THREE YEARS OF ARCTIC SERVICE.*
THERE are two aspects of Major Greely'a narrative which will have separate and special interest for the readers,—the scientific and the social. While the achievements of the expedition were considerable enough to command universal respect, and to deserve the closest attention from every man qualified to give an
For those of our readers who have not followed the adventures of the Lady Franklin Bay Expedition, we may briefly recapitu- late the story. There are, perhaps, few now who are not familiar with Lieutenant Weyprecht'a plan for establishing a series
of co-operating stations in the higher latitudes, for the purpose of scientific survey and simultaneous observation. America undertook two of these stations,—Point Barrow, lat. 71° 18 N., and Lady Franklin Bay, 810 44' N. To the latter station an expedition was sent in July, 1881, under the command of Lieutenant Greely, 5th Cavalry Acting Signal Officer.
To Greely, as to Julius Payer, the work was new and unexpected. He quotes Payer's story of how, in 1868, while employed in the survey of the Orteler Alps, a news- paper with an account of Koldeway's first expedition found its way into his tent, and bow iu the evening he held forth on the North Pole to the Jiigers and herdsmen of his party as they sat around the fire, no one more astonished than himself that there should be men endued with such capacity to endure cold and darkness, without the shadow of a presentiment that the very next year he would himself have joined an expe- dition to the North Pole. And Greely observes that his own experience was similar. He says :—
"Surprised, as all the world, at their return, I read one day in London that the Arctic squadron had reached the Irish coast, and with all England I was absorbed in the story they had to tell. It bad then for me a deep, although impersonal, interest, but never in my wildest fancies did I picture myself as one of the next expedition which should sail northward between the 'Pillars of Hercules' into the 'Unknown Regions.'"
The expedition, which left St. John's on July 7th, had by August 12th crossed Lady Franklin Bay and entered Discovery Harbour. Here the party landed, and established themselves for their two years' work at a post named by them Fort Conger. The 'Proteas; which had conveyed the party, left them all in health and high spirits, and returned to America, bearing an
• Three Years of Arctic Service. By Adolphus W. Greely. 2 vole. London: Richard Bentley and Sons. 1886. important letter from Greely, containing directions to govern the relief parties which were promised, and on which he depended. We commend the careful perusal of this letter, which is given in full in Commander Schley's narrative* to the reader who takes an intelligent interest in all that followed. Lay criticism would be unbecoming, and for the disaster which befell the Proteus ' when she was sent again as relief ship in 1883, no human being could be held responsible. Yet it is difficult to read the entire record without an impatient sense of mismanagement somewhere, for which brave lives paid the penalty. There can be no doubt, as Schley observes, that the fortunate voyage of the Protens,' when she conveyed the expedition in six days from UFernivik to the edge of Lady Franklin Bay, had one most unfortunate result,—" It created a false impression in everybody's mind not only that the station could be reached easily, but that it could be reached without danger," whereas that voyage was an altogther exceptional one. But we must return to Major Greely's own narrative. Scarcely had they completed the house which was to shelter them, and made all necessary preparations for the work in hand, and accomplished a not inconsiderable amount of sledge journeying, including the discovery of musk-oxen, and depositing stores for future use, than the Arctic winter was upon them. They had reason to be satisfied with what they had been able in so short a period to do. They had established four depots to the north- ward, had ascertained the condition of stores in Lincoln Bay, had reached points previously unknown in the interior, had obtained over three tons of fresh meat by hunting, and had added considerably to their knowledge of the physical character of the country. Besides all this, as Greely observes, "life at the station itself was by no means devoid of interest. The com- pletion of the house, the placing of scientific instruments, the construction of the meteorological, astronomical, and magnetic observatory, kept the carpenter force busy for many weeks." "Until the middle of September," he says, "no one had scarce a breathing spell." And throughout the winter, with all that winter means to men so situated, the members of the expedition lost no time. An excellent series of observa- tions and experiments was made. The primary object of the expedition was, we must remember, to carry out the scientific programme of the Hamburg Polar Conference. And, with due regard to this, the utmost care was given to physical observation. The series of observations, Greely tells us, commenced on July 1st, 1331, at St. John, Newfoundland, and ended June 21st, 1881, only forty hours before the rescue of the survivors. While dwelling on this portion of their work, we cannot omit telling once again the story of their pendulum as told in these pages, and yet more graphically by Major Greely, before the Geographical Society, in December last. Under the supervision of Professor Pierce, a beautiful pendulum was made especially for this work. In the terrible, ever-to-be-remembered retreat, when it was the fate of the whole party to be drifted about, subject to the action of the gales and winds for fourteen or fifteen days, and everything had to be abandoned which could possibly be dispensed with, the men still carried the bulky pendulum. Greely said to them all, that much as he wanted to save the instrument, he was un- willing to lessen their chances of life by hauling it longer unless all concurred, and that whenever any one spoke the word, the pendulum should go. "Not a single man ever indicated his desire I should drop it, and a few spoke out freely, and said, 'Hold on to the pendulum ; if it goes to the bottom of the sea, we go with it,'" and, adds Major Greely, "when the Relief Squadron came, on June 22nd, the first sight that any American had of any signs of us was that pendulum standing there, and pointing towards the heavens as an indication that we had done our work, and had come to the place we bad promised, that our work might live after us even if we died ;" for be it understood, that in spite of all their terrible sufferings, when they reached Baird Inlet, southward of Cape Sabine, with one boat, they had with them every scientific instrument, every record, every private journal, and everything of scientific value. But we must go back a little to an earlier stage in the narrative. With the first dawn of spring, all preparations for a great sledge expedition were complete. Minor expeditions were first under- taken, and the narrative is fall of the incidents of rough travelling, camp life, 85c., while the men were trained to Polar hardihood. And so it came to pass that later on, in May, 1882, Lieutenant Lockwood, with hie "inseparable sledge-corn- Resew of Groot% by Commander W. S. Schley.
panion," Brainard, reached a higher latitude than was ever before reached by mortal man, and on a land further north than was supposed by many to exist, they unfurled the Stars and Stripes, with an exultation more easily imagined than described. The record of that journey stirs the blood with something of the generous ardour that moved the men engaged in it, and yet the narrative is a very simple one. Major Greely rarely departs from the notes of the diaries kept by Lockwood and Brainard on the way. He himself, in their absence, accomplished on foot a trip inland across Grinnell Land of two hundred and fifty miles in twelve days, largely increasing the existing amount of know- ledge of that country. We wish we had space here even to indicate the results of that exploration. The discovery of Lake Hazen alone was an occasion never to be forgotten :—
"A couple of hundred yards farther, and a sharp turn brought in sight a scene which we shall all remember to our dying day. Before us was an immense ice-bound lake. Its snowy covering reflected diamond dust' from the midnight sun, and at our feet was a broad pool of open blue water which fed the river. To the northward some eight or ten miles—its base at the northern edge of the lake (Hazen)—a partly snow-clad range of high hills (Garfield range) appeared, behind and above which the hog-back, snow-clad summits of the United States mountains rose with their stern, unchanging splendour. To right and left on the southern shore, low, rounded hills, bare as a rule of snow, extended far to east and west, until in reality or perspective they joined the carving mountains to the north. The scene was one of great beauty and impressiveness."
And so the days went on through a second winter and second summer. No visiting steamer arrived. As the world knew, but as they did not know, the Proteus,' on her way out to the expedition, had sunk. With admirable skill, Major Greely kept his men, even in winter, employed, exercised, and surrounded with all that could best conduce to health, and in this respect his efforts while at Fort Conger were amply rewarded. But two men, both of whom are now living, were in any way in a state which would prevent active field work when the necessary retreat began. From this point, Major Greely compiles his narrative chiefly from and in the words of his own journal. It is a simple, touching record. The little band of heroic men, after fighting incredible difficulties in four hundred miles of travel by boat, and another hundred with sledge and boat, most of the way in imminent peril, reached the neighbourhood of Cape Sabine at last, in health and undiminished numbers, on September 29th. The passage from thence to Littleton Island and safety, which had seemed so easy, proved "so impossible, the most querulous and un- practical of the party never even suggested it." They lived through the horror of another winter on starvation rations ; but in April came the beginning of the end. It is difficult to read this narrative without a feeling akin, to friendship for the two Eskimos who accompanied the expedition. Jan was drowned ; poor Christiansen died on April 5th of insufficient food.
"We dreaded to use or hear the word starvation." One after another succumbed, till on the morning of the memorable June 22nd, seven exhausted, starving men were all that remained of the expedition when the whistle of the 'Thetis' was heard, and in a few minutes they knew themselves saved. One little incident at this moment reveals the spirit which had dominated, with perhaps two exceptions, the whole party :—
"Connell, scarcely conscious, was on the verge of the grave, and
others were in almost as critical a condition. Bierderbick, the moment he realised our relief, acted with the same unselfish and considerate spirit as had ever characterised him. The two spoonfuls of whiskey left were divided,—one given instantly to Connell, and on my refusine the second, it went with its fellow. As ever in oar history, the weak and helpless had naught but kindness and con- sideration from tho stronger."
The commander of that expedition, who could be stern on occasion, had never once slept on the solitary mattress reserved in these trying times for his uNe, keeping it for the sick, and apportioning from their scant store double rations to the help- less comrade who had lost hands and feet by the frost. The remnant were brought home with much chastened rejoicing to their homes in America, having, in Major Greely's own words, "done what they went to do." In the ample appendices to his narrative are given the scientific results of the expedition.
Among them, a slight but interesting one, is Brainard's notes on a petrified forest discovered May 20th, 1883, near Cape Baird, 81° 31? N., 64° 31' W.
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