EARLIEST POLAR EXPLORATIONS 167 



Their dismal tales filled England with horror. Corporations hesitated to 

 send new searchers out, Baffin himself would not go again. He died in 1623 

 in battle, fighting with the English against the Portuguese at Kishm island in 

 the Persian gulf. 



The tragedy, once started, grew in proportions as men's daring waxed 

 more fierce. Barents and Heemskerck had wintered in 1596-97 at Barents' 

 bay, on the western tongue of Nova Zembla. Willoughby was there in 1553 

 and Burrough in 1556. The latitude was 75, and the open waters at the 

 point were given the name of Barents' sea. 



Barents advanced toward the pole as far as latitude 76 in 1594, but no 

 farther. He met floating ice everywhere, ice that tossed his ship about as 

 though it were an eggshell; cold that penetrated to the marrow of his men. 

 He, too, surrendered. 



Afterward, all through the eighteenth century, hunters on ships, adven- 

 turers behind masts, geographers and others skirted just the outer edge of the 

 polar world in a vain essay to find an open passage that would carry them 

 safely through to the other side of the world. 



No attempts during this century were made to break into the solid ice 

 pack that girts the pole. It was not approached near enough to make it cer- 

 tain of existence. The approaches were confined to the fields of floating ice 

 outside of the pack, frozen mountains that bore down upon ships and buried 

 them in the sea with but a moment's warning. 



So the seekers for the way kept to the Taimur peninsula, to the Finnish 

 and Icelandic coast, to the western borders of Greenland or close to the Rus- 

 sian coast. 



Sir William Edward Parry, though, brought to Arctic exploration the 

 determination to enter the forbidden lands as far as his resources would 

 permit. He made his first reputation as an officer in the English navy. He 

 accompanied the Ross polar expedition, which accomplished nothing, and 

 then in 181 9 led one of his own. 



He entered the Arctic regions from the south and east. He explored and 

 named Barrow strait, Prince Regent's inlet and Wellington's sound. He 

 reached Melville island in September, 1819, and to the group to which it 

 belongs gave the name of Parry islands. 



Sir William found that distress and suffering produced cannibalism in 



