The Columbian. [volume] (Bloomsburg, Pa.) 1866-1910, 1882-01-27
Select Story.
THE JEANETTE EXPEDITION.

The thrilling news from the mouth of
the Lena gives special interest to the re
cord of successive expeditions, lasting
over nearly four centuries, and having
for their object the exploration of the
northern seas
In the reign of the first Tudor king Of
England, whose stinginess is proverbial,
but whose commercial spirit was of
great value to England, John Cabot, of
Bristol, succeeded in persuading his SOW
ereign to grant him and his three sons,
of whom Sebastian Cabot was one, let
ters patent for the discovery of new
lands. On the fifth of March, 1896,
Sebastian Cabot sailed from the Bristol
port in command of two vessels which
had be IN fitted up for him by command
of Henry VII, with a view to reach
India by shorter track than that round
by the Cape of Good Ilopc-namely, by
a northwest passage He supposed that
he should, by following this route, sue
ceed in finding first, Cathay, and from
thence India in due course. 1t was to
him, therefore, as says the old chronicles,
a great displeasure to him to find that
the land ran toward the north.
Bluff King iIal followed his fathers
footsteps in the encouragement OF navl-
CATION. In the year 1927, Robert
| Thorne, a merchant of Bristol, induced
Henry VIII, with very weighty and
substantial reasons, to set forth dis
coverie, even to the North Pole" Cabot,
the Italian, had not adyentured so much
as this. Two ships, the Samson and
Mary, were fitted out for the expedition.
One of them was lost off the coast OF
| Newfoundland, and the other returned
home without having achieved anything
particularly noteworthy,
Towards the end of the fifteenth cen
tury William Barents, seaman of llol'
land, seeing that the ice of the sea OF
Kars was great obstacle to navigation
in that direction, proposed exploration
by the way of the western side of No
yaya Zemlya, and in 1894 and 1896
made voyages thereto. One year later
than the second of these dates he round
ed the northern coast of that island, and
subsequently wimtered there.
Previously to this date Davis strait
was discovered by John Davis, a worthy
Britisher in command Of the fifty tor
Sunshine and the companion vessel, th'
Moonshine, fifteen tons smaller; Th'
discovery of the strait in 1885 was sue
cecded by that of Batlin's bay, in 1915
by William Bafin, who served as pilo
to Bylot. Curiously this same route wa
that taken by the English expedition i
1878, which resulted in the nearest al
proach to the pole as yet achieved,
In 1907 Henry Hudson started to fin
the northwest passage, the expense c
his expedition being borne by the Mu
covy company, His crew consisted {
, ten sailors and boy, and his craft met
ured eighty tons After reaching eight
degrees north latitude, only ten from III
pole, he was compelled to return becau'
his provisions were giving out. ThrC
succeeding voyages III the year 100
1909 and 1910, each respectively, +
suited in his reaching, in the last {
these years, three hundred miles farth'
north than had been previously been a
tanned. Hudson's bay was so named a
ter the intrepid Englishman, who pc
shcd mserably in consequence of
mutiny by his crew, who cruelty put hi
off his ship in an open boat with certa
sick members of the ships company,
The ambition of the Car Peter Il
4, Great, found employment, in 1925,
the sending of Captain Behring, Da
in the Russian service, to explore t
= northern coast of Siberia With t
death of the great czar the project f
temporarily to the ground, but thr
years later Behring sailed through I
straits separating the old and new wol
and called after him Two subsequC
voyages, one 1929 and another in II
- ended Behring's career as a discover
lie died in the second of the voyages i
named
The English again came to the frO
ie' in l74j with the offer by the COVE
ment of 100000 to any explorer v
should discover a northwest passage
Hudsons strait. In 1875 the offer
Dsp ,sp $4,000 was made by the same author
nae to any one who should sail beyond
eighty ninth degree of latitude, +