The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1875-06-19 00:00:00

ADMIRAL M'CLINTOCK ON ARCTIC

SLEDGE TRAVELLING.

A large gathering took place in London, on Monday
evening at the closing meeting for the season of the
Royal Geographical S ociety, to hear Admiral Sir Leopold
M'Clintock read a paper on Arctic Sledge Travelling.
It is a subject on which no man living has had more
experience, and the gallant officer's account was
listened to with marked attention and interest by an
audience which included Admirals Collinson, Richards,
Ommanney, and (Nemesis) Hall, Captain Alan Young,
who is ging cut in the Pandora, and Dr. Rae, the
Arctic explorer.
The theatre was hung with a large circum-polar
chart, and three well-executed drawings of tent life
and sledge travelling over the ice, while on the table
were exhibited some of the clothing of the expedition
now on its way, and portraits presented by J. Barrow,
Esq. (son of the Arctic explorer), of Lieut. Fitzjames,
who was lost in the Franklin Expedition, and Dr.
Kane, and a drawing of the Terror, beset in rolling
ice.

The President announced that an extra meeting
would be held that day fortnight, to compensate for
the meeting suppressed on the occasion of the death of
the late Admiral Sherard Osborn, when he should have
the pleasure of introducing the Sultan of Zanzibar,
who had announced his intention of being present.
He was sure that potentate would receive a coi dial
welcome, for it was owing to his intelligent support
that the society had been able to send an expedition
from the east coast to the interior of Africa.

Sir Leopold M'Clintock, who was very warmly re-
ceived, then came forward, and commenced by a short
sketch of the rise of sledge travelling in the second and
third voyages of Parry and the second voyage of Sir
John Ross, between 1821 and 1834, when only short
journeys were made by imitating the appliances of the
Dquimaux. The fact of its being passible for well-
equipped Europeans to exist and travel in an Arctic
climate being then demonstrated, the sad fate of the
Franklin expedition supplied the strongest possible
motive for extensive exploration on foot. eremisin g that
sledge travelling is limited to the spring months between
April and June Sir Leopold, who throughout his paper
modestly ignored his own large share in perfecting the
tent, the sledge, and its equipments, gave the late Admiral
Sir James Ross the principal credit for the designs, which
with modifications, have been followed in the present
expedition. He then gave a detailed descriptien ef
each, and described the character of the travelling in a
way which dissipated the very common but erroneous,
supposition that it consists of skating over glassy ice
or walking over deep snow on snow shoes. Salt water
ice is not so smooth as to be slippery, and as soon as
it is formed snow falls and remains on it for the winter.
At first it is 12 or 15 inches deep but it is blown about
so that it soon becomes like the finest sand, and be-
coming hardened under the severe temperature, it con-
solidates into a covering of only a few inches, and so
compact that the sledge runners do not sink in it more
than one or two inches. The expanse of snow is rarely
smooth, its surface being broken into ridges and
furrows, and though the inequalities may not be more
than a foot in height they add greatly to the labour of
travelling, especially when they have to be crossed at
right angles. As the spring advances the winter snow
softens, fresh snow falls and the labour is increased,
until at last a thaw comes and it is scarcely possible to
make headway at all through the sludge. When this is
thoroughly dissolved the draught is easier, and fair
progress can be made; but it is through ice-cold water
which wets everyone through. At last the ice becomes
rotten, and then it is only safe to travel when accom-
panied by a boat. It was under such conditions
as these that Sir James Ross, who led the first search
for Franklin in person, got a distance of 500 miles
out and home in forty days. Sir Leopold accom-
panied Sir James Ross on this journey, which was in
1849, and was entrusted with the preparations for sledge
travelling in the subsequent expeditions under Austin.
and Belcher, and the result of his observations was
to introduce improvements which permitted 40 days'
rations to be hauled instead of 30 days' on a much
lees liberal scale. Th consequence was a great in-
crease of work done, one party accomplishing 900
miles in an absence fBO days. Still gaining valuable
information from experience, better service still was
done in 1854 and 185, when the sledge parties of the
third expedition accomplished—one 1,400 miles in
105 days, and another, with the advantage of dep6ts
being laid out on its route, 1,350 miles in 70 days.
The first, which was an exploring journey, being at
the rate of twelve miles per day; and the second,
a dispatch journey, at the astonishing daily average of
20 miles. Provisions and clothing were next de-
scribed, and the gallant admiral was cheered by the
well-wishers of Sir Wilfrid Lawson when he expressed
the opinion that if the men were not accustomed to
the use of spirits they would be better without it, ex-
cept on special occasions when a stimulant was de-
sirable. An equal weight of some nutritious food
might then be carried, but the rum ration is very
small. Tea, chocolate, biscuit, a little bacon, a liberal
ration of pemmican, and a mouthful of rum, is the
every day living of the sledge parties. Even when
game is procured there is no fuel to cook it, so that it
is well to hear, on Sir Leopold's authority, that a
sandwich of frozen bear's blubber and biscuit is
palatable enough, after a few days' sledging labour
in the month of March. After a graphic descrip:-
tion of the starting and progress of one of these
parties, with its severe labour and attendant dis-
comforts of frost bites, blistered faces, raw noses,
and finger tips callous through continual freez-
ings, and the return to the ship amid ice cold floods
both on shore and on the sea ice, the travellers
come back with prodigious appetites weighing on an
average 12 lbs. per man less than When they set out,
reduced in strength, but still capable of walking for
hours without fatigue and with sight and power of ob-
servation in reg ird to traces of men and animals so
much sharpened by exercise that they seem to have
advanced a long stage towards the condition in this re-
spect of the North American Indian. Nine sledge
parties were employed from the .Resoleste and the In-
trepid in the spring of 1853, accomplishing in the ag-
gregate 7,000 miles and exploring 1,800 miles of coast
line. In these Captain Nares took a share and played
his part well, giving proof of the high qualities which
have since borne such good fruit, and which amply
justified his appointment to the Challenger and his sub-
sequent translation to the most difficult command to
which any naval officer could aspire. In the Government
search expeditions no experience of snow houses was ob-
tained, and very little of the use of dogs for sledging. One
team, however, in the spring of 1854, accomplished in
60 daysl,B3o miles, and on several occasions performed
the distance of 60 miles, between the Assistance ana
North Star, in from 20 to 24 hours. It was during
the famous voyage of the little Fox, sent out by Lady
Franklin and commanded by Sir Beopold himself, that
the value of dogs was demonstrated, and that snow
huts had been utilised to the utmost. He was obliged
to make up for the paucity of his crew (only 24 in num-
ber) by taking a similar number of dogs; and his three
searching parties were made up of six men and six or
seven dogs, bipeds and quadrupeds working har-
moniously together for 80 days, and each party accom-
plishing about 1,000 miles of search. Dogs are found to
be most valuable when dispatch is required, and the tem-
perature is se low as to make it undesirable to expose
men more than is absolutely necessary. Taking an
interpreter and 15 dogs he made a journey of 420 miles
in 25 days, the temperature averaging 30 degrees below
zero, and sometimes going as low as 48 degrees below.
The best of these valuable brutes measure 23in. at the
shoulder, and weigh 701 b. when in fair condition. Two
of them require the same weight of food as a man,
and they will draw a man's load about one-fourth
greater distance than a man could. In conclusion, the
gallant officer reitert.test the opinion he placed on
record some years since, tat the perfection of sledge
travelling now enabled a well-equipped crew to escape
unsided trom any known position in the Arctic regions.
What the measure of success was to be of the present
expedition no one could predict. The public mind,
unaware of the formidable difficulties which surrounded
it pointed to the crowning glory of reaching the
North Pole. That consummation was possible, and he
hoped the high distinction might be theirs. So Mlle
practical improvement could be effected in the equip-
ment of travelling parties that it was not reasonable to
expect the -ledging exploits of 1853 and 1854 to be sur-
passed in 1575. Wrangell had been stopped by open
water off the Siberian, and he then suggested the
attempt to reach the Pole from Smith's Sound. Though
he did not anticipate any great expanse of open water
being • discovered to seaward of an open coast line
Captain Nares had been provided with boats less than
tialf the weight of Parry's, which would enable him to
navigate a partially iceless sea should his sledging he
interrupted by water. Arctic explorers were well aware
that there was one condition which barred all progress,
namely, ice too thin to sledge over. It was to be hoped
our explorers would not meet with any such insuper-
able difficulty in their resolute endeas ours to deserve
success.

In the interesting discussion which followed Admiral
Collinson gave some interesting information about the
use of dogs, and described Captain Alan Young's in-
tended voyage in the Pandora. He will take out
letters and despatches for ,the expedition, and, after
touching at Disco, deposit them in a cairn at a point
agreed upon with Captain Nares, within Smith's Sound.
He will then endeavour to penetrate to the westward,
and complete, if possible in one season the North-west
Passage.—Dr. Rae described a fiat-bottomed sledge that
he seemed to think superior to the pattern taken out

by the expedition, and he urged the superiority of snow
huts to tents.—Admiral Ommanney gave some of his
experiences with the search parties, and expressed
the hope that the present expedition would succeed in
rounding the north of Greenland, and return by the
east coast. —Admiral Richards, and afterwards the
gallant reader of the paper in his reply, pointed out
that while the sledge described by Dr. Rae answered
admirably for the Hudson's Bay territory, it would not
do further north, where the conditions were altogether
different, and, while admitting the value of snow
huts, said that much of the ice travelling was over
floes, where there was no snow, so that the sledge
parties, but for their tent, would be without any pro-
tection. The experience of iO,OOO miles of sledge tra-
velling had dictated the present equipment in all its
details as best suited to the conditions which would
have to be encountered.

A cordial vote of thanks to Sir Leopold brought the
proceedings to a close.