Polaris

“ You cannot be lost if you have Polaris to guide you. The magnetic compass varies and misleads, [Pg 47] the sun and the moon change their places, all the other stars circle through the heavens, but Polaris is always there, shining over the pole of the earth, the image of steadfastness. Only the slow Precession of the Equinoxes affects it. At the present time it is within one degree and a quarter of the true pole of the heavens, and it is drawing nearer that point, so that in two hundred years it will be less than half a degree from it—less than the apparent diameter of the moon. ”

“ If amazed at the apparition our tourist thus transported back in time turned to get his bearings from the north, not less astonished would he be to discover his old friend the pole-star unaccountably gone. Even the learned might experience a shock. Certainly to those who drink in their star-knowledge through the medium of the Dipper would it prove disconcerting to find Polaris adrift in the sky. ”

“ The Polaris, however, was nothing better than a river-steamer of small power, ill adapted for encountering the perils of Arctic navigation,—with a crew, all told, of thirty men, women, and children, including eight Eskimos. If she could accomplish such a voyage without difficulty, and could attain so high a latitude, it was reasonable to anticipate that a properly equipped English expedition, under equally favourable circumstances, would do, not only as much, but much more, and carry the British flag into the waters of the circumpolar sea, if such existed. ”

“ Polaris is presumably about the size of the sun, and at the distance of the nearest fixed star our sun would shine as a star no brighter than Polaris. It is of interest to note in passing that the North Star is elevated as many degrees above the horizon as the observer is north of the Equator, so that if a person were to stand at the North Pole, Polaris would be directly overhead. ”

“ As I was thus darting through immensity I glanced toward our own Solar System and could see nothing but a flickering star which was our Sun. Not the faintest sign could I see of our world or of Jupiter.
A strange feeling passed over me when I began to realize how far I was from home. I sped onward until I reached the North Star. It is a burning sun, but not inhabited.
Polaris is the center of a magnificent system. If a certain few of its worlds could be seen through a telescope, they would be picturesque in the extreme, somewhat resembling our beautiful Saturn. ”

“ It was also shown that the temperature, even in lat. 82°, was not of a nature to overcome the energy and enthusiasm of men accustomed to life and adventure in the Arctic World. These data, so conclusively established by experience, constituted a source of great encouragement to future navigators, and permit the conclusion that the Polaris expedition, with all its disasters and mismanagement, helped forward the great work of discovering the North Pole. ”

“ Every breeze which could possibly blow upon us, no matter from what point of the horizon, must be a south wind. Where we were, one day and one night constituted a year, a hundred such days and nights constituted a century. Had we stood in that spot during the six months of the arctic winter night, we should have seen every star of the northern hemisphere circling the sky at the same distance from the horizon, with Polaris (the North Star) practically in the zenith.
THE RECONNOITERING PARTY AT THE POLE
(On the Sledge are Merely the Instruments, a Tin of Pemmican and a Skin or Two.) ”

“ Need of sleep, more than fatigue, warned both man and beasts of camping-time. Polaris, who seemed to have a definite point in view, urged on the dogs for an hour longer than was usual on an ordinary trip, and they came to the border of the immense snow-plain.
To the northeast lay a ridge of what appeared to be snow-covered hills. Beyond the edge of the white prairie was a forest of ice. Millions of jagged monoliths stood and lay, jammed closely together, in every conceivable shape and angle. ”

“ Seamen are always prompt to detect the weakness of their officers; and the crew of the Polaris soon assured themselves that their new captain was deficient both in courage and resolution.
However, the winter gradually closed in upon the little ice-bound company of the Polaris, and they were called upon to endure, with such patience as was at their command, the severities of the long Arctic night. It was very dark, yet not totally dark. For an hour or two at noon it was possible to wander a short distance from the snow-roofed vessel ”

“ Reflection clearly shows that pole-star worship must have taken a stronger hold upon the ancient inhabitants of Scandinavia and their descendants, the seafaring Vikings, than upon any other nation. We are compelled to admit that the recognition that Polaris formed the centre of axial rotation and the middle of the sky, would have impressed itself most profoundly upon observers stationed in the latitude where winter darkness prevailed and the pole-star appeared to be nearly overhead. ”

“ As men dwelt upon them, they came to acknowledge that the “age of romance” was not ended yet.
On the 18th of September 1873, the Arctic whaling-steamer arrived at Dundee with eleven of the Polaris survivors, who had been transferred to her from the Ravenscraig, as the latter was not homeward bound. Three others reached America in the Intrepid; and thus the expedition of the Polaris terminated without any loss of life, if we except the unfortunate death of her enthusiastic commander, Captain Hall. ”

“ In August, 1872, it was decided to return to the United States. Pushed into an impenetrable pack, anchored to a floe, the Polaris drifted with the main ice-pack down Kennedy Channel, through Kane Sea, and into Smith Sound, where, on October 15, 1872, off Northumberland Island, the pack was disrupted by a violent gale, which freed the Polaris. Part of her crew, left upon the ice-pack, experienced the horrors of a mid-winter drift southward of thirteen hundred miles, and were picked up off the coast of Labrador by the sealer Tigress, in the spring of 1872. ”

“ In order to determine the existence of such a variation of latitude, I have examined the observations of Polaris with the Greenwich Transit Circle in the years 1851-2-3-4. The observations of the upper transit during each month were collected, and the mean of each month found. The same was done for the lower transits. The difference of zenith distance of upper and lower transit is twice the polar distance of Polaris, and half the sum gives the co-latitude of Greenwich. ”

“ Strenuous, though unavailing, efforts were made to push the Polaris further northward; failing this, attempts were then made to find a safe harbor to the eastward, but none was accessible. In the meantime the main ice-pack of the Arctic Ocean, setting southward to its normal position, carried the Polaris steadily to the south, through Robinson Channel, a distance of nearly fifty miles, and nearly caused her destruction by forcing her on the Greenland coast. ”

“ Polaris and Ursa Major, as the central source of life, power extending to four directions, rotation and duality underlying quadruplicity. In my opinion no more graphic presentation of the rotation of Ursa Major around Polaris, the central ruler of heaven, could have been devised than the cross figure from the centre of which fire was perpetually obtained. ”

“ It seems more than probable that primitive astronomers or their descendants, who had been reared in a knowledge of the northern Polaris and of the periodical motion of the circumpolar constellations, should continue their observations in whatever latitude they found themselves. It seems possible that they may have observed the Southern Cross and recognized its closeness to the pivot or centre of rotation ”

“ As there is no erasure in the list, one is reluctantly compelled to conjecture that the real minutes of that meeting have been destroyed. ↑ I have chosen the inferior meridian altitude of Polaris, merely because the number of sets of observations are rather fewer. The difference between the extremes of the altitude of Polaris, dedaced from sets taken above the pole by the same observers, amounts to seven seconds and a half. ”

“ The following year, on August 12th, the Polaris left winter-quarters, got on her beam ends on the 15th of the same month, and was driven south to latitude 77° 35', when, owing to the heavy pressure of the ice, the vessel was thrown up, and while landing stores broke from her moorings October 15th, with a part of the crew, and drifted away. The party remaining on the ice consisted of 19 persons, five of whom were women and children. ”

“ Polaris or pole-star is known generally as North Star, and this star is most important to the outdoor girl. At all times the North Star marks the north, its position never changes, and seeing that star and knowing it, you will always know the points of the compass. ”

“ Everywhere a fauna appeared similar to that of Greenland; herds of musk-oxen, white hares, and other polar animals, were seen, and they even thought that traces of human beings were perceptible. The crew was eager to make an opening through the iceberg; but the sailing-master of the expedition, Captain Buddington, would not permit the attempt, and the Polaris returned to winter in Robeson's Channel, in latitude a little above 81°. ”

“ Polar circle, a parallel of latitude encircling each of the poles at a distance of 23° 28′ from the pole—the north polar being called the arctic, the south the antarctic, circle; Polar lights, the aurora borealis or australis. [L. polaris—polus, a pole.]
Polder, pōl′dėr, n. in the Netherlands, land below the level of the sea or nearest river, which, originally a morass or lake, has been drained and brought under cultivation: a morass. ”

“ A great deal had been accomplished by this expedition. The Alert had explored the west coast for two hundred and twenty miles, the Discovery had surveyed the Greenland coast, and Captain Stephenson placed a tablet over the grave of the brave Captain Hall of the Polaris, with a suitable inscription. The Alert men had attained the highest latitude ever reached, viz, 82 degrees 27 minutes North. The idea of the open Polar Sea then received its “quietus,” for nothing but ice is there. ”

“ In the antarctic wilds far below Ross Sea, Polaris Janess (Polaris—of the Snows) , was born, of a mother he never knew, and grew to manhood's years knowing one human face only, that of his father. When that father died, the young man set his face to the north, to find the world of men, of which his father and his books had told him ”

“ The struggle to reach the Pole was the form in which Arctic exploration came to life again after the paralysing effect of the Franklin tragedy. Some of the Franklin relief expeditions had reached very high latitudes, and, shortly after the great tragedy, the exploring ships of Dr Kane and Dr Hayes, and the Polaris under Captain Hall, had all passed the eightieth parallel and been within less than ten degrees of the Pole. The idea grew that there might be an open polar sea, navigable at times to the very apex of the world. ”

“ If we face towards the Pole-Star, which, as we have seen, preserves its place in the centre of the northern region of the sky, we have the south behind us, the east is on our right, the west upon our left. All the stars revolving round the Pole-Star, from right to left, should be recognized according to their mutual relations rather than referred to the cardinal points. On the other side of Polaris, as compared with the Great Bear, we find another constellation which is easily recognized. ”

“ The weather was getting very sharp now, the young ice formed and became extremely tough with great rapidity, and while this time I had at heart no doubt 258of our eventual escape unless some unforeseen event occurred, still the lateness of the season and our surroundings were such as to make a repetition of the Polaris’s experience, and a winter’s drift in the pack by no means impossible.
The unforeseen contingency seemed to have arrived when it was reported on the 14th that the propeller was loose, and if we did any backing we would lose it. ”

“ High mountains attracted lightning-clouds and when these collected around their summits whence rivers constantly flowed, life-giving rain descended; consequently the tops of cloud-capped mountains must reach to the axle of the heaven where fire, heat and rain were being generated and distributed by the rotation of celestial bodies. As Polaris the axle, pivot or fire socket, was immovable it could most appropriately be figured by a wooden or stone socket, from which fire and water flowed towards the four quarters. ”

“ THE ARCTIC REGIONS
The history of the Polar Regions, of those vast areas, difficult of access, which include millions of square miles of land and ocean at either extreme of our planet, is of surpassing interest and importance. It is not only that we here meet with examples of heroism and devotion which must entrance mankind for all time. It is not only that there are dangers to be encountered and difficulties to be overcome which call forth the best qualities of our race. These, no doubt, are the main reasons for the deep interest which polar exploration has always excited. ”

“ The preceding summer we had driven the ship through the almost solid ice of the channels lying between Etah and Cape Sheridan; we had hunted through the long twilight of the autumn to supply ourselves with meat; we had lived through the black and melancholy months-long arctic night, sustaining our spirits with the hope of final success when the returning light should enable us to attack the problem of our passage across the ice of the polar sea. ”