268 THE SEA. 



CHAPTER XXXI. 



HALI/S EXPEDITION THE AUSTRO- HUNGARIAN EXPEDITION NORDENSKJOLD. 



Captain Hall's Expedition High Latitude Attained Open Water Seen Death of Hall The Polaris Beset An Abandoned 

 Party Six Months on a Floating Ice-floe Rescue Loss of the Steamer Investigation at Washington The Austro- 

 Hungarian Expedition The Tegethoff hopelessly Beset in the Ice Two Long Weary Years Perils from the Ice 

 Pressure Ramparts raised round the Ship The Polar Night Loss of a Coal-hut Attempts to Escape A Grand 

 Discovery Franz Josef Land Sledging Parties Gigantic Glaciers The Steamer Abandoned Boat and Sledge 

 Journey to the Bay of Downs Prof. Nordenskj old's Voyage The North-East Passage an accomplished Fact. 



BUT little record has been made, except in transient literature and Government reports, of the 

 expedition concerning 1 which we are about to write. Captain Charles Francis Hall's name is, with 

 the public, more intimately associated with " Life with the Esquimaux/' and but little with the 

 fact that he succeeded in taking- a vessel to a higher latitude than ever reached in that way 

 before. He returned to America in 1869, having for five years lived with, and to a great 

 extent as the natives, the result being that, excepting many errors of taste and style, he 

 succeeded in producing a work which has a very special ethnological value. Before it had 

 issued from the press, he had, encouraged by the then Secretary of the United States Navy, 

 laid a plan before Congress for attempting to reach the North Pole via Smith Sound. He 

 eventually succeeded in obtaining a grant of fifty thousand dollars for the purpose, while an old 

 U.S. river gun -boat was placed at his disposal. She was re-named the Polaris. It was 

 understood that no naval officer should accompany him, and he therefore engaged a whaling 

 captain, one S. O. Buddington, to navigate the vessel. Two scientific gentlemen, Dr. Bessels 

 and Mr. Meyer, accompanied him, as did Morton, Kane's trusty friend, who has been so often 

 mentioned in these pages. 



The expedition sailed in the summer of 1871, and after having touched at Disco, 

 Greenland, proceeded up Smith Sound, Kane Basin, and Kennedy Channel, across Polaris Bay 

 (discovered and designated by Hall), eventually reaching 82 16' N., the highest latitude ever 

 attained by a ship prior to Captain Nares's expedition. Ice impeded their further progress. 

 The strait into which they had entered was named after Mr. Robeson, and from the point 

 which they had so speedily and easily attained, a water horizon was seen to the north-east. 

 The vessel was laid up in a harbour named Thank-God Bay, where Captain Hall, after sundry 

 minor explorations, died on November 8th, having endured severe suffering, the symptoms 

 indicating paralysis and congestion of the brain. During his delirium he had expressed the 

 opinion that they were trying to poison him, and before he would touch medicine, food, or 

 wine, he made his clerk taste it. This being repeated at home, on the return of the expedition, 

 a Government investigation of a careful and detailed nature took place at Washington, but led 

 to nothing being elicited beyond the facts of a want of esprit de corps among some of the 

 members, and that there had been some disagreeable dissensions on board. Captain Buddington 

 had no ambition to distinguish himself in the field of science, which he evidently despised, 

 being probably what is called a " practical " man that is, one who must have immediate gain 

 before his eyes to stir him to exertion and there does not appear to have been any very earnest 

 feeling on the part of the others. Hall died almost on the spot with which his name must ever 



