The Romance of Polar Exploration Part 10

"Yes; our camp is over there. Won't you come across?" the other replied.

"I think we can find room for you, if you will."

Nansen, never dreaming but that he was recognised, a.s.sented, although he wondered why the man did not ask him about the _Fram_. Presently his companion looked at him closely and said: "Are you Nansen?"

"Of course I am," the explorer answered, and at once both his hands were clasped in a hearty grasp as his companion quickly expressed his congratulations.

"I was not certain," he explained. "When I saw you in London you were a fair man with light hair, but now your face and hair are black, and for the moment I did not know you. My name is Jackson."

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE MEETING OF JACKSON AND NANSEN.

Nansen and Jackson returned to Norway in the _Windward_, the s.h.i.+p of the Jackson-Harmsworth Expedition, on August 13, 1896.]

Nansen had forgotten that his face and hair were still begrimed with the dirt and grease of months of travel, and that his own family might have been forgiven for not recognising in the unkempt, travel-stained, long-haired man, the smart, well-set-up Norwegian doctor. Now, however, that he was known, he listened with great interest to the information that his companion, Mr. F. G. Jackson, leader of the Jackson-Harmsworth expedition, was able to give him. When they reached the encampment of the party on Cape Flora, every one turned out in answer to the leader's call and gave the intrepid explorer a characteristic British greeting.

Then they photographed him, as he stood, before they took him into the house and supplied him with the luxury he had not known for more than a year--of a cake of soap and a change of clothes.

While he was enjoying his bath, his hosts exchanged opinions. The fact that he had arrived on foot and alone suggested to them the idea that he was the only survivor of the thirteen who had set out in the _Fram_, and they decided to make no reference to what might be a very unhappy memory. Consequently, when Nansen reappeared, clean and comfortably clad, they had a meal ready for him, and urged him to set to at once. He looked at them and asked where his comrade Johansen was. Had they not brought him in? Of course they knew nothing about Johansen; they believed Nansen was the only survivor, and he had been so long out of the world that it had never occurred to him it was necessary to tell them Johansen was waiting for him to return to breakfast. When two men see no one else but themselves for more than a year, it is not to be wondered at that they forget the rest of the world is not in touch with them.

As soon as he mentioned the fact that Johansen was in the neighbourhood, a party at once started off to fetch him, and the worthy lieutenant was as much surprised as they had been when they came upon him. They at once took charge of him and his belongings, and a few hours later he and Nansen, well washed, well clad, and well fed, were smoking cigars in comfortable chairs in the dining-room of the hospitable Jackson's quarters, the heroes of the occasion.

Three weeks later they were sailing south to Norway in the _Windward_, and arrived at Vardo on August 13, 1896. A week later the _Fram_ entered the same port, with all her crew in good health, and with nearly three years' supplies still on board.

The record of her voyage, after the departure of Nansen and Johansen on March 14, 1895, was very satisfactory. She drifted steadily in the ice towards the north-west until she touched as high as 85 57' N. At the end of February 1896 she became stationary, and remained so until the middle of July, when the crew forced a pa.s.sage through the ice into open water, and from thence the _Fram_ sailed to Norway. The first news the crew received on arrival at Vardo was that Nansen and Johansen had reached there just a week before. They had had some misgivings as to the safety of their two adventurous comrades, and the news of their return cleared away the only sign of uneasiness from the otherwise happy minds of the men who formed one of the most successful expeditions that has ever set out in search of the North Pole.

CHAPTER IX

FRANZ JOSEF LAND AND SPITZBERGEN

The Jackson-Harmsworth Expedition--Object of the Expedition--An Interesting Experiment--The Franz Josef Land Question settled--A Group of Islands, not a Continent--Conway at Spitzbergen--Ancient History--Bygone Splendours--Scenery in the Making--The Romance of Andree--Another Riddle.

The interest and admiration aroused by the brilliant achievements of the Nansen expedition eclipsed in the public mind, for the time being, the work of other and contemporary expeditions, the members of which, nevertheless, were doing admirable service to the cause of science in and about the Arctic Circle. Prominent among these may be mentioned the Jackson-Harmsworth expedition to Franz Josef Land (whose presence there was of such signal service to Nansen and Johansen when, as is related in the preceding chapter, they emerged from their historic dash for the Pole), the Conway exploration of Spitzbergen, and the aeronautical attempt to reach the Pole made by Herr Andree.

The Jackson-Harmsworth expedition left London on July 11, 1894, in the steam yacht _Windward_, Captain Browne, for Franz Josef Land, and comprised the leader, Mr. Frederick G. Jackson; Lieutenant Armitage, R.N.R., astronomer; Dr. Kottlitz, medical officer; Mr. W. S. Bruce, zoologist; and Messrs. Wilton and Heywood. A complete outfit, with stores and provisions for three years was taken. It is an interesting fact that this undertaking was the first instance of an individual London newspaper proprietor displaying the generous enterprise which owners of great American journals had already shown. Lord Northcliffe (then Mr. Alfred Harmsworth) contributed to the expedition the most necessary factor for a prolonged stay in the Arctic regions, the sinews of war.

On arrival at Franz Josef Land, a site for the camp was selected near Cape Flora, and the camp, to which the name Elmwood was given, was laid out. It consisted of a Russian log-house and several canvas houses, as the first intention was to lodge the members in the canvas structures.

But very little experience showed that canvas was not the most comfortable material for residential purposes in Arctic regions, so the whole party moved into the log-house, using the canvas structures for warehousing stores. Here they lived during the three years that the expedition was away, and so well off were they that during the whole period not one member had a day's illness. As the leader said on his return to England in 1897, "a jollier, healthier, and busier little community never existed." They were always busy, and every moment of the day was occupied. Even in the dark winter period they found constant employment for their hands and minds.

In the high lat.i.tude where they were the sun set for the last time about the middle of October, and was not again visible until the latter end of February. From the day the sun went below the horizon until the middle of November there was about a couple of hours faint twilight at "noon,"

but, after that, midday and midnight were not to be distinguished by any change in the light of the sky. It was always dark.

During this period, when the members were in winter quarters, they kept very regular hours. At 8.30 A.M. they had breakfast, and when the meal was over each one took up some part of the household duties--was.h.i.+ng the dishes, making the beds, sweeping the rooms, feeding the dogs, and such like. Unless the weather was very stormy, a couple of hours was spent in exercise over the snow on _ski_, or if the weather was too inclement to allow them to go far away, they spent the two hours in exercising round the house. At 2 P.M. they gathered again round the dining-table and partook of tea, bread and b.u.t.ter, and cheese, spending the afternoon in making tents and harness for the sledge dogs, or anything else that was wanted. At 7.30 P.M. they had dinner, pa.s.sing the remainder of the evening in reading, smoking, games, &c., until 11.30 P.M., when they retired to their bunks.

Of food they always had plenty, living very largely on the game killed.

During the last winter they were at Elmwood a chief article of diet was an Arctic bird, the loon. Great numbers of these visited the islands in the mild seasons, and in the autumn before the expedition returned 1400 were shot and frozen for winter food. As the loons only arrive during the mild season and disappear as soon as winter sets in, Mr. Jackson, in the last autumn he was at Elmwood, caught a number both of loons and kittiwakes, and having attached a copper label to each, with the letter J. engraved upon it, liberated the lot. By this means it is hoped to learn where the birds go to in the winter, for should any bird bearing a copper label be shot in Scotland, Norway, or elsewhere, it will show where their refuge is situated.

The primary object of the expedition was to make a complete exploration of Franz Josef Land, which was formerly considered to be merely the southern extremity of a vast tract of land, possibly a second Greenland, and extending up towards the Pole. The result of the three years' work was to effectually disprove this opinion by showing that in place of a continent there was only a group of small scattered islands. Various voyagers had returned from time to time and reported observations of land in the locality, with high mountain ranges. Gillies Land, Petermann Land, and King Oscar Land all had existence on the maps; but the Jackson-Harmsworth party could only find scattered islands where the coast of Franz Josef Land was charted, and hummocks of piled-up ice where mountain ridges had been seen. Of Gillies Land, Petermann Land, and King Oscar Land no trace could be found. When the expedition went on board the _Windward_ to return to England, the vessel steamed north-west for fifty miles without seeing any indication of land, the water being open and with less ice than would have been probable had land been near.

And yet they were in the locality where Gillies Land was marked on the chart. A journey was also made to within ten miles of the spot where Eastern Johannessen Land was placed on the chart, but no signs of land were visible, although the weather was clear at the time.

During the three years spent at Elmwood, exploring and surveying journeys were frequent in the mild seasons, and the arduous nature of the work done is well shown in the account of the last two journeys undertaken prior to returning to England. On March 16, 1897, a party consisting of Jackson and Armitage, with sledges, thirteen dogs, a pony, and a canoe, set out from the log-house with the intention of going round the western side of Franz Josef Land in order to define its limits. From the start they had to face stormy weather, while the snow was both deep and soft, and the ice rough and treacherous. After a fortnight's travelling, during which they came upon a hitherto undiscovered headland and fjord, they rounded the north-eastern extremity of the western land. Continuing their journey westward, they had to battle against the severity of the weather, the temperature going as low as 40 below zero, and proving disastrous to the animals. By April 7 nearly all the dogs were dead, and progress was very slow and difficult. Three days later the nature of the ice along the sh.o.r.es compelled them to turn inland, and they had to make the best of their way over glaciated land 1500 feet high. Out to sea there was open water, and as they progressed they found that the water was free from ice right up to the glacier face. Then the pony died, and with only their diminished team of dogs to haul, they were obliged to abandon everything that was not absolutely necessary to maintain them during the remainder of their journey. The weather grew worse and worse, and for days they were surrounded by thick heavy mists, with strong gales and drifting snow. They tried to find a way along the sh.o.r.e, leaving the high glacier summit, but what ice there was on the coast was breaking up so rapidly that they were compelled once more to climb to the high level, abandoning the canoe, as there was no chance of their being able to use it.

While regaining the higher level, they came upon the only bear met with during the whole journey, and they were careful not to allow him to escape, his flesh and fat being welcome additions to their stock of food and fuel. The gales now became more severe, until they found it impossible to travel when one was blowing. Consequently they had to press forward as fast and as far as they could in between the blows, and on one occasion were marching for twenty-four hours at a stretch. The ice was also terribly trying, and so rough was it in places that they frequently had to go three times over the same track before they could find a way over or round some awkward obstacle. At one time they were pus.h.i.+ng across the ice of a bay, when they were suddenly stopped by the ice opening on to free water, and, after retracing their steps, they had to climb and haul their stores up the steep sides of the glacier to the summit, forty-five feet above the sea-level.

When they set out, it was arranged that a relief party should meet them at Bell Island the third week in April, but so many delays had been caused that they were not able to reach the rendezvous until a fortnight after the time fixed. The relief party had been waiting for them, considerably anxious at their non-appearance. In the two months they had been travelling, they had had only thirteen and a half fine days.

After returning to Elmwood and resting for ten days, the two again set out to the eastward. They were travelling over the ice, on the second day out, when it gave way under the sledge. They lost all their stores and equipment, and saturated their cartridges. They had at once to turn back, but the ice was growing so thin that they had great difficulty in reaching the sh.o.r.e. For nearly twenty-six hours they had to keep marching before they covered the forty-two miles which lay between the scene of their disaster and Elmwood. This was the last journey undertaken prior to their departure in the _Windward_ for England a month or so later.

The account of the achievements of this expedition would be incomplete were no mention made of two open-water discoveries. One was that of the British Channel, an open-water tract extending from the islands into an open sea, which formed the second discovery, and was named Queen Victoria Sea in honour of the then reigning sovereign. This sea was observed to be free from ice all the time the expedition was on the islands, and the information thus obtained was of considerable service to the Italian explorers who, a few years later, made an ineffectual dash to reach the Pole over the ice-fields.

Further valuable information was obtained by geological observations of the islands. These demonstrated that the islands were an archipelago, formed from the remains of a fairly extensive tableland, the surface of which was composed of basalt so similar in character as to be almost identical with the basalts of the north of Scotland. To the scientific mind this suggests that at one time these far-outlying islands were connected with lands from which they are now separated by enormous stretches of sea, and were subject, in that distant period, to the same volcanic outbursts and covered by the same basaltic flows that resulted.

It must have been a period of enormous volcanic activity, for the beds of basalt overlying the fossil-bearing strata averaged six hundred feet in thickness, while evidence of successive flows is found in the existence of sedimentary fossil-bearing rocks sandwiched between layers of basalt.

Raised beaches were frequently noticed. In one case, on a beach fifty feet above the present sea-level, a pine tree, evidently of considerable age and about twenty feet in length, was found where it had obviously been thrown up by the tide in the bygone years when the beach formed the sh.o.r.e of the sea. Under this beach there was a bed of sandstone showing fossils of plant remains, while above it towered basalt cliffs five hundred feet high. Lignite and bituminous shale were met with in the sandstone under the basalt, and, in muddy stretches of country, horns and other remains of reindeer were found, though there are no living representatives of these animals now on the islands. Among the fossils brought away was one of a plant long since extinct in all parts of the world save j.a.pan, where the tree is still a flouris.h.i.+ng variety.

While Franz Josef Land was being explored and mapped, a private expedition formed by Sir Martin Conway visited Spitzbergen. It was this island which Sir John Franklin advocated should be the base of operations for an expedition to the Pole. The reason for this opinion was the belief that Spitzbergen was merely the most southerly point of a chain of islands, if not of an island continent, stretching away to the north. A similar idea, held in regard to Franz Josef Land, was dispelled by the Jackson-Harmsworth expedition; the information which was made available on the return of the Conway party also dispelled the Franklin view.

Curiously enough the objective of the expedition is one of the most anciently discovered lands in the Arctic regions, and one that has a history full of incident; yet the interior was unknown to man from the time of its discovery in the sixteenth century to the time when Sir Martin Conway and his companions pushed their way in from the coast.

Owing to the tail-end of the Gulf Stream reaching as far as its sh.o.r.es, the seas round Spitzbergen are freer from ice than any other seas in equally high lat.i.tudes. Situated in from 80 to 82 N., the group of islands, to which the single name is given, was first discovered by two Dutch navigators, Barendszoon and Heemskirk, who, in the year 1596, were trying to find a way of reaching China through the Arctic Sea. Eleven years later, Hudson sailed among the islands while trying for a northern route to the Indies. Failing in his attempt to get round by the north, he returned to Spitzbergen and saw how the waters were literally teeming with whales, walrus, seals, and other oil-giving animals. A flouris.h.i.+ng fishery was started, and for years proved a bone of contention among the various maritime nations. No one country caring to annex the islands, they were practically a no-man's land, where each little colony of fishers were as a law unto themselves, though not necessarily to any one else. Consequently fights were frequent and much ill-will engendered, until the Dutch and the British Governments stepped in and came to a mutual understanding on the matter. About this time the fishery trade was so important that one colony numbered over 20,000 inhabitants during the season; but it was not a settled population, and a few years after the understanding had been arrived at, the colony was deserted owing to the ruthless slaughter of all marine animals having practically exterminated them in the vicinity. From that time the islands have been neglected, save for the occasional visits of a few trappers, until Sir Martin Conway and his companions penetrated to the interior, and came back with so many delightful experiences that an enterprising company was formed to make this snow-laden district a place for summer resort.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE FRONT EDGE OF KING'S GLACIER, WESTERN SPITZBERGEN.

The thickness of the ice showing above the sea-level is about 100 feet.

_Photo by E. J. Garwood._]

From a geological point of view the main island is full of interest, for the interior, which is characterised by mountain chains and rugged peaks, is covered with ice, and is sending down glaciers to the coast, where they come under the influence of the warmth generated by the Gulf Stream and rapidly melt. The result is that the constant rush of torrents from the melting glaciers and snowfields is carving out valleys and river-ways, and stripping away mountain sides to make coastal plains so rapidly as to form an admirable object-lesson of physical geography in the making.

During the season Sir Martin Conway and his companions spent on the island they set a record for energy and achievement. They spent thirty-six days in the interior, sleeping either in small tents or in the open, the one being little different to the other, for the tents never kept the rain out and rarely the snow. Then they voyaged in a twelve-ton steamer up and down the coast for a distance of something like a thousand miles, though the steamer cabin was so small a place that when all the five members of the party were down below together, only one of them could stand up at a time. By the date their trip had ended they had crossed the island four times, had made thirteen mountain ascents, had made a rough survey of six hundred square miles of country, had steamed a thousand miles among heavy ice along coasts, through straits, and up bays, for the most part never before visited, and had located innumerable streams, hills, and glaciers.

More romantic and mysterious, but less replete with scientific value, ranks the expedition of Herr Andree, perhaps the most novel of all Arctic expeditions, inasmuch as it was undertaken by balloon. The idea which actuated Herr Andree in his enterprise was to utilise the current of air which, in July, almost invariably blows over Dane's Island to the North. Being an experienced balloonist, he realised that, could he once rise into that current in a balloon, he would be carried right across the Polar region in a few days. From the balloon car he would be able to observe the character of the region below him, and set at rest the question whether perpetual ice, open water, or land, occupied the extreme northerly spot of the world's surface.

With two companions, Dr. Strindberg and Herr Fraenkel, and a specially prepared balloon, an attempt was made to get away in July 1896, but was unsuccessful, and the start was postponed for a year. In July 1897 the members of the expedition were again ready, and on July 11 they were cut loose and floated away out of sight to the North. Since then no authentic news has been heard of them.

They went away prepared to face a long detention in the frozen world. In the car of the balloon they carried weapons, ammunition, and material wherewith to build a shelter, should the balloon collapse and leave them on the ice. An aluminium boat was also carried, so that the party could escape by sea if necessary. Several carrier pigeons were taken, and were to be liberated at intervals on the pa.s.sage; but although one pigeon is said to have been shot in the Far North, it is doubtful whether it was one of the Andree birds.

The balloon, when it went out of sight, was travelling at a speed which would have carried it over the Pole in a few days, and probably have enabled it to descend in Siberia in about a week. For the first fortnight after it had started, therefore, interest all over the world was keenly excited for further news. But the fortnight pa.s.sed without any reliable intelligence being received, and a month followed, and so on until a year had gone by. Then relief and search parties were talked about, and the Swedish Geographical Society sent one out to look for the missing balloonists in Siberia. It did not meet with Andree, nor did it obtain any reliable information respecting him. News was certainly published in every civilised country to the effect that some outlying hunting tribes had come upon a huge bag, having a ma.s.s of cordage attached to it, together with the remains of some human bodies. The Russian, Swedish, and Norwegian Governments immediately sent forward auxiliary search parties, but their only success was to trace the origin of the report, and find that a Siberian trader had, in a moment of mischievous humour, hoaxed a too confiding telegraph agent.

Later, on September 12th, 1899, a Swedish sloop, the _Martha_, reached Hammerfest with the information that a buoy, branded with the name of the Andree expedition, had been found to the north-east of King Charles Islands. The buoy had lost the screw plug from the top, and had been so damaged by coming in contact with some hard substance that the interior cylinder was too dented to permit of an examination being made of the inside.

Andree was well supplied with these buoys, and at any time one may be discovered containing a record of his doings from the moment he disappeared with his balloon sailing towards the north. 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 Andree 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. All that is certain is that the party went out of sight drifting towards the north. They carried their lives in their hands, and knew that they did so. Had they succeeded, they would have achieved a mighty triumph; they failed, and in doing so set their names as indelibly on the scroll of Fame as any hero who has laid down his life in the contest with the measureless mystery of the Pole.

CHAPTER X

THE POLAR METEORITES