The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1897-04-18
III.

We pass to the various points of departure
and intermediate objectives. Tho methods Of
advance have. for the most part, followed four
routes, the Smith Sound route. the sea route be-
tween Greenland and Spitzbergen, the Franz
Josef Land route. and the Boring Strait route.
In later times the point from which the pole
has been most frequently approached 10 Smith
Sound, probably because American explorers
had asserted that they had there deserted an
open polar sea extending indefinitely toward
the north. Every attempt. however. by this
route was stopped by immense masses of
Ace, which came drifting southwark and
piled themselves up against the coast.
The most important expedition by tho
way Of Smith Sound was the English one
conducted by Mares in 1876, the equip
ment of which was exceptionally costly. Mark
ham. tho next In M to Mares, succeeded
in reaching the latitude Of s2' 20. but at the
price of enormous ~exertion and loss, and Mares
wal of the opinion that the impossibility Of
reaching the pole by this route was fully dem
onstrated for all time to como. However, dur
ing tho stay of the Greedy expedition from 1881
to 1884 in this same region Lockwood attained
n considerably higher record, namely, go "a,
the most northerly point upon the globe that
had been trodden by human feet previously to
the expedition of which the present work treats.
BY way of the sea between Greenland and
Spitzbergen several endeavors have been
made to penetrate the secrets of the domain of
Ice. In 1907 Henry Hudson endeavored to reach
the pole along tho east coast of Greenland.
whore he was In hopes Of finding an open basin
and o waterway to the Pacific. His progress
was, however. stayed at 730 north latitude, at a
point of tho coast which he named Hold with
Hope" The German expedition under Kolde.
way pe69-7O), which visited the Same waters,
attained. by the aid Of sledges. as far
north as TT north latitude. DR.. Nansen
10 convinced that. owing to tho normou
masses of ice which tho polar current
sweeps southwark along tho Greenland coast,
this is one Of the most unfavorable routes for an
Arctic expedition. In his judgment, a better
route is that by Spitzbergen. which was essayed
by Hudson whom his progress was blocked of
Greenland. Hero he reached 80 90 north lati-
tude. Thanks to the warm current that runs by
the west coast OF spitzborgen In a northerly
direction, the sea Is kept FREQ from ice. and,
therefore, tho author OF this book pronounces 1t
beyond comparison the route by which one can
the most safely and easily reach high latitudes In
ice-free waters. 1t was north OF Spitzbergen that
Edward Parry made his aforementioned at
tempt In 1927.
Further eastward tho ice conditions arc less
propitious. and therefore few polar expeditions
have directed their course to these regions. The
original object of the Austro- Hungarian voyage
undor Weyprecht and Payer uS72-73) was to
seek for the Northeast Passage; but at their first
meeting with the Ice they were set fast off the
north point OF Nova Zem5la, drifted northward,
and discovered Franz Josef Land, whence Payer
strove to keep forward to the north with sledges,
and reached $50 s. north latitude ON an island
which no named Crown Prince Rudolfs Land.
To the north OF this he thought he could SEQ an
extensive tract OF land running to about So
north latitude. which no called Petermann's
Land. Frans Josef Lane was afterward twics
visited " the English traveller Leigh Smith. IN