Introduction. 



XXIX 



unknown area around the Pole by way of Smith's 

 Sound. Of these expeditions the most remark- 

 able was the last. In 1871, Captain Hall entered 

 Baffin's Bay in the month of August in the " Polaris/' 

 a small, weak-powered steamer, by no means well 

 fitted for the work, with a scratch crew composed 

 of eight Germans, nine Esquimaux, thirteen Ame- 

 ricans, one Englishman, one Irishman, and one 

 Scotchman. From Cape Shackleton, where the ice 

 is usually met with, in lat. 73° 30' N., the " Polaris " 

 sailed and steamed without interruption to 82° 16' 

 N., a distance of 526 miles, and was then only 

 stopped by loose ice. The crew of the " Polaris," 

 when subsequently witnessing the way in which 

 the " Arctic " steamed through similar ice, acknow- 

 ledged that a properly equipped steamer could 

 have passed through the barrier which stopped 

 their little vessel. 



Those on board the " Polaris " saw the strait 

 extending before them, with much open water and 

 land to the north and west, which they believed lay 

 in latitude 84° N., or within 300 miles of the Pole 

 of our earth. Wintering near their furthest point, 

 they found abundance of animal life, saw much 

 drift-wood of recent date, which must have come 

 there across the Polar Sea from the shores of 

 Siberia; and they found a tide coming from the 

 same direction, and report that the temperature 

 during the winter was considerably milder than 



