The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1873-05-10

| tain Hau-Ninetecn Vain Hescucu
| from an iceberg.
Our special dispatches from Newfoundland
bring us q startling tale. The Polaris expe-
dition to the North Pole under the command
of the veteran explorer Captain @. F. Hall,
seems to have failed, and Captain Hall himself
is dead. This story, startling as it is in its
barest outlines, comes to US through source
which will cause profound feeling through
out the civilized world. On the 18th October,
1872, in latitude seventy-seven degrees, thirty
five minutes party numbering some nine
teen souls left the Polaris to put some pro-
visions on an ice foe. gale came on; the
Polaris parted from her moorings, and the un-
fortunates, to their dismay. saw the ship
steaming away, unable to give them the slight
est assistance. The ice at the time had for
tunately southerly set, and the tide and
wind drove the great iceberg. with its living
cargo, down through Bafan's Bay and Davis
Straits until, on the 3Oth Of April of the pres
emit year, after one hundred and ninety-six
days on the ice, they were taken off by the
steamer Tgress, in latitude ffty-three degrees.
thirty minutes, near the coast of Labra-
dor. Thus it is that the yet unfinished
story of the Polaris comes to the world. It Is
| o thrilling recital, and when the full tale Of
that almost miraculous drift upon the ice is
| recorded it will surpass In interest the most
sensational fiction that has ever come from
human brain.
| The suferings which men of fixed ideas en-
dure on behalf of their favorite project can
have no better illustration than in the records
of Arctic exploration The dream Of reaching
far Cathay that sent the great Genoese navi-
| gator from Court to Court of Europe,
| was founded first on the idea that by sailing
toward the setting sun could the Indies be
gained Since his time, as the unbroken
coast line Of the Northern and Southern con-
| tinents Of America was traced from north to
south, the dreamers turned their visions to
the northward. There the passage was to be
found. 1t was tried by Henry Hudson, the
discoverer of the island of Manhattan and
the Hudson River, and also Hudson's
Straits and Hudson's Bay, that bear
his name in the cold regions Of the north
The story of what Hudson suffered in oil
l
familiar, and his tragic death in the open
boat, after the mutiny on his ship, in the last
Of his expeditions, 1610-12, has furnished
moving theme for poets and painters since
The melancholy death of Behring the Russian
| navigator, in his expedition of 1741, to at
| tempt, from the west the same problem of
the Polar Ocean, inscribes another name in the
great graveyard of Arctic heroes. His vessels
were wrecked and q remnant Of the
crew returned in small vessel
constructed by themselves. Shalaroff, another
Russian, with his whole crew, persisted of
starvation in 1850, while attempting the same
route. The English navigator Captain Cook,
who sailed in 1776 through Behring Straits,
nearly persisted, too in the ice that closed
around his ship. Relief was attempted to be
sent him, but the ice barrier prevented it from
reaching him. In what is almost our own
times the fate of Sir John Franklin is too fresh
in the minds of the public to need much COM
ment 1t will be remembered in the great trait
of woman's love that it evoked in the efforts
made by Lady Franklin to reach and rescue
her long missing husband How, after many.
vain searches for the lost explorer, the cairn
with the scroll detailing his sad death was
found by Captain McClintock, Of the Fox will
long be remembered. Connected intimately
with this long fruitless search for franklin is
Hall, whose passion for Arctic exploration was
first awakened in the desire to rescue the
missing mariner. The stout-hearted Ohio
blacksmith, without any training in naviga-
ton, and indeed without any scien-
tifc knowledge whatever, accomplished
wonderful results in traversing the barren,
ice-bound wastes Of the north. Although he
did not succeed in accomplishing the object
Of his daring search, the fascination of peer
ing into the wonderful untrodden places of
the boreal world remained as strong as ever
The open Polar Sea of Kane haunted
him with visions of fame. The great,
rugged, energetic nature of the man taught
him to laugh at obstacles. He had
travelled and lived in the wild white
regions, and he trusted in himself to
find the object Of his dreams as the rough
trapper Of the Plains travels by the light of
his experience and not by that of science
He was certainly man we'll fitted
to manage all the details Of an Arctic
voyage except those in which the aid of
science was absolutely necessary His idea
was to associate with him men of science to
manage the scientific part, and to do the
downright hard work of the expedition him
SELF Congress placed fifty thousand dollars
OF his disposal, and he was to reach the North
Pole. Everything was accomplished in fitting
out the Polaris which experience could sug-
gest and in August, 1871, having all his
stores on board, he sailed in good
health and spirits from the most northerly