i 3 o THE SIEGE OF THE NORTH POLE 



ship on the 3rd of April. It consisted of fifty-three officers 

 and men. Each man in the northern division dragged 

 230 lb., and those of the western division 242 lb. 



" The programme was as follows : Lieutenant Aldrich, 

 assisted by a sledge-crew under the command of Lieu- 

 tenant Giffard, was to explore the shores of Grant Land 

 towards the north and west, along the coast-line he had 

 discovered the previous autumn. Commander Markham, 

 seconded by Lieutenant Parr, with two boats, and equipped 

 for an absence of seventy days, was to force his way to 

 the northward over the ice, starting off from the land 

 near Cape Joseph Henry ; three sledge-crews, under the 

 commands of Dr. Moss and Mr. George White, ac- 

 companying them as far as their provisions would allow.* 1 "' 



On the 20th April, Lieutenants Beaumont and Raw- 

 son, and Dr. Coppinger, with twenty-one men dragging 

 four sledges weighted to 218 lb. a man, started for the 

 north coast of Greenland. 



On the 25th of May, Captain Nares decided to go to Cape 

 Joseph Henry to obtain a view of the northern ice from 

 the lofty mountains in the locality. He arrived there on 

 the 29th, and ascended Mount Julia, the highest peak 

 near the sea, which rises to an elevation of not less than 

 2000 feet. The atmosphere being very clear, an ex- 

 tensive view was obtained. The hills of Greenland, 120 

 miles distant, were plainly seen in the neighbourhood of 

 Cape Britannia. He Avas satisfied that no land exists to 

 the north within 50 miles of Cape Joseph Henry, and no 

 high land within 80 miles. In his narrative of this 

 journey he writes : — 



" Whether or not land exists within the 360 miles 

 which stretch from the limit of our view to the northern 

 axis of the globe is, so far as sledge-travelling is con- 

 cerned, immaterial. Sixty miles of such pack as we now 

 know to extend north of Cape Joseph Henry is an in- 



