G. Firth Scott

“ Never, perhaps, was the return of the sun more welcomed than by the desolate castaways on the floe. But its appearance and the commencement of spring was not entirely an unmixed blessing. The rising temperature naturally caused the ice to break up, and as the floe upon which they were marooned gradually decreased in size, fresh anxiety was caused to them by the possible danger of their haven being broken up. As the days passed, they saw their food supply growing smaller and smaller, until starvation stared them in the face, and hope was almost dead. ”

“ As the frost comes down along the coast, rocks are split asunder with a noise of big guns, and the sound goes booming away across the frozen tracts, startling the slouching bear in his lonely haunts, and causing him to give vent to his hoarse, barking roar in answer. The ice, just forming into sheets, creaks and cracks as the rising or falling tide strains it along the shore; fragments, falling loose upon it, skid across the surface with the ringing sound which travels so far. In the spring the melting ice-floes groan as they break asunder ”

“ Long after the sun had disappeared a mock sun would shine in the sky, and in the twilight, when shadows were no longer cast, men and dogs were liable to walk over cliffs and fall down crevices in the ice through being unable to distinguish them. Penetrating farther into the ice world, they learned that throughout the winter the ice heaved and crashed upon itself, making an incessant uproar as it groaned and creaked. The experience of Nansen and the Fram emphasised this, but in the earlier days of Polar research silence was presumed to reign in the vicinity of the Arctic basin. ”

“ But ever in the colours there is something pale, a paleness which predominates with indescribable delicateness of tone in the tints of the horizon, and in the blue and white shades of the stretches of land, which contrast so strongly with the dull brown of our immediate neighbourhood, and even with the sharply defined ice wall of Snow Hill. ”

“ In the long winter nights the aurora borealis glares and blazes in the sky, "roaring and flashing about a ship enough to frighten a fellow," as an old quartermaster, who was with Sir F. L. McClintock in his search for Sir John Franklin, used to tell the midshipmen. In the prolonged sunset and sunrise the sky is ablaze with colour, and, when the sun has gone, the rarefied atmosphere produces many curious astronomical figures. As explorers penetrated farther into the great ice-bound region they encountered fresh peculiarities. ”

“ Who has not marvelled at the sublime audacity of the gallant little band of three who challenged undying fame by seeking the Pole in a balloon, abandoning all the old-fashioned notions about ice-ships and dog-sledges, and trusting themselves and their enterprise to the four winds of heaven and the latest scientific scheme? ”

“ It was while this sort of ice was being formed that the Fram and her crew rested in the North, the vessel braving every nip by slipping upwards from the pressure; the crew, confident in her capabilities, living in merry good-humour in her cabin. What the confusion of the ice was like may be gathered from the opinion of those who saw it when the return of the sun enabled them to do so, and also relieved the pressure. "Imagine a stormy sea, all broken waves and flying billows, suddenly frozen solid into ice, and you have some idea, on a small scale, of the piled-up hummocks on the pack." ”

“ They had now travelled 500 miles since they left Fort Conger, and not only were the men considerably exhausted by their recent struggle, but winter was setting in very rapidly with constant and heavy storms. It was therefore decided to form a camp where they were, while the snow had not frozen too hard for them to get some stones for a shelter. They had been compelled, on their journey over the ice, to abandon everything in the way of covering save their sleeping-bags, and unless they built a hut of some description the rigour of the winter would inevitably be fatal to all. ”

“ The discoveries along the north coast of Greenland opened up the very interesting question whether the land did not extend right up to the Pole itself. As far as any one had penetrated to the north of the coast, land was still to be seen farther on; it was an open question whether this great ice-covered country was an island, with its northern shores swept by the Polar ice-floes, or whether it extended almost to the dimensions of a continent in the Polar region. ”

“ Blindly, but doggedly, they stumbled onward, silent in their agony, brave to the last when worn-out nature gave way and they sank down, one after the other, till none was left alive, and only the still figures, lying face downwards on the frozen snow, bore mute witness of how they had neither faltered nor wavered in their duty, but had died, as Britons always should die, true to the end. ”

“ When Parry was on Melville's Island, he records having heard the voices of men who were talking not less than a mile away. In the depth of winter, when the great cold has its icy grip on everything, the silence is unbroken along the shores of the Polar Sea; but when the frost sets in, and again when the winter gives way to spring, there is abundance of noise. ”

“ Men of colder [Pg 269] temperaments, the sons of the cold-blooded North, would probably have postponed their rejoicings until the battle had been won, but the enthusiasm of the South needed more than the gloom of an approaching Arctic winter to subdue it. Wherefore the Arctic moved, and the children of the South learned in a few brief hours something of the power and might and majesty of the realms they had come to conquer.
An ice-floe, drifting in the sea beyond the bay, caught the edge of the shore ice, in which the Stella Polare lay at rest, as it passed. ”

“ No one can either read or write; the boys are taught how to hunt, how to manage the kayak and sledge, and how to make and use the weapons of the chase, while the girls are taught how to sew the fur garments, and keep the stone lamp burning with blubber and moss, so as to prepare the drinking water and the frizzled seal flesh they eat. For the rest, their chief desire is to live as happily as they can, and this, according to those who have been amongst them, they manage to do merrily and well. ”

“ It is a battle between the resistance and the energy of nature, and usually energy wins along the line of the least resistance. Here, when once a point gives way, the accumulated energy concentrates. The "point" may be an area of ice a hundred miles square and fifty feet thick, and this tremendous mass, moved by the immeasurable force of the water pressure beneath it, grinds upon its surroundings and upon itself. ”

“ The steady hum of the drifting snow, together with its movement, made the brain dizzy, and the two explorers generally found it necessary to form a camp when such a storm came on, the snow soon piling up against their shelter tent and effectually protecting them from the wind. Then, when the breeze had died away and the snow ceased moving, they were able to dig out their sledge and proceed. ”

“ One of them, in his diary, wrote: "Adversity in any form would fail, I think, to dampen the spirits of the men. Our situation is desperate. Any moment the ice may crumble beneath our feet and the sea swallow up the entire party. Still, while exercising on the [Pg 133] ice this evening, the men danced and sang as merrily as they would have done in their own homes. They are irrepressible in the face of all this uncertainty and perhaps starvation."
The end of the month found them still beset, and with barely fifty days' rations. ”

“ The Mystery of the South Pole—Ignored by Early Navigators—An Accidental Dutch Discovery—Captain Cook Sets Sail—Discouraged by the Ice—Turns Back in Despair—A Second Accidental Discovery—Weddell breaks the Barrier—Antarctic Land revealed—British resume the Search.
While the desire to penetrate into the mysteries of the North held the mind of mankind from the earliest times, the very existence of a similar world of ice, at the opposite pole, was undreamed of until a few centuries back. ”

“ Who has not been thrilled with the daring shown by Nansen and his trusty lieutenant when, leaving ship and comrades, with their lives literally in their hands, they made their historic dash and emerged with what was then the record of "Farthest North," and which has since been beaten by only twenty miles?
Full of pluck and daring are all the records of Polar exploration, and, in addition to that attraction, there is something else about the subject which fascinates and holds the imagination. There is a mystery about the cold, white, silent region ”

“ As winter sets in within the Arctic Circle, the sea which flows between the northern coasts of Europe, Asia, and America becomes covered with ice to the shores, thus forming an enormous field of ice some two thousand miles across. This, lying on the surface of the water, often having a thickness of from thirty to fifty feet, checks, but cannot control the tides. The ebb, on one hand, leaves vast tracks of ice, previously afloat, straining on the ground, cracking so as to form enormous fissures and weakening the surface resistance. ”

“ When, at the expense of a great deal of patience and time, everything is ready for a fresh start, the inexperienced driver is able to estimate the value of cracking the whip over, instead of on, the back of a lazy dog.
Even then, however, it is not all plain sailing. The dogs possess a wisdom of their own, and they never act so well together as when they reach a piece of particularly rough ice over which the sledge does not move easily. ”

“ The British ensign was lowered to half-mast on the pole of the big sledge and a Union Jack was carefully wrapped round the body. With great exertion, in their emaciated condition, a place was hollowed out in the frozen soil, and there they placed him, the funeral service being read by Commander Markham, who, in his diary, thus wrote of the ceremony: "Of all the melancholy and mournful duties I have ever been called upon to perform, this has been the saddest. A death in a small party like ours, and under the present circumstances, is a most depressing event, and is keenly felt by all. ”

“ About thirty yards away from the "woman" there lay the "dog," a smaller mass weighing only half a ton. The "man" was some miles away, as became his dignity and size, for he was found to be a mighty mass, one hundred tons in weight, rugged in form, and so intractable when attempts were made to move him, that his removal forms a tale so full of romance as almost to suggest fiction.
As it was late in the season when Peary's ship, the Kite, arrived, there was only time to remove the "woman" and the "dog," the "man" being located but untouched pending the return of another season. ”

“ When on April 11 they bade their comrades farewell, they had provisions for seventy days, and all were in good health and spirits. The work of dragging the boats and sledges up and down the great masses of rugged ice which covered the Polar Sea was terribly trying, however, and by the time the ten miles were covered every one was ready to creep into the sleeping-bags and rest. As the sun began to rise above the horizon it made the [Pg 101] snow and ice sparkle and glitter so much that their eyes, accustomed for so long to darkness, could not stand it. ”

“ When Peary went to the neighbourhood of Cape York to establish the station from whence he started on his brilliant march across the ice-cap, he came closely in contact with the tribe of Eskimo living there. The members of this tribe, isolated from the world and out of communication with all their kindred tribes, were, he felt assured, the descendants of those with whom Ross was associated earlier in the century. In his successive visits to the place Peary became on very friendly terms with the people, and gained their confidence in a way that no other explorer had yet done. ”

“ No greater contrast can be given of the enormous strides which had been made in navigation during the thirty years which had elapsed since Franklin sailed away on his last and fatal voyage, than the fact that whereas after six weeks' journeying Franklin had barely reached the region of drift ice, in six weeks from the date of leaving Portsmouth the Alert and Discovery were almost in the region of perpetual ice. ”

“ From March 21 to September 23 daylight continues; from September 23 to March 21 the sun is never visible. The heat at midsummer is probably never above freezing point; at midwinter the cold is so intense that one's eyes would freeze in their sockets if exposed to it.
At the limit of the ice two phenomena are met with which explain the fanciful legend of Pytheas. As summer gives place to the cold of autumn, and as winter gives way to the mild temperature of spring, there comes down upon the water a dense mass of fog, to which the name "frost-smoke" is given. ”

“ Along the shores of the continents which surround it, open water forms in the time of sunshine, and so there is room for the energy of the tides to escape. The currents can also, from time to time, break off great areas into floes and packs which drift away to the warmer South until they melt, leaving more room for the enormous stretch of tumbled ruggedness behind them to swing and drift in obedience to the driving currents. ”

“ Seldom have men shown themselves so absolutely courageous, for at the best it was merely slow starvation so as to be able to make an almost hopeless dash for freedom and food in four months' time. The suffering during those four months was terrible. Men, as soon as they got hold of their day's rations, were tempted to devour them at once, and so still for a time the ceaseless gnawing of their hunger ”

“ It is not likely; it is scarcely probable that any sign will ever be discovered of the balloon or its occupants. For years the frozen North held all traces of the Franklin expedition from the eyes of the searchers who were able to conduct their operations along the route they knew Franklin had followed. No search party can knowingly follow the route Andrée and his comrades took. Their fate will probably be for ever a mystery, for so many things might have happened that no one theory can claim for itself more probability than another. ”

“ Their comrades who had left them to push forward for help were equally stolid in their struggle against overwhelming odds. As they were crossing the ice between King William's Land and the mainland, a great cracking of the floes startled them with the fear that the ice was breaking up. Hastily placing their stores in the whale-boat, which they had been dragging in addition to the hand-sledges, they abandoned everything else, fearful lest the sudden opening of the floes might cut them off from a further advance. ”