TOWARDS THE NORTH POLE. 173 



83 20' 26" north. " Owing to the extraordinary nature of 

 the pressed-up ice, a roadway had to be formed by pickaxes 

 for nearly half the distance travelled, before any advance 

 could be safely made, even with light loads ; this rendered 

 it always necessary to drag the sledge-loads forward by 

 instalments, and therefore to journey over the same road 

 several times. The advance was consequently very slow, 

 and only averaged about a mile and a quarter daily much 

 the same rate as was attained by Sir Edward Parry during 

 the summer of 1827. The greatest journey made in any one 

 day amounted only to two miles and three quarters. Although 

 the distance made good was only 73 miles from the ship, 276 

 miles were travelled over to accomplish it." It is justly 

 remarked, in the narrative from which I have made this 

 extract, that no body of men could have surpassed in praise- 

 worthy perseverance this gallant party, whose arduous 

 struggle over the roughest and most monotonous road 

 imaginable, may fairly be regarded as surpassing all former 

 exploits of the kind. (The narrator says that it has 

 " eclipsed " all former ones, which can scarcely be intended 

 to be taken au pied de la lettre.) The expedition reached 

 the highest latitude ever yet attained under any conditions, 

 carried a ship to higher latitudes than any ship had before 

 reached, and wintered in higher latitudes than had 

 ever before been dwelt in during the darkness of a Polar 

 winter. They explored the most northerly coast-line yet 

 traversed, and this both on the east and west of their route 

 northwards. They have ascertained the limits of human 

 habitation upon this earth, and have even passed beyond the 

 regions which animals occupy, though nearly to the most 

 northerly limit of the voyage they found signs of the 

 occasional visits of warm-blooded animals. Last, but not 

 least, they have demonstrated, as it appears to me (though 

 possibly Americans will adopt a different opinion), that by 

 whatever route the Pole is to be reached, it is not by that 

 which I have here called the American route, at least with 

 the present means of transit over icebound seas. The 



