When the broken-down party arrived at the ship, early in the morning of the 14th, only five of the seventeen original members of the crew were able to drag the sledges alongside; the rest had to be carried. Markham had been absent for 72 days; his outward track extended to a distance of 319 miles, and his track home, to 281 miles, making a total of 600 miles (statute). A sounding taken at the northernmost point reached gave 72 fathoms with clay bottom; the temperature at the bottom was 28.8°, and that of the surface of the sea was only 0.3° less, while the temperature of the air was only 8° Fahrenheit. He had reached his highest latitude on the 12th of May, in longitude 63° 5′ W., as measured on his track-chart. The road had been difficult beyond description; a great deal of their way had to be forced by means of the pickaxe and shovel. The surfaces of the fields "were thickly studded with rounded, blue-topped ice-humps of a mean height above the general level of from 10 to 20 feet, lying sometimes in ranges, but more frequently separated at a distance from 100 to 200 yards apart; the depressions between being filled with snow deeply scored into ridges by the wind, the whole composition being well comparable to a suddenly frozen sea. Separating these floes, as it were by a broadened-out hedge, lay a vast collection of debris of the previous summers; broken-up pack-ice, which had been refrozen during the winter into one chaotic, rugged mass of angular blocks, of various heights up to 40 and 50 feet, and every possible shape, leaving little if any choice of a road over, through, or round about them."* Similar conditions of the ice were noticed by the eastern and western divisions, commanded respectively by Lieutenants Beaumont and Aldrich. The former explored the north coast of Greenland to latitude 82° 18' N., longitude 50° 40′ W.; the northeasternmost point sighted by him is probably situated in latitude 82° 54′ N., longitude 48° 33′ W. His party was also attacked by scurvy, and he had to deplore the loss of two men. After an absence of 120 days they arrived at Discovery Harbor on the 14th of August, and after an absence of 84 days Aldrich reached his ship on the 25th of June. The whole party suffered from scurvy; only the commander and two men were able to walk to the side of the vessel. He had traced the northern shore of Grinnell Land to about longitude 87° W., and had surveyed not less than two hundred and twenty miles of new coast-line. The breaking out of the scurvy, and the insurmountable obstacles Nature, 1876, p. 40. encountered by Markham during his journey over the pack, having fully demonstrated the futility of renewing the effort in the following year, Captain Nares announced his intention to abandon all further exploration in a northerly direction, and to proceed southward as soon as the ice should open. But to liberate the Alert was not an easy matter. A large number of torpedoes containing from 1 to 50 pounds of powder were used to clear a passage in order to effect an escape; the attempt proved successful on the morning of the 31st of July. A fresh southwesterly wind had blown the ice off-shore and cleared a channel to the southward. Soon afterwards, Cape Joseph Henry was lost to sight, but at Cape Union very heavy floes interfered with the progress of the vessel and detained her until the next day. The passage of Robeson Channel was extremely perilous; it was only by a combination of consummate skill, audacity, and good luck that it was finally effected. On the third day of August, the Alert was hemmed in by ice and was nearly pushed ashore at the same place where, on the 29th of the same month of the preceding year, her damaged rudder was stripped; here she was detained for eight days. When liberated, on the 11th, she gained Discovery Harbor in the course of the evening, and the two ships' companies were once more together. But Lieutenant Beaumont and his party were at Polaris Bay, and Captain Nares therefore decided to force the Alert across the channel in order to take the travellers on board. About noon of the 14th, Beaumont's party was discerned on the moving pack off Discovery Harbor, and early the next morning every surviving member of the division was on board. The two vessels were delayed until the 20th, when they pushed their way through the formidable floes and rounded Cape Lieber; but on nearing Cape Lawrence the ice became so close that they had to be secured to some of the floe-bergs grounded in the vicinity, and could not proceed until the 22d. Reaching Cape Collinson, the two vessels fouled for a few moments, but the whole damage done was the loss of a davit; the boat itself was saved. The first real icebergs met with in proceeding south were found in Rawlings Bay. After having been driven back twice to Maury Bay, the Alert and her consort successfully rounded Cape Frazer on the 24th, and on the 27th reached Dobbin Bay, where they were detained till the 3d of September. Meanwhile, Sir Allen Young, who had left England on the Pandora, had reached the mouth of Smith Sound, wishing to land dispatches and letters at the depot near Cape Isabella. On the 3d of August he was at Littleton Island. Twelve days later, he attained his highest latitude, viz., 78.45° N., in longitude 73° W., and found the sound filled with solid pack, stretching from shore to shore. He crossed and recrossed the sound looking out for any boat-party that might have been dispatched by the English exploring vessels; all this time he had to keep his ship constantly in motion to prevent her from being beset. During the first week of August, the winds were invariably blowing from the northward, and large unbroken floes came down the sound. One with six icebergs imbedded in it was of so great extent that it seemed to fill the strait from shore to shore. The outer or eastern edge of the pack always presented one unbroken curve from the direction of Cape Dunsterville, in the southwest, round to Cairn Point or Littleton Island, leaving a land water in Hartstene Bay. On the 27th, the Pandora was driven out of Smith Sound by a raging gale, while the two discovery ships had just reached Dobbin Bay, where they were detained until the 3d of September. The temperature had fallen to 19°; the young ice formed rapidly, and was so thick and tough that it was difficult to pass through it in a boat. On the 9th, Cape Isabella was rounded, and Markham landed to look for the mail, of which he obtained only a part, as he omitted to examine the cairn on the summit of the cape. The two vessels, now fairly clear of Smith Sound, worked slowly to the southward in the teeth of a persistent head-wind, and entered the harbor of Goodhaven, on Disco Island, on the 25th of September. On the 2d of the following month they were both anchored at Portsmouth. The results obtained by this expedition are of high value, both with regard to physics, geography, and natural history. Captain Feilden and the other naturalists of the party made extensive zoölogical, botanical, and geological collections; the last are of special interest, as they furnish the proof that Grinnell Land had a flora during the Miocene period similar to that of Spitsbergen, so ably described by Heer. Twenty-six species of plants were discovered in a seam of Miocene coal of great extent and thickness, exposed in a valley about two miles north of Discovery Harbor. The coal itself is pronounced to be equal to the best Welsh coal for steaming purposes; it has 61 per cent. of coherent coke; it cakes when heated, and leaves only 6 per cent. of ash. The different expeditions hitherto considered furnish us with the material for a geographical sketch of the region in question; but for brevity I shall limit myself to giving a short account of the condition of the ice and of the general character of the currents. The character of the land bordering Smith Sound and its northern extension, is eminently that of a high-mountain region. By far the greater part of the Greenland coast may be termed a high plateau, rising to an altitude of probably not more than 7000 feet, as far as can be judged, from the present extent of our knowledge; but Ellesmere Land and Grinnell Land exhibit steep and lofty peaks, which are mostly isolated, from 2000 to 3000 feet high. Only two actual ranges of mountains have hitherto been noticed; one, the Victoria and Albert Mountains, the other, the United States Range, the highest peak of which, Mount Grant, is probably not over 3000 feet high. They both follow the general trend of the coast at a distance of some forty or fifty miles. Besides this striking difference, which would be noticed even by the most superficial observer, we see, furthermore, that Greenland, which has probably its highest elevations on its east coast, is covered by an ice-cap, while the coast opposite shows comparatively few glaciers. Before the return of the English expedition, it was not known that primary glaciers existed on Grinnell Land, at least not north of Hayes Sound. Our present knowledge as to the depth of Smith Sound and its extension towards the north and south is still limited, but we are probably not much mistaken in assuming that the average depth of the sound is not less than 250 fathoms. By means of the cotidal hours of nine stations, Mr. Schott, according to Airy's formula, computed the average depth of Davis Strait to be 418 fathoms; that of Baffin Bay he finds to be 349 fathoms, and that of Smith Sound, between Van Rensselaer Harbor and Port Foulke, is 277 fathoms.* The average depth of Davis Strait and Baffin Bay is therefore about 383 fathoms. The mean specific gravity of the water in Smith Sound, derived from 54 surface observations made by the Polaris, between August 12 and 28, 1872, between latitude 81° 35′ N. and latitude 79° 36′ N., is 1.02155, which is somewhat less than we might expect a priori. But we must take into consideration the time of the year at which these observations were made, and the fact that the vessel was always surrounded by ice. In only two instances was the temperature of the air below 32°, while during the rest of the period it was sufficiently warm to melt the ice; consequently the surface-water was rendered lighter than it would have been under other circumstances. *Hayes' Physical Observations, p. 164. According to Börgen, the mean specific gravity of the sea of East Greenland is 1.02411, north of the equatorial limit of the ice, while it is 1.02493 between the latter and the Arctic circle; and for Robeson Channel, during the winter of 1875-76, Sir George Nares found it to be 1.02245, which nearly agrees with our own value. The absolute maximum density experienced by the Polaris was measured at noon on the 20th of August, and amounted to 1.0288, which corresponds with the mean bottom density of the oceanic basins. Based on his own observations, Captain Nares comes to the conclusion that with the increase in temperature of the water, below thirty fathoms, the density also increases to above that of the polar water, which numerous observations made during the winter showed to be 1.02245. He concludes furthermore that the bottom water is derived from the Atlantic Ocean.* Eighteen observations made by the Polaris during the period above mentioned, in various depths, ranging from 6 to 203 fathoms, show a similar increase in density with the depth, although not at a regular rate. Whether these irregularities are due to undercurrents or to errors of observation will have to be decided by future investigations. If we now examine the current system of the region in question, in its latest representation on Berghaus' Chart of the World, which embodies an admirable amount of details in the most instructive manner, we perceive that the west coast of Greenland is swept by a warm current. This warm current is represented as part of the Gulf Stream, consisting principally of two branches; the westernmost crosses the parallel of Cape Farewell between longitude 50° and 60° W., while the other sweeps the northwest coast of Iceland, whence it takes a westerly and southerly direction, and, passing round Cape Farewell, joins the branch first mentioned. Sweeping the west coast of Greenland, it can be traced to Cape York, whence it sets west towards the entrance of Jones Sound, from which we notice a cold current to issue, sweeping the shores of Baffin Land and Cumberland. In setting south, it is joined by another cold current issuing from Hudson Strait, and, designated as the Labrador current, it continues its way along the coast. Besides these two main currents, we notice two subordinate cold ones; one runs across Davis Strait near the 70th parallel, while the other, a branch of the East Greenland ice-stream, runs along the southwest coast of Greenland, between the latter and the warm *Nares, Vol. II., p. 158. |