspect of the land from summer to winter in a few hours. On the following morning we prepared to move at an early hour, but the wind backed more to the westward, and soon after in- creased 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 prisoners 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 ex- pectation of seeing some ice come in, but we were agreeably surprised to find that none appeared. This circumstance ap- peared to us the more remarkable from the extraordinary rapidity with which, in the month of June, the very lightest air from the westward 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 tedi- ous confinement, and anxious to reach the ship, the wind and sea were still too high m4 182 NARRATIVE OF AN ATTEMPT to allow US to move, and it was not till half- past seven A.M., on the following day, that we could venture to 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.M., on the 21st of August, when within three or four miles of Hecla Cove, had the gratifica- tion of seeing a boat under sail coming out to meet us. Mr, Weir soon joined us in one of the cutters ; and, after hearing good accounts of the safety of the ship, and of the welfare of all on board, together with a variety of details, to us of uo small interest, we arrived on board at seven P.M., after an absence of sixty-one days, being received with that warm and cordial welcome, which can alone be felt, and not described. The distance traversed during this excur- sion was five hundred and sixty-nine geo- graphical miles ; but allowing for the num- ber of times we had to return for our bag- TO REACH THE NORTH POLE. 183 gag6 during the greater part of the journeys over the ice, we estimated our .^otual tra- velling at nine hundred and seventy-eight geographical, or eleven hundred and twenty- seven statute miles. Considering our con- stant 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 reason 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 general 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 without endeavouring to do justice to the cheerful alacrity and unwea- ried zeal displayed by my companions, both officers and men, in the course of this ex- cursion; and if steady perseverance and 184 NARRATIVE OF AN ATTEMPT 4: active exertion on their parts could have accomphshed our object, success would undoubtedly have crowned our labours. I must also mention, to the credit of the offi- cers of Woolwich dock-yard, who took so much pains in the construction of our boats, that, notwithstanding the constant and severe trial to which their strength had been put — and a more severe trial could not well be devised— not a timber was sprung, a plank split, or the 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 ansv^ered the intended purpose admirably. An abstract of our meteorological obser- vations during this excursion, is given in the Appendix to the 4to edition, 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 i TO REACH THE NORTH 1 LB. 185 in the polar regions, even in latitudes from 8° to 1 6° lower. 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 accurate plan of the bay and its neigh- bourhood, had proceeded on the survey of Way gat z Strait, and proposed returning by the 26th of August, 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 depo- sited by my direction on the beach. Lieu- tenant Foster's report informed me that, after the ship had been hauled off the ground,* they had again suffered consider- * I cannot here omit to mention the invaluable ad- vantage derived, on this occasion, from one of our cutters (a twenty-five feet boat) having been fitted on Mr. Cow's ingenious principle for weighing 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, 18G NARRATIVE OF AN ATTEMPT able disturbance for several days, in conse- quence of some heavy masses of ice driving into the bay, which dragged the anchors, and again threatened them with a similar ac- cident. 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 offi- cer and man left on board, as well to pre- serve the Hecla from injury, under circum- stances of considerable danger, as to get on board all the stores and ballast after they had been landed for the purpose of heaving her off; in the course of which service, the conduct of every individual was highly me- ritorious. It was also a source of great satisfaction to find everybody on board in and transport it any distance with safety. Indeed, but for this facility, added to that afforded by Phillips's capstan, the Hecla*s reduced crew would probably have been unable to haul her off the ground at all on this occasion. TO REACH THE NORTH POLE. 187 good health, with the exception of Mr. Crawford, the Greenland Master, who had for some time past been in a declining state, and now evinced dropsical symptoms, indi- cating 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 which pursuits the officers were con- stantly employed, during every moment that could be spared from the necessary duties of the ship. Among other magnetic observations, an interesting series of hourly experiments had been made on the diurnal changes of variation and intensity, and con- tinued for several days without intermission, by Lieutenants Foster and Crozier. By these it appears that there is a diurnal oscil- lation of the magnetic needle, usually amount- ing to about a degree and a half, and in some instances to 2|° ; the maximum west- erly 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; exhi- 188 NARRATIVE OF AN ATTEMPT biting an increased action about 10'' 20'" A.M., and a minimum intensity about mid- night. There was also observed a remark- able coincidence between these two pheno- mena, the largest amount of diurnal varia- tion and the greatest changes of intensity usually occurring on the same days. On the 22d of August, 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 quan- tity of the stone ballast as was necessary for trimming the ship ; after which 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, TO REACH THE NORTH POLE. 189 however, there is enough to show that they have been dehneated from a sketch actually made upon the spot. The land within the Strait, especially that which he saw to the southward of 79J°, Lieutenant Foster con- sidered to be much higher than any of the northern shores of Spitzbergen, 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 we have landed. Some islands near the middle of the Strait, to which I have ventured to affix the name of Lieute- nant 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 distin- guished by the name of Cape Fanshawe. A striking feature of the land on the western coast of the Strait consists in the numerous 190 NARRATIVE OF AN ATTEMPT ice-bergs with which the cliffs are in many parts lined. One of these, marked in the chart, is not less than nine miles in length, and one hundred and fifty feet high; im- mense masses of ice were constantly falling from them at this season, with a sound re- sembling 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 al- ready 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 Bay, to which I have afBxed the name of Hecla Cove, is- TO REACH THE NORTH POLE. 191 er id. ch is- the only good anchorage it contains, the water being either too deep or too shoal in most 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, consisting of a tenacious blue clay, in which the anchors were quite imbedded. The lati-» tude of the flag-staff, on which a copper- plate was fixed, giving an account of the Hecla's visit, is 79° 55' 20", and its lon- gitude by our chronometers 16° 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° 46' 12' westerly. The time of high water at full and change is 2^ 26™, the highest rise at spring tides be- ing 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. 19£ NARRATIVE OF AN ATTEMPT 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. Looms 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 which was some- what above the ordinary dimensions, mea- suring 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 minerals, was made by Mr. Halse, and of birds by Mr. M*Cormick. >#, . The following remarks by Mr. Beverly, made during our short stay in Hecla Cove, after returning from the north, may be in- teresting to geologists. " The land on the east side of this bay, near the Cove, is a TO REACH THE NORTH POLE. 193 e, n- he a flat, from two to three miles in extent, and is composed, in some parts, of a fine deep alluvial soil, probably formed by the de- composition of the rocks which compose the hills to the southward. On this plain there are beds of schistose quartz, nearly ap- proaching to sand-stone, and chiefly of a pale red colour. Beds of clay-slate also occur, in some places of greenish grey, and in others of a brick-red colour. Next the sea is a fine bold beach, composed of rounded pieces of the above rock, with limestone intermixed. At about a quarter of a mile from the base of the high land, immense masses of a very coarse-grained rock lie scattered about, and appear to have been precipitated from the upper stratum of the mountain. They are composed of fer- ruginous 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, forming the west shore of Waygatz Strait ; and, as far as I o 194 NARRATIVE OF AN ATTEMPT 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 plain, and consists of loose fragments, rendering the ascent to the perpendicular face of the rock very difficult. That part of the hill which faces the harbour is com- posed of quartz rock, in some places schis- tose, in others massive, with a waxy fracture. This terminates abruptly about a mile and a half to the eartward, where the clay-slate formation commences, being of a deep lead colour, a firm texture, and less talcouse 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 formation of the rocks on the op- posite 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 mossejs and TO REACH THE NOHTH POLE. 195 « Ld Other vegetation ; upon this flat ground are lying large boulders of mica-slate." The height of the hill nearest to Hecla Cove, as measured barometrically by Lieu- tenant Foster, is about two thousand feet ; but the barometer having subsequently been found defective, this measure can only be considered an approximation.. The hills on the south side of the bay are considerably higher than this. The neighbourhood of this bay, like most of the northern shores of Spitzbergen, ap- pears to have been much visited by the Dutch at a very early period ; of which cir- cumstance records are furnished on almost every spot where we landed, by the numer- ous graves which we met with. There are thirty of these on a point of land on the north side of the bay.* The bodies are usually deposited in an oblong wooden coffin, which, on account of the difficulty of digging the ground, is not buried, but * Perhaps the name of this bay, from the Dutch word Treuretif "to lament, or be mournful," may have some reference to the graves found here. o 196 NARRATIVE OF AN ATTEMPT merely covered by large stones ; and a board is generally placed near the head, having, either cut or painted, upon it the name of the deceased, with those of his ship 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 Hecla Cove, that of 1690, the inscription distinctly appearing in pro- minent relief, occasioned by the preserva- tion of the wood by the paint, while the un- painted part had decayed around it. * The officers who remained on board the Hecla during the summer described the weather as the most beautiful, and the cli- mate altogether the most agreeable, they had ever experienced in the polar regions. Indeed, the Meteorological Journal, of which an abstract for each month is annexed to the 4to volume, shows a temperature, both of the air and of the sea-water, to which we had before been altogether strangers within the Arctic Circle, and which goes far to^ wards showing that the climate of Spitz^ !tO REACH THE NORTH POLE. 197 bergen is a remarkably temperate one for its lati- .Je.* It must, however, be ob- served that this remark is principally ap- plicable to the weather experienced near the land, that at sea being rendered of a totally different character by the almost continual presence of fogs ; so that some of our most gloomy days upon the ice were among the finest in Hecla Cove, where, however, a good deal of rain fell in the course of the summer. The Hecla was ready for sea on the 25 th of August; but the wind blowing fresh from the northward and westward prevented our moving till the evening of the 28th, when, the weather improving, we got under way ♦ Mr. Crowe, of Hammeifest, who lately passed a winter on the south-western coast of Spitzbergen, in about latitude 78^, informed me that he had rain at Christmas ; a phenomenon, which would indeed have astonished us at any of our former wintering stations in a much lower latitude. Perhaps the circumstance of the rein-deer wintering at Spitzbergen may also be considered a proof of a comparatively temperate cli- mate. ... . . . -^ ..:.:.- « 198 NARRATIVE OF AN ATTEMPT from Hecla Cove, and being favoured with a light air from the S.E., stood along the coast to the westward. On the evening of the 29 th, when off' Red 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 beautifully fine, and the sun (to us for the first time for about four months) just dipped his lower limb into the sea at mid- night, and then rose again. It was really wonderful to see that, upon this whole northern coast of Spitzbergen, where in May and June not a " hole" of clear water could be found, it would now have been equally difficult to discover a single mass of ice in any direction. This absence of ice now enabled us to see MofFen Island, which is so low and flat that it was before entirely hidden from our view by the hummocks. On rounding Hakluyt's Headland on the SOth, we came at once into a long swell, such as occurs only in places exposed to the whole range of the ocean, and, except a small or loose stream or two, we after this TO REACH THE NORTH POLE. 199 IS saw no more ice of any kind. On the 31st we were off Prince Charles's Foreland, the middle part of which, about Cape Sietoe, appeared to be much the highest land we had seen in Spitzbergen; rising probably to an elevation of above four thousand feet. We had favourable winds to carry us clear of Spitzbergen; but after the 3d of September, and between the parallels of 70° and 60°, were detained by continual southerly and south westerly breezes for a fortnight. On the evening of the 17th we made Shetland, and on the following day, being close off Balta Sound, and the wind blowing strong from the S.W., I anchored in the Voe at two P.M., to wait a more favourable breeze. We were here received by all that genuine hospitality for which the inhabitants of this northern part of the British dominions are so justly distinguished^ and we gladly availed ourselves of the sup- plies with which their kindness furnished us. We here also obtained observations for our chronometers on the spot where Cap-- tain Kater and Monsieur Biot swunsf their ^00 NARRATIVE OF AN ATTEMPT pendulums ; and it was satisfactory, as re- garded our survey of the northern shores of Spitzbergen, to find that we differed from the Ordnance-Survey only eight seconds of time. Early on the morning of the 19th of Sep- tember, the wind suddenly shifted to the N.N.W., and almost immediately blew so strong a gale that we could not safely cast the ship until the evening, when we got under way and proceeded to the southward ; but had not proceeded farther than Fair Island, when, after a few hours' calm, we were once more met by a southerly wind. Against this we continued to beat till the morning of the 23d, when, finding that we made but little progress, and that there was no appearance of an alteration of wind, I determined to put into Long Hope, in the Orkney Islands, to await a change in our favour, and accordingly ran in and anchored there as soon as the tide would permit. We found lying here His Majesty's Re- venue Cutter the Chichester ; and Mr. Stu- art, her commander, who was bound direct to REACH THE NORTH POLE. ^Ol to Inverness, came on board as soon as we had anchored, to offer his services in any manner which might be useful. The wind died away in the course of the night of the 24th, and was succeeded on the following morning by a light air from the northward, when we immediately got under way ; but had not entered the Pentland Firth, when it again fell calm and then backed to the southward, rendering it impossible to make any progress in that direction with a dull- sailing ship. I therefore determined on re- turning with the Hecla to the anchorage, and then taking advantage of Mr. Stuart's offer ; and accordingly left thi ship at eight, A.M., accompanied by Mr. Beverly, to proceed to Inverness in the Chichester, and from thence by land to London, in order to lay before His Royal Highness the Lord High Admiral, without further delay, an account of our proceedings. By the zeal- ous exertions of Mr. Stuart, for which I feel greatly obliged to that gentleman, we arrived off Fort George the following morning, and landing at Inverness at noon, 202 NARRATIVE OF AN ATTEMPT immediately set off for London, and arrived at the Admiralty on the morning of the 29th of September. Owing to the continuance of southerly winds, the Hecla did not arrive in the river Thames until the 6th of October, when I was sorry, though not surprised, to learn the death of Mr. George Crawford, the Greenland master, who departed this life on the 29th of September, sincerely la^ mented by all who knew him, as a zealous, active, and enterprising seaman, and an amiable and deserving man. Mr. Crawford had accompanied us in five successive voy- ages to the Polar Seas, and I truly regret the occasion which demands from me this public testimony of the value of his services and the excellence of his character. A few days having been employed at Northfleet in repeating some of the mag- netic observations necessary for completing the series of those experiments, the Hecla proceeded to Deptford. On the 17th of October His Royal Highness the Lord High Admiral was pleased to inspect the TO REACH THE NORTH POLE. 203 ship, together with the equipment of the boats which had been employed in the late Expedition over the ice ; after which the Hecla was dismantled, and paid off on the 1st of November. Having finished my Narrative of this At- tempt to reach the North Pole, I may per- haps be permitted, in conclusion, to offer such remarks as have lately occurred to me, on the nature and practicability of the enterprise. That the object is of still more difficult attainment than was before supposed, even by those persons who were the best quali- fied to judge of it, will, I believe, appear evident from a perusal of the foregoing pages; nor can I, after much consideration and some experience of the various diffi- culties which belong to it, recommend any material improvement in the plan lately adopted. Among the various schemes suggested for this purpose, it has been pro-^ ^04 NARRATIVE OF AN ATTEMPT posed to set out from Spitzbergen, and to make a rapid journey to the northward, with sledges, or sledge-boats, drawn wholly by dogs or rein-deer; but, however feasi- ble this plan may at first sight appear, I cannot say that our late experience of the nature of the ice which they would probably have to encounter, has been at all favour- able to it. It would, of course, be a matter of extreme imprudence to set out on this enterprise without the means of crossing— not merely narrow pools and " lanes *' — but more extensive spaces of open water, such as we met with betv/een the margin of the ice and the Spitzbergen shores ; and I do not conceive that any boat sufficiently large to be efficient and safe for this purpose, could possibly be managed upon the ice, were the power employed to give it motion dependent on dogs or rein-deer. On the contrary, it was a frequent subject of re- mark among the officers, that reason was a qualification scarcely less indispensable than strength and activity, in travelling over such a road; daily instances occurring of our TO REACH THE NORTH POLE. 205 having to pass over difficult places, which no other animal than man could have been easily prevailed upon to attempt. Indeed, the constant necessity of launching and hauling up the boats (which operations we had frequently to perform eight or ten, and, on one occasion, seventeen times in the same day) w^ould alone render it inexpedient, in my opinion, to depend chiefly upon other animals ; for it would certainly require more time and labour to get them into and out of the boats, than their services in the intervals, or their flesh ultimately used as food, would be worth ; especially when it is considered how large a weight of provender must be carried for their own subsistence.* •In case of employing rein-deer, which, from their strength, docility, and hardy habits, appear the best suited to this kind of travelling, there would be an evident ad- vantage in setting out much earlier in the year than we did ; perhaps about the end of April, when the ice is less broken up. ■tt * See p. 8 of this Narrative. 206 NARRATIVE OF AN ATTEMPT and the snow much harder iq>on its surface; than at a more advanced part of the season. But this, it must be recollected, would in- \ulve the necessity of passing the previous winter on the northern coast of Spitzfoergen, which, even under favourable circumstances, would probably tend to weaken in some degree the energies of the men ; while, on the other hand, it would be next to impos- sible to procure there a supply of provender for a number of tame rein-deer, sufficient even to keep them alive, much less in toler- able condition, during a whole winter. In addition to this, it may be observed, that any party setting out earlier must be pro- vided with a much greater weight of warm clothing, in order to guard against the seve- rity of the cold, and also with an increased proportion of fuel for procuring water by the melting of snow, there being no fresh water upon the ice, in these latitudes, before the month ^f June. In the kind of provisions proper to be employed in such enterprises — a very im- portant consideration, where almost the : .■<* TO REACH THE NORTH POLE. 207 S if e a r Lt n t In 9| whole difficulty may be said to resolve itself into a question of weight — I am not aware that any improvement could be made upon that with which we were furnished ; for I know of none which appears to contain so much nutriment in so small a weight and compass. It may be useful, however, to remark, as the result of absolute experience, that our daily allowance of provisions,* al- though previously tried for some days on board the ship, and then considered to be enough, proved by no means sufficient to support the strength of men living con- stantly in the open air, exposed to wet and cold for at least twelve hours a day, seldom enjoying the luxury of a warm meal, and having to perform the kind of labour to which our people were subject. I have before remarked that, previously to our re*-^ turn to the ship, our strength was consider- ably impaired ; and, indeed, there is reason to believe that, very soon after entering * See p. 83 of this Narrative, 208 NARRATIVE OF AN ATTEMPT upon the ice, the ^)hysical energies of the men were gradually diminishing ; although, for the first few weeks, they did not appear to labour under any specific complaint. This diminution of strength, which we con- sired to be principally owing to the want of sufficient sustenance, became apparent, even after a fortnight, in the lifting of the bread- bags and other heavy weights ; and I have no doubt that, in spite of every care on the part of the officers, as well as Mr. Beverly's skilful and humane attention to their ail- ments, some of the men, who had begun to fail before we quitted the ice, would, in a week or two longer, have suffered very severely, and become a serious incum- brance, instead of an assistance, to our party. As far as we were able to judge, JWrithout further trial, Mr. Beverly and my- self were of opinion that, in order to main- tain the strength of men thus employed, for several weeks together, an addition would be requisite, of at least one third more to the provisions which we daily TO REACH THE NORTH POLE. 209 in issued. I need scarcely remark how much this wouid increase -'le difficulty of equip- ping such an Expedition. I cannot dismiss the subject of this enter- prise, without attempting to explain, as far as I am able, how it may have happened that the ice over which we passed was found to answer so little to the description of that observed by the respectable authorities quoted in a former part of this volume.* It frequently occurred to us, in the course of our daily journies, that this may, in some degree, have arisen from our navigators' having generally viewed the ice from a con- siderable height. The only clear and com- manding view on board a ship is that from the crow's-nest ; and Phipps's most import- ant remarks concerning the nature of the ice to the north of Spitzbergen were ma^ from a station several hundred feet above the sea ; and, as it is well known how much the most experienced eye may thus be de- ceived, it is possible enough that the irregu- larities which cost u?5 so much time and * Introduction. »#■' w I I I 210 NARRATIVE OF AN ATTEMPT %K^ labour may, when viewed in this manner, have entirely escaped notice, and the whole surface have appeared one smooth and level plain. *i . It is, moreover, possible that the broken state in which we unexpectedly found the ice may have arisen, at least in part, from an unusually wet season, preceded, perhaps, by a winter of less than ordinary severity. Of the latter we have no means of judging, there being no record, that I am aware of, of the temperature of that or any other winter passed in the higher latitudes ; but, on comparing our Meteorological Register with some others, kept during the corre- sponding season, and about the same lati- tude,* it does appear that, though no mate- rial difference is observable in the mean temperature of the atmosphere, the quantity of rain which we experienced is consider- ably greater than usual ; and it is well known how very rapidly ice is dissolved by * Partic-!arly that of Mr. Scoresby during the month of July, from 1812 to 1818 inclusive, and Captain Franklin's for July and August, 1818. %. ^\-. .^■' c ^m TO REACH THE NORTH POLE. 211 •ill '■^i^^i a fall of rain. At all events, from whatever cause it may have arisen, it is certain that, about the meridian on which we proceeded northward in the boats, the sea was in a totally different state from what Phipps ex- perienced, as may be seen from comparing our accounts ; „ his ship being closely beset, near the Seven islands, for several days about the beginning of August ; whereas the Hecla, in the beginning of June, sailed about in the same neighbourhood without obstruction, and, before the close of July, not a piece of ice could be seen from Little Table Island. I may add, in conclusion, that, before the middle of August, when we left the ice in our boats, a ship might have sailed to the latitude of 82°, almost without touching a piece of ice ; and it was the general opinion among us that, by the end of that month, it would probably have been no very diffi- cult matter to reach the parallel of 83°, about the meridian of the Seven Islands. THE END. m > T , I :.l ■'i ;i m ^M ■4' ■t-. '^s- •v 'tf', L)Tr ' •^1^ .;fc« ■ 0» > •^K LONDON: PIUNTFU BY C. ROWORTH, UKI.I- YARD, 1 EMPLK BAR, i w. y *, * ^^» i i i ^, w-