246 THE FURTHEST NORTHWARDS. 



Exactly who has reached the furthest point north, 

 seems to be somewhat uncertain. The Americans 

 assert that it was done by one of their expeditions ; the 

 claim is thus put forward by Lieutenant Greeley, U.S.N., 

 who commanded the United States Expedition sent 

 out in 1 88 1, for he says in his book "Lieutenant 

 Lockwood, U.S.N., attained to Lat. 83 25' S"., the 

 highest latitude ever attained by man," * while in the 

 British Expedition, under Captain Sir George Nares, 

 R.N., that officer states in his account, that on May 12, 

 1876, Commander Markham, R.N., of H. M.S. Alert, 

 reached Lat. 83 20' 26" N. f so that there is only 

 about three nautical miles between them in any case. 



Yet so long ago as 1827, in the days of the old 

 sailing ships, Sir Edward Parry, another British officer, 

 got as far as Lat. 82 45 ' N. or within about 30 

 nautical miles of the highest of either of the two fore- 

 going estimates ; both of which we need hardly say 

 may vary a few miles from the true position, as single 

 observations are never to be implicitly relied upon. 

 So well is this known by nautical men, that whenever 

 the exact latitude of a place has to be ascertained, it 

 is usual to take the mean of a number of observations 

 obtained from stars, which are found to give more 

 accurate results than either solars or lunars. That 

 being so, we consider that we are justified in saying, 

 that it would be unsafe to assume that the Americans 



* Three Years' Arctic Service, by A. W. Greeley, Lieut. U.S.N., Vol. 



i. P- 335- 



^Arctic Voyage, by Capt Sir Geo. Nares, R.N., 1878, Vol. i, p. 377. 

 (These points have however been very much overpassed by Herr Nansen, 

 a Norwegian, who has just returned (August, 1896) from the Polar 

 regions and claims to have reached Lat. 86 14' N. This intelligence 

 reached Europe while these pages were in the press). 



Ibid., p. 173. 



