GEOGRAPHICAL EXPLORATIONS AND DISCOVERIES IN 1870. 



321 



gla3 of port was drunk, and the old papers re- 



January 2, 1870, tho ice-fleld was in 



l:ititnd. 7 47' N., and longitude 84 1' W M 



. . t lie coast in a bay which they had good 

 reason to name Schreckensbudit, ' May of 

 Horrors." Suddenly, during the night and 

 .iniid a lu-avy storm, a horrible groaning was 

 lii-unl, and all rushed out of the house, though 



n-ere not merely snowed up, but the house 

 lay buried more than a foot deep in ice. Noth- 

 ing was to be seen through the storm, and, 

 returning to their beds and laying their ears to 

 tho ground, they heard in the ice a noiso 

 " like tho singing of the ice when it is hard 

 pressed, and like the rubbing of tho ice when 

 it goes over cliffs." After a most anxious night, 

 as soon as there was some diminution in the 

 force of tho wind and tho amount of tho fall- 

 ing snow, some went out to explore. Two 

 hundred paces from tho door the heaped-up 

 fragments of their floe were found. In every 

 direction it had been broken up, and they had 

 reason to be thankful that the block on which 

 they rested remained the largest of all. Hur- 

 rying back, they seized provisions and cloth- 

 ing, and prepared for the further breaking up 

 of their ice-raft, if it should come. But, at a 

 time when they sank to tho hips in snow at 

 every step, such preparations appeared to bo 

 only a mocking at death. They were not 

 forced to commit themeslves to tho fortunes of 

 such a struggle. The breaking up of the ice 

 ceased for a time, though that night was but 

 the first rehearsal of many similar ones. Their 

 ice-field gradually diminished in size, and on 

 the night of January llth they divided into 

 two parties, took leave of each other, and stood 

 by the two boats in which they expected to seek 

 further safety. The weather was such that a 

 crust of ice formed over their faces, and could 

 be removed only with the knife, which had to 

 bo done whenever they would eat. No cloth- 

 ing could keep out either snow or cold. Some 

 froze their limbs ; and several of the journals 

 are interrupted for days because the writers 

 had not fingers to hold the pen. 



January 14, 1870, tho house was abandoned, 

 and for five days the men lived in the boats, 

 while a new house was building from the re- 

 mains of the old one, with snow for mortar. 

 Their new home was, however, very much 

 smaller than the old, being only 14 feet long, 

 and 8 wide, and with room for only six persons. 

 The others slept in a small cook-house, and in 

 the boats. Eighty-three days had passed in 

 the first hut, and now a hundred and ten days 

 went by while the company were divided be- 

 tween the houses and their boats. Their great 

 floe had become a block of drift ice not 500 

 feet in circuit. But this smnllness was to their 

 advantage. Not only did their lighter weight 

 preserve them from further breaking up by 

 collision against the icebergs, but they wound 

 their way among these ice-mountains as if 

 steered by some guiding hand. 

 It was on May 7th, in latitude 61 12' N., 

 VOL. x. 21 A 



longitude 42 e W., that the (co-block WM 

 abandoned, after having rendered them good 

 v-rviro for a hundred and ninety-three days. 

 In this time they had drifted nine and one- 

 third degrees southward. They had three 

 boats, King William, Bismarck, and Hope, and 

 in these they pushed forward toward the coast. 

 Surrounded by ice, they could make but five 

 hundred paces a day, and it was Juno Hth 

 before they reached tho little island Idlnidlick. 

 From that point the voyage round Cape Farc- 

 \M-I! to the German mission station Fnodrichs- 

 thal took five days. 



Finally, on June 13, 1870, or a year less two 

 days from the day of their departure, they 

 were in friendly habitations, and soon after 

 they reached Bremen. 



No particulars have yet been received of tho 

 results of the land expedition for ;he explora- 

 tion of the northeastern coast of Siberia, sent 

 out by Baron Maidel, under the patronage of 

 the Russian Geographical Society, but, as the 

 ground to be traversed was tho same which 

 was explored by Messrs. Kennan, Dodd, etc., 

 of the Russo- American Telegraph Company in 

 1867, there can be hardly very much that will 

 bo new in their report when it shall come to 

 hand. 



The projected voyages of Captain Lambert 

 of the French Navy, who proposed to make an 

 attempt to reach the open Polar Sea by way of 

 Behring's Straits, was, as we have already in- 

 timated, relinquished in consequence of tho 

 Franco-German war; that of Captain Sherrar 

 Osborno was decidedly negatived by the Brit- 

 ish Admiralty ; and Dr. Hayes found such dif- 

 ficulties in obtaining the requisite Government 

 assistance for his enterprise that this, and the 

 precarious condition of his health, induced him 

 to relinquish his project; Captain Hall was 

 more fortunate, but was compelled to delay his 

 expedition to the summer of 1871. 



Considerable discussion was had during tho 

 year 1870 at the meetings of the Royal Geo- 

 graphical Society of London, over the narrative 

 of a voyage of exploration made by Captain 

 Benjamin Morrill, a New-England whaling- 

 master, in 1823, in the Antarctic seas. The nar- 

 rative was published in 1832, in a volume bear- 

 ing the title of " Mori-ill's Four Voyages," and 

 had long been in the library of the Geographical 

 Society, but had not attracted much attention. 

 Captain Hamilton, of the Royal Navy, brought 

 it forward as throwing much light on the ques- 

 tion of the real extent of the lands already dis- 

 covered in the Antarctic zone. But its credi- 

 bility was strongly disputed by several of the 

 most eminent naval officers who were members 

 of the Society, and some of those who had been 

 connected with the explorations of Ross, and 

 others, denied that Morrill had ever entered 

 the Antarctic zone. The discussion wa inter- 

 esting, as showing how difficult it is- to put 

 down a fiction in geography or history. Con- 

 fute it to-day, and in a year or two it will 

 come up again with new claims- for enedence,- 



