The Cheyenne daily leader. [volume] (Cheyenne, Wyo.) 1870-1884, 1879-09-13
The Northeast Passage.


Sir Hugh Willoughby, sailing in the
admiral ship Bona Ventura, set out from
England in the year 1853 to accomplish
the northeast passage. He failed very
miserably, being frozen to death with
all his ships company while lying ! in
winter quarters On the Russian coast.
1t would be a burden to enumerate
merely the names of those who have
sailed in the wake of the brave and I'M
fortunate Sir Hugh, and who, like him,
have altogether failed; though none so
drearily as he. All of the nations of
northern Europe have taken part in
pushing Arctic discovery beyond the
north cape; but until recently the most
persistent endeavor has failed to bring
a ship beyond Nova Zembla-still less
along the whole northern coast from
the Atlantic to . the Pacific. Barentz,
sailing from Amsterdam in 1897, did,
indeed, double the N. Z. point of Nova
Zembla; but he was caught in the ice,
forced to take to the land and died
while leading his men homeward. This
was the greatest northing obtained by
navigation between Spitzbergen and
the mainland until eight years ago,
when the Swede, Karlsen, rounded
Nova Zembla. The utter loneliness Of
the region is best shown by the fact
that he found the hut wherein Barentz
and his men wintered just as they had
left it two hundred and seventy-six
years before. And now, more than
three cent uries since Sir Hugh Will
oughby set sail, the northeast passage,
in the search for which he and SO many
more brave men have died, actually has
been found. N~ordenskjold has accom-
plished what has hitherto been regard
ed by almost the whole of the enlighten-
ed portion of the world as impossible.
He has proved that there is an open
water communication by the northeast
from the Atlantic to the Pacific, even
as Mcclure twenty-n mine years earlier
proved that there was an open water
communication between these oceans
to the northwest.
Professor Nordenskjold, having set
tied finally a matter that has vexed
scientists for centuries, and having, in
cidentally to the search in chief, as it
is reasonable to believe, established
many very important scientific facts,
must be recognized as n of the great
est among the many great scientific
travellers of the age. Moreover, it has
been his good fortune to accomplish one
of the few remaining geographical i'm
possibilities; and that his victory has
been a daring one, achieved at great
personal risk, is sufficiently manifested
by the long list of those who have fail
ed and died in striving to do what he
has done. On purely practical grounds
the expedition does not command the
same admiration that it commands up
on the grounds of scientific Importance
and heroic achievement. The north
east passage has been proved to exist;
but at the same time has been proved
its utter impracticability for commerce.
al purposes. A waterway to be freely
used by merchant ships must possess
the element Of certainty. 1t must be
open all the time or closed only at re-
gular and known intervals. The Polar
sea through which the Vega has pass
ed, does not fulfill these conditions.
As previous exploration has proved,
water that N~ordenskjold found open
and navigable very frequently is frozen
hard. Heretofore, Nova Zembla has
been the limit to every explorers ad-
vance. Favored by an exceptionally
mild season and a chapter of lucky ac-
cidents, the Swedish explorer passed
this hitherto impossible point, and
thence steamed onward to the further
sea; but it was by good luck rather
than by good management that he got
through. A merchant vessel, being
sailed for purposes of gain, cannot af-
ford to take the chances that he took,
sailing in the interest of science. The
most that commerce car gain by his
caring voyage Will De the establishment
of trading lines from Northern Pacific
ports to that portion of Siberia lying
east of the Lena; and ven those lines
must take their chances of being ice
bound. However, it is not a matter Of
any Importance that the northeast
passage has been discovered only to be
proved useless. With the building Of
the Suez Canal the ''shorter way to the
Indies'' was found, and the need for a
northeast or a northwest passage for