ICE NAVIGATION. 357 



same manner that Captain ColUnson, passing from 

 west to east, reached ahnost to the spot where per- 

 ished Franklin, who had entered the ice from the op- 

 posite direction. And it is thus, also, that the Rus- 

 sians have explored the coasts of Siberia, meeting 

 but two insurmountable obstacles to the navigation 

 from the Atlantic to the Pacific side, namely. Cape 

 Jakan, against wdiich the ice is always jammed, and 

 which Behring tried in vain to pass, and Cape Ce- 

 verro Yostochnoi, wdiicli the gallant young Lieuten- 

 ant Prondtschikoff made such heroic efforts to sur- 

 mount. And it was by the same method of naviga- 

 tion that the Amsterdam pilot, earnest old William 

 Barentz, strove, in 1598, to find by the northeast a 

 passage to Cathay. 



The efforts to break through the belt, with the ex- 

 pectation of finding clear water about the Pole, have 

 been very numerous, and they have been made 

 through every opening from the southern waters to 

 the Polar Sea. To follow the history of those vari- 

 ous attempts would not fall within my present pur- 

 pose. It is but a long record of defeat, so far as con- 

 cerned the single object of getting to the Pole. Cook, 

 and all who have come after him, have failed to find 

 the ice sufficiently open to admit of navigation north- 

 ward from Behring Strait, as Hudson and his follow- 

 ers have through ' the Spitzbergen Sea ; and all the 

 efforts through Baffin Bay have been equally futile. 

 The most persevering attempts to break through the 

 ice-belt have been made, to the west of Spitzbergen, 

 and in this quarter ships have approached nearer to 

 the Pole than in any other. The highest well- 

 authenticated position achieved by any navigator 

 was that of Scorsby, who reached latitude 81° 30,' 



