New-York tribune., 1915-03-21
EA DIARIES REVEAL ARCTIC TRIPS A CENTURY AG(
w NJ. s COR z s b BY'S
OWN RECORDS OF
VOYAGES HAVE
LAIN FORYEARS
I N o L %
HOUSE.

Prepair for Death, be shoure what ever thou
Does. -
Ask of God his grace, and he vii give
Ub.n A. 70 die. then thou art fit to live"
In the fourth year of Scoresby's cruises in
the Henrietta as many as 255 vessels were en-
gaged in the Northern whale fishing, so II IS
not surprising that we read in one place tnst
he saw at the same moment hundred SHIPS
all working their way through the ice lanes.
On the cruise of 1898 he records typical day
rs nolar navigation: Tuesday, May g, 1898.
This "a hrs hard gales with almost constant
snow and intense frost, the ice pressing very
hard broke our iron tiller when we were aoou@
to unhang the rudder-bent both caoies-the
press in the ice was so great that 1t squeased
all the Bay ice upon the top OF the large @
on heaps & I believe our ship Dundee was
lifted above two feet, yet She did not complain
~. Volunteer at 2 miles distance and rather
harder squeased than we she being nearer tho
land and we are within miles but cannot tel
what water we have for we have not room to
get the lead down-Got provisions on deck.
Apparently he began to think the ship would
not survive. But on Thursday he resolved to
cut his way out "altho the regular thickness
of the ice was from 10 to IS feet and In places
more than the length of 10 feet saw-how-
ever we persevered to the end thereof-the
Volunteer in the same predicament at about
miles distance"
On the completion of the 1910 voyage Will
lam Scoresby turned the Resolution over to
his son, who had now arrived at the age OF
independence. The age of twenty-one is not
usually considered sufficient for commander
of an Arctic whaling ship, and the fact that
his father was ready to intrust the command
of vessel to him in the most difficult waters
of the Northern Hemisphere tells more about
William, jr, than volume could relate.
The father himself sailed in the John, one
quarter of which he owned, but after four voy-
ages in her he installed his son-in-law, Thomas
Jackson, as commander, and himself re-
manned on shore the next season, 1875. How
long he intended to rest from cruising the
Arctic seas does not appear, but he was out
on the ocean blue again in 1876 on board the
Mars, and one of the log books to be repro
duced pertains to the voyage of the Mars in
1877. On his return from this voyage in tho
autumn he saw ship which had just been
captured from the French brought to Eng
land as prize of war, and he was so much
pleased with her solid teak construction and
other good qualities that he bought her, with
the idea that the government might send her
out on voyage of Arctic Investigations under
his son. but, failing in this, he sent her after
whales. This was the Fame. The logs of
her 1920 and 1922 voyages, under his own CON-
90 h. rad
was on the 1922 voyage that they did so much
surveying on the Greenland coast, the results
generally being credited to William, jr., who
was the scientific member of the crew. Bad
luck struck the Fame in 1893; she was burned
accidentally at the Orkney Islands. This
ended the voyages of William, sr, one of the
most sklful and successful Arctic navigators
who ever crossed the Circle. He lived on his
comfortable fortune at Whitby till 1920, when
he died
The volumes prepared and published by
William, jr., are among the most valuable in
the field of Arctic literature. The chief works
are: Account of the Arctic Regions and
Northern Whale Fishery" two volumes, 1870,
Journal of Voyage to the Northern Whale
Fishery and Discoveries on the East Coast of
Greenland" 1898; "Magnetical Investigations"
two volumes, IS3e's2 Memorials of the Sea-"
1885, MY Father" 1851, etc, and the Jour
nal of a Voyage to Australia for Magnetical
Research published in 1859, two years after
his death, a work which even to-day holds a
high place in this field of research These two
sailors were unusual men, Always upright
and with high ideals, they left an impress on
their time that is deep aid lasting.