The Caldwell tribune. [volume] (Caldwell, Idaho Territory [Idaho]) 1883-1928, 1884-08-23
Arctic Exploration.

| Detroit Free Press.
1t is but eight years less than three
centuries since the first Arctic expedi-
ton reached the region of polar ice and
spent dreary winter locked in by the
icebergs and shut up in their huts by
wolves, snow storms and white bears.
Two lives were sacrificed in this expe-
dition, which reached q latitute of 80
degrees and II minutes.
Three hundred years have passed and
the latest, the Greedy expedition,
touched 80 degrees IA minutes, the
highest latitude ever reached since the
Dutch navigators spent ten months in
the ice off the island of Nova Zembla.
In all those three centuries only three
degrees of the distance to the pole have
been Overcome-a distance something
less than the distance between New
York and Boston, little more than be-
tween New York and Albany.
This fact alone is significant COM
ment upon the value of these expedi-
tions which have cost princes rev.
enue and as many lives as has been lost
in some noted battles.
The Dutch were the great navigators
of the sixteenth century, and soon after
achieving their nations independence,
began to speculate upon passage to
China and India by way of the north
pole. Their ideas Of that region were
fanciful indeed. Some believed that
those seas lnclosed polar continent of
perpetual summer and unbroken day
light, whose inhabitants had attained
perfection in virtue and intelligence
Others thought it peopled with mon
sters having horses hoofs, dogs heads
and ears so long that they coiled them
around their bodies in lieu of clothing.
Other tribes were headless with ewes in
their breasts, living in incessant fogs
and tempests during the summer, but
dying every winter and, like plants, re-
vived to life by the advent of brief
spring. 1t was believed that the voy-
ayers would have to encounter noun
talns of ice and volcanoes of fire,
together with monsters on land |
and sea more ferocious than
the eye of man ever saw.
But in spite of these terrors, on the |
5th of June, 1894, the first expedition
destined to navigate these frozen seas
set out from Amsterdam. Their ships
and appliances were of the rudest de-
scription. In place of the stanch mod
srn steamboats, built for the purpose
hey sailed in small, unwieldy vessels
Quilt like tower at stern and stem,
'cooped in the middle and scarcely able
% plow their way through the water,
% say nothing of the ice. Instead of
he delicate and ingenious scientific in
truments constituting an exploring
'utit OF the present day they had clumsy
rings three feet in circum-
erence on which they depended tor
the latitude. They had no
ood, no rifles, no compact ammunition,
20 heavy clothing of fur, no rubber gar
nents, no logarithms, log or nautical
no tea, no coffee, or the hun
reeds OF luxuries, stimulants, medi- {
ines, and other stores which now
bound in such profusion. /
The first expedition was turned back S
y the ice and polar bears, but the {
roblem of northeast passage to '
hina was considered solved, and the
ext year second ship was sent with
cargo of broadcloth, linens and
lpestries for the Chinese market which !
lie explorers were expected to reach. q
gain the ice and the bears frightened t
lem back. i
But an offer of $4,000 forins to the
scoverer of a northeast passage to the
lst led to third expedition, the first
at outlived polar winter amidst G
,rils and sufferings, whose story reads a
much like the narratives of Kane q