PHIPPS AND BUCHAN S VOYAGES. 497 



will be the pleasing task of this closing chapter to follow these 

 noble mariners in their adventurous course; and, to avoid con- 

 fusion, I shall begin with a short history of Arctic discovery up 

 to the present day, and afterwards treat of the efforts made to 

 extend our knowledge towards the South Pole. In spite of the 

 unsuccessful efforts of a Frobisher, a Davis, a Hudson, and a 

 Baffin, England had never given up the hope of discovering a 

 northern passage to India, either direct across the Pole, or round 

 the north coast of America. It had been one of the chief ob- 

 jects of Cook's third voyage to find a sea-path from Behring's 

 Straits to Baffin's or Hudson's Bay; and some years before, 

 while the illustrious navigator was busy exploring the Southern 

 Pacific, we see Captain Phipps renewing the old attempt to sail 

 direct to the Pole (1773). But, like his predecessor Hudson, 

 he reached no farther than the northern extremity of Spitzbergen, 

 where his vessel, surrounded by mighty ice-blocks, would have 

 perished but for a timely change of wind. This repulse damped 

 for a time the spirit of discovery ; but hope revived again when 

 it became known that Scoresby, on a whaling expedition in the 

 Greenland seas (1806), had attained 81° N. lat. and thus ap- 

 proached the Pole to within 540 miles. No one before him had 

 ever reached so far to the north, and an open sea tempted him 

 mightily to proceed, but as the object of his voyage was strictly 

 commercial, and he himself answerable to the owners of his 

 vessel, Scoresby felt obliged to sacrifice his inclinations to his 

 duty and to steer again to the south. 



During the continental war, England indeed had little leisure 

 to prosecute discoveries in the Arctic Ocean ; but not long after 

 the conclusion of peace (1818) two expeditions were sent out 

 for that purpose. 



Captain Buchan, with the ships " Dorothea " and " Trent," 

 sailed with instructions to proceed in a direction as due north as 

 might be practicable through the Spitzbergen Sea ; but, having 

 after much difficulty gained lat. 80° 34' north in that polar archi- 

 pelago, he was obliged speedily to withdraw and try his fortune 

 off the western edge of the pack. Here however a tremendous 

 gale, threatening every moment to crush the ships between the 

 large ice-blocks heaving and sinking in the roaring billows, 

 induced the bold experiment of dashing right into the body of 



