The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1882-02-24


The Jeanette expedition has, notwithstand-
ing wreck and sad disaster affecting brave
men, resulted in q very great advancement Of
Arctic knowledge, and much Of this increased
geographical information is of such practt-
cally useful nature as to afford good ground
regions of the North Through the apparent
ly meager statements heretofore received re-
garding the voyage Of the lost Jeanette, and
later movements of De Long and his heroic
companions, very great facts are revealed
which show how the meagerness is apparent
rather than real. De Long was the first to
demonstrate the fact that Wrangel Land is of
very limited extent northerly. He has
shown the inaccuracy of the theory of the
late DR.. Petermann, the distinguished Ger
man geographer, that Wrangel Land
was the eastern extremity of an Arctic
continent. He has discovered the ex-
istence Of vast polar ocean
northeastward from the New Siberian Islands:
he has first discovered at least two islands in
the great ocean basin of the Arctic pole. Be-
sides the original discovery of these islands
he has proved, in his observation Of third
island at the northeastward from New ST.
IBERIA, the verify of the claim by Hedenstrom
and Saunikov in 1910, that land existed there
which had been seen. He has proved the ex-
around the earth at the north Of Asia. Eu-
rope, Greenland and America, with a great
b. anch divergiDg sOuthwesterly around the
eastern prOmOntories of Franz Josef Land,
which is but an extension of Greenland; he has
proved that the temperature of the high lati-
\ 1,<, kosvx L,1, L.
incompatible with good health and compare
tive comfort, when suitable food and shelter
are provided for explorers.
He has completely disproved the assumption
I. that ''paleOcrystic" sea, or area of ancient
and unthawable ice, exists in the high north; ;
for, while caught amid fragments of foe ice
forming an immense floating field, he drifted
about in a vast, open, polar sea during consid-
erably more than year and a half of time, and
still did not during that period sight the shores
OF the lonely ocean upon which he was swept
and whelmed about in icy arms like waif in
the dreary abyss. As the experience of Wey-
precht and Payer in the Tegethoff, while
caught in a vast ice foe off northwest capes
of Nova Zembla and drifting about during
long months in the sea of Franz Josef Land,
proved to those unacquainted with the fact
that this part of the ocean was known to be
navigable by NOrsemen in the fourteenth,
fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, that it was
surface and during part Of the year, SO De
Longs dreary but important voyage has
proved like conditions existing away at the
north of New Siberia. Moreover, the Jean
nette expedition has apparently determined
it to be fact that there is no very great body
and that climate conditions in the near vicin-
ity of the Pole are more genial than further
south.
Arctic shores facing the north do not pro-
duce icebergs to any considerable extent. The
almost total absence of icebergs in the wha1-
ing seas north of Behring's Strait and in the
wide eXpanse OF the huge polar basin north OF
Asia lead to the belief that there may he no
place farther north than Franz Josef Land for
their formation and dispersal at our stop" of
the world. Besides these points specified, De
Long has shown the ease of sailing from the
Lena to New Siberia. The known facts in the
Jeannette's experience confirm the conclusion
that Franz Josef Land divides the great polar
circuit current, which seems to be largely de-
f1ected northwesterly from Wrangel Land by
the shores and the shoals likely to exist near
by. No hope can be reasonably entertained
that the pole can be reached mainly by
land across the lonely mountain wastes and
fiords of that anciently known part of Green
land now known since its rediscOvery as Franz
Josef Land. Equally futile will prove any
blind efforts to reach the pole by sea at the
north of Spitzbergen. The great gulf there
was explored In the tnlrteentn century ana
found to he bounded by icy, barren and dismal
coasts. The fact seems to be altogether over
looked by modern navigatOrs. Leigh Smith in
his Ezra voyage has demonstrated the reality
of the discovery of part of Franz Josef Land
early in the eighteenth century, and since
called Gillis Land. If not wrecked the Ezra
is probably wintering ice-lOcked in the gulf of
Greenland, northward from Spitz- |
bergen, or possibly in the recess of open |
waters not far away from Markham Sound |
and the other channels of Franz Josef Lan1 |
explored by Payer of the TegethOff.
It ought to be understood by Arctic naviga- |
tors, and would be but from neglect to study |
The earliest records of Arctic exploration and |
thoroughly, that Franz Josef Land |
is not really now within very few years first |
known to men. A prosperous little co,Ony ex-
sted there for centuries, and one of the most |
noted of the early historians of Northern Eu-
rope was born there. The ineXplicable ignO-
rance of our modern geographers regarding |
The historical geography of the Arctic regions |
seems as general as it is surprising.
The voyage of the Jeanette has not only
resulted in the important direct discoveries as
indicated. but besides largely increasing the
general interest in northern exploration has
ed, through the expeditions for the aid OF De
Long and his companions, to tOlerably COM
olete knowledge OF Wrangel Land ard the
>cean heretofore little known in its immediate
7icinity. Mr.. Benefits unsurpassed enter
Prise and grand munificence will bear good
ruit not only for the cause of science, but for
commerce and the whaling interest.-Boston
Advertiser.