GEOGRAPHICAL PROGRESS. 



255 



man, pushed his way to the north. He had food 

 for two months, which 00 dogs dragged on 6 

 sledges. When the supplies for man and beast 

 began to give out the dogs died or had to be 

 killed. The party struggled on, however, and at 

 last reached Nansen's farthest north, 80 14'. 

 Then they went on till April 26, when they 

 touched 86 33' at about 56 east longitude. 

 The lives of the party would be imperiled if 

 they went farther, and so they determined to 

 turn back. They reached camp on June 23 with 

 2 sledges and 7 dogs. 



Searching parties had been sent out from the 

 ship for the lost men, but no trace was found. 

 Two depots of supplies were left for them at 

 places which it was thought they might reach if 

 they were alive. After the return of the expedi- 

 tion to Italy there was an official inquiry as to 

 the disappearance of the men. All the members 

 of the expedition except the Duke of the Abruzzi 

 thought they could not possibly have survived. 

 Dr. Cavalli testified that when the men turned 

 back the ice was weak in many places and covered 

 with new snow. They could not lose their course, 

 he said, for they knew perfectly the route to 

 steer back to the ship. He believed they had 

 fallen through the ice. The Duke of the Abruzzi 

 said, however, he thought it possible that the 

 men had reached one of the supply stations or 

 at least had found a refuge on some island where 

 they might be able to live, as Nansen did in the 

 same region, upon the game they killed. It was 

 a forlorn hope, but he proposed to act upon the 

 chance that they were alive. In March, 1901, 

 therefore, a search expedition was sent from Nor- 

 way in the whaling vessel Capella, under com- 

 mand of Capt. Stoekken, father of the lost young 

 machinist. The search was unsuccessful. The 

 Baldwin party found at Cape Flora a granite 

 shaft which Capt. Stoekken had set up there a 

 month earlier as a memorial to the lost men. 



An account written about the time of the de- 

 parture of the duke gives details of the equip- 

 ment : " The total expenses of the expedition are 

 expected to reach $500,000, of which the King of 

 Italy has contributed a fourth. Some details of 

 the duke's equipment are quite unique. He dis- 

 tributed his baggage among 1,500 boxes, each 

 weighing about 55 pounds, and easily portable, if 

 necessary, upon a man's back. He divided the 

 boxes into four classes: provisions, clothing and 

 equipment, tools and scientific instruments, and, 

 lastly, articles that are useful, but not indispen- 

 sable. Each class has its special color, and each 

 box is numbered according to the class and na- 

 ture of its contents. The provisions, consisting 

 of rice, sea-biscuit, preserved meats, etc., have 

 been so divided that each box contains five differ- 

 ent kinds of food, in order that the fare may in 

 no case be reduced to one article of food." 



The results of the expedition are summed up in 

 Petermann's Mitteilungen : "In many respects the 

 experiences of the Italian expedition are of de- 

 cided importance for future researches that may 

 be carried on from Franz-Josef Land. It is demon- 

 strated that the British Channel is navigable even 

 for large craft, as the Stella Polare found very 

 little difficulty from ice. It is probable that when 

 no unusually unfavorable conditions of wind and 

 ice are present, this arm of the sea may be free 

 from ice for a long time each year, and so afford 

 easy access as far as 82 north. For sledge jour- 

 neys Cagni's experience was almost ideal, though 

 polar explorers will not always be so richly pro- 

 vided with the necessary facilities. As the main 

 object was to penetrate as far as possible north- 

 ward, of course little could be done in the way 



of exploring Franz-Josef Land, f->p( ( .ally as the 

 ship was subjected to severe ice j,r. ~,u r( . soon 

 after the landing, and much labor \ iv mired 

 to save the equipment. What \va^ dune in the 

 way of exploration there was limited to journey 

 around Crown-Prince-Rudolf Lund by the Duke 

 of the Abruzzi in the early day* of September. It, 

 was proved that neither to the north nor north- 

 west of this island is there more land, .so that 

 Franz-Josef Land has its northern terminal ion at 

 82 and Peterrnann Land and King-Oscar Land 

 are non-existent, but owe their presence on the 

 maps of the past twenty-five years to an optical 

 illusion on the part of Payer, probably caused by 

 a bank of fog." 



According to Prof. Nathorst, Payer was mis- 

 taken in the height of the summit which he 

 named Mount Petermann, supposed to be the 

 highest in Greenland. He gave its height as 3,480 

 meters ; Nathorst makes it 2,500 to 2,800 meters. 



All hope of the return of Andree from his bold 

 attempt to solve the arctic mystery in a balloon 

 has been abandoned. The buoys that have been 

 found were apparently all cast 'out soon after the 

 start. It is the general opinion of arctic men that 

 the balloon came down within ten days after his 

 ascent in July, 1897, and that he landed in the 

 sea east of Spitzbergen and all hands were lost. 



A letter from Tromsoe July 11, 1901, says: 

 "The scaffolding built for Andree's balloon and 

 the cabins he used for his workshops still stand 

 on the edge of the fiord awaiting the disposition 

 of their absent owner a melancholy reminder, 

 appealing to the sentiment of the Norwegians, who 

 will allow them always to stand as a monument 

 to Andree, Fraenkel, and Strindberg." 



Prof. Nathorst had offered prizes for the re- 

 covery of buoys, of which he believes others are 

 still to be found, carried, he thinks probable, by 

 the east Greenland polar current to western 

 Greenland. 



The following despatch of Sept. 13, 1901, from 

 North Sydney, Cape Breton, gives particulars of 

 the movements of Lieut. Robert E. Peary, to 

 whose relief the Peary Club sent the steamship 

 Erik from that point in July, 1901. The Wind- 

 ward was sent in 1900: "The Peary arctic 

 steamer Erik, from Cape Sabine, Ellesmere Land, 

 Aug. 20, arrived here to-day. All well. Peary left 

 Fort Conger (latitude 81 44' N.), where he 

 was last reported March 31, 1900. On April 

 15 of that year, accompanied by Henson and 5 

 Eskimos, crossed Robeson channel to the west of 

 Greenland coast, and followed it along on foot 

 and over sea ice to the northward. At Blackhorn 

 Cliffs on April 26 2 natives were sent back, 

 and from Cape Britannia (83 24' N.), Beau- 

 mont's farthest seen, 2 more were sent back in 

 May. Lockwood's farthest north cairn (83 

 24.5' N.), of May 13, 1882, was opened at 

 11.40 P. M., May *8. Its records were tajcen, 

 and at Cape Washington, the headland seen by 

 him 15 miles northeast in 1882, another cairn 

 was erected and a copy of the ' farthest ' rec- 

 ord and additional memoranda were deposited. 

 Peary, with Henson and the other Eskimo, Ahng- 

 malokto, pushed on, and, at 83 39' north, 

 rounded the northern extremity of Greenland, 

 finding the coast at this point to trend rapidly 

 eastward. Here, on the most northerly known 

 land in the world, Peary built a cairn, in which he 

 deposited, in addition to the records of his jour- 

 ney to that point, portions of the flags of his coun- 

 try, of his club, and of his private signal, to- 

 gether with a few other articles interesting as 

 souvenirs. Changing his course directly north- 

 ward, Peary then struck out over the sea ice for 



