The New York herald., 1873-09-15
The Progress OF the Diana Arctic
Expedition.


We published few days ago the interesting
tdings of the progress of the English yacht
Diana, on her North Polar exploration via
Spitzbergen. The Diana is powerful screw
steamer specially fitted to battle with the
Arctic ices, and is under the command of
the veteran explorer, Mr.. Leigh Smith. At
the last accounts, dated July 4, the Diana
was in the very bay where Parry left the Hecla,
in 1925 to make his celebrated treadmill jour-
ney on the ice northward, and where Mr..
Smith was then awaiting the close of the ice
DRIFT season to force his way, if possible, to
the Pole itself.
This daring endeavor is one of the most
promising now in progress to enter the mys-
terious region of the Arctic basin. Spitzber-
gen may be regarded as narrow neck of land
between two great oceans-the Circumpolar
and the Atlantic. On the western side the
great Polar, or ice-bearing current, descends
to lower latitudes, while off the eastern
coast the warm drift of the Gulf Stream
water distinctly reveals itself to the thermom-
eter. Ships which have been beset In ice
between Spitzbergen and Greenland have been
found to drift to the southwest at the rates of
1872 miles In thirteen days, 120 miles in four
teen days and 1900 miles in 108 days. e., at
an average rate of about - miles q day.
Early in July, as during the winter and
spring, this icy water maintains the frigid
conditions over Northern and Western Spitz-
bergen; but the summer sun soon after be-
comes too powerful, and the temperature rises
very high. On the 18th of July, 1861,
Blomstrand found the mercury over 60 de-
grees Fahrenheit in that high latitude, and by
the last of July or the 10th Of August the
weather is usually warm, and, what is more
for the explorer, the iquefaction of the ice is
nearly over, and the seas are comparatively
open. Parry declared, after having been
baffled in July, 1928 (by the ice on which his
sledges travelled moving southwark as fast
as he moved northward) that on the 10th
of August the seas were iceless, and if he had
only waited till then to make ship voyage
he believed he could have made the
highest latitude attainable. There can be little
doubt that if the great navigator at the close
of the ice-drift (Which had previously baf1ed
and worn him ouD could-say on the 5th Of
August, 1S2S-have stepped on board power
full screw steamer like the Diana, he would
have met little or no ice obstruction, and, SO
far as ice-drift was concerned might have
steamed in few days to the Pole itself, in the
interim of the complete breaking up of the old
ice and the formation Of the autumnal ice.
He might, indeed, have encountered land q
few hundred miles north of Spitzbergen, but
he would have had one or two weeks to cross
it by sledge before the new ice of September
sealed up the seas behind him and cut off his
retreat southwark. What Parry could appa-
rently have done so easily with steamer, and
what he himself declared he could have easily
done, in 1923, if he had known that the ice
drift is over in August, it seems highly proba-
BILE Mr.. Leigh Smith will now do. The high
latitude attained by steam in the Polaris
(higher than Kane or Hayes ever attained by
sledge journeys) would argue that "the con.
quest of the Pole" is reserved for steam.