Vermont watchman and State journal. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1836-1883, 1873-05-14


north can be Of any value to the commerce
OF the world. Science, also, can add moth
ing to its triumphs amid theirappaling des.
Citations. Ii is matter Of small consc.
quence whether there is polar sea or not,
or whether any human cars shall ever
hear the novel music Of ts waves beat.
ing on its lonely shores. For no navigator
can launch bis vessel on its tides, and no
inhabitaut would welcome his coming
And as for astronomical observations, the
weight aud distance Of the SUI can be as
certained with sufficient cxactness from
some position less fraught With peril 10 the
observer.
For half century, expedition after OK
petition has sailed for the arctic regions
One explorer after another yanishes in the
mysterious and awful solitude of those lone
ly realms The first fnds his last resting
place, with his companions, on a beach where
no wild beast royes to modest their remains,
aud no summer sun dissoyes the icy statues
which once were inhabited by their spirits
The second buries the dead of the FIRST,
and the third of the second and those who
come back from their journey return with
empty hands with no new results valuable
either to commerce or science, aud with
only horrible tale Of personal suierngs
which bAve been the prelude to a speedy
death. franklin, Bellot Kane, Hall, all
yield their lives to the morbid passion to
find out the secrets Of the impenetrable,
and have heard the voice Of the polar sea,
saying to them in the very language Of the
Deity of old, "thou shalt not look on rPy
face and live" Ilenceforth, it is madness to
undertake what has always failed in the past.
The expedition Of Captain Hall sailed in
the summer Of 1871 lie had fine ship,
constructed for the purpose The Polaris--
for this was the name Of the vessel--could
use steam as well as sails, and was amply
provided with stores for three years. She
had a crew Of picked men, aud corps of
observers, numbering in all about thirty
souls. On the first summer they succeeded
in getting as far north as so l6, and then
returned TO Poaris bay On the Sth
Of November, 1871, Captain Hall died
of apoplexy, and the expedition was
left without any responsible head ADJUST
IL, 1872, the Polaris left winter quarters,
and was drifted south by the ice flow,
aud on the 18th Of the same month was
thrown up on the Geld by the heavy pressure
Of the ice. On the 18th Of October, Capt.
Tyson, an cfiieer Of the expedition, with
fifteen others, were separated from the ship,
while they were exploring the ice field by
the drifting Of the ship fiom her position.
They were unable 10 regain the vessel and
were gradually but surely drifted from
their associates aud borne southwark on the
ice field They were 10 this situation till the
SOth Of April, 1873, when they were pick
ed up in long. 53, by the steamship Tigress,
after enduring for six months the horrible
suiierngs of northern winter, without
shelter, and with the smallest allowance of
food possible to sustain human life. The
Imagination almost refuses to believe the
statement Of Captain Tyson. 1t is i'm.
possible to conceive Of fifteen persons,
navigating the northern seas for fifteen
hundred miles, in mid winter, unpro-
tected from the cold, and with no adequate
provision to sustain life, with no ship but
an ice.feld and no hope of ultimate rescue
kindling in their breasts, and yet coming
forth from their long winters expert
ence without the loss of man, and
with the addition to their party Of a child,
born to the wife of an Esquimaux guide.
Yet the impossible conception became a
reality, and the only tidings we have Of
the Polaris, aud Of Capt. Halls death and
burial, are brought to us by these men, SC
strangely detached from the ship, and borne
safely on an iceberg through twenty degrees
of longitude
OF the Polaris there is no intelligence
With diminished crew and leaky hull
she has to meet the pcris Of the Northern
winter. How she has Jared, we may know
or we may never know, 1t would be a
singular fortune If she should come unhur,
through all dangers aud meet her los
crew in the harbor from which she sailed
1t would be a strange and romantic ending
Of an Inflated adventure. But stranger
still if the ship and the moiety of her crew
should be lost, while the iceberg SHOULD
bring its living freight safely to lane
through hundreds Of miles of wild sea
after tedious voyage of half year.
Commerce has long ago given up any ex
pectation Of valuable results from thesC
Arctic expeditions, and science should senC
no more "iorlorn hopes" against those blue
f gates of icy desolation that hold the Sc
crets Of The North Pole.