744 



THE POLAR WORLD. 



during the next month worked its way along 300 miles of yet undiscovered coast, and 

 went into winter quarters, October 7. The winter lasted eleven months. On Sep- 

 tember 17, 1830, they got under weigh; the engine had been disabled and was 

 thrown overboard. The vessel made only three miles, and on the 17th again went 

 into winter quarters, from which they were released August 28, 1831 ; but after a 

 month's hard work, during which they only made four miles, was again laid up for the 

 winter. Scurvy now broke out among the crew, and the experience of two years gave 

 little ground for hope that the vessel could be extricated the next summer. It was 

 resolved to abondon her, and with the boats fitted up as sledges make their way to the 

 spot where the Fury had been wrecked ; for they knew that her boats and stores had 

 been left there ; and there was good reason to hope still remained. They started on 

 the 23d of April, and reached their destination July 1, 1832. They found the boats 

 and provisions ; and in a month made an attempt to reach the open sea ; but Barrow 

 Strait was frozen solid, and they were forced to put back to Fury Beach, where they 

 passed the winter of 1832-3. Several of the men died here. On the 8th of July 

 they again put out. This time Barrow Strait was free of ice, and on the 26th of 

 August they were descried by a vessel and taken on board. Strangely enough, this 

 vessel was the Isabella, now a whaler, but the same which Ross had commanded on his 

 first expedition. No one on board could at first believe that this party were Ross and 

 his surviving companions, who had been given up as dead for more than two years. 

 When Ross reached England, in September, 1833, he was received with honors hardly 

 less than those which greeted Columbus in Spain on his return from his first expedi- 

 tion. The great towns presented him with the honorary gift of citizenship ; orders, and 

 medals, and diplomas rained down upon him from foreign states and learned societies ; 

 the Crown conferred upon him the honor of knighthood, and Parliament awarded him 

 a grant of £5,000. The results of this expedition were not inconsiderable. A con- 

 siderable space of shore line was mapped ; the magnetic pole of that year was ascertained 

 to be in latitude 70^ 5^ 17", longitude 96^ 46' 45", upon a peninsula to which the 

 name of Boothia has been given, jutting out northward from the Continent into the ar- 

 chipelago between the head of Hudson's Bay and Lancaster Sound. The greater part 

 of these successes are, however, due to Commander (afterwards Sir James) Ross, of 

 whom we shall have to speak hereafter. One other circumstance is notable in this 

 expedition. It had passed five consecutive winters within the Arctic circle. Parry 

 had demonstrated two winters could be passed by white men there without peril. Ross's 

 experience, confirmed by that of others, seemed to show that this was the limit. It re- 

 mained for Hall to demonstrate that with proper regimen an Arctic winter or a series 

 of them, is not specially unfavorable to human life.^ 



Three overland expeditions, in a measure connected with this of Ross, must have 

 brief mention. In February, 1833, Back, accompanied by Dr. King as surgeon and 

 naturalist, left England in search of Ross. They reached the Great Slave lake early 

 in August, whence they pushed on north-eastward ; but returned to winter at Fort Reli- 

 ance on the Great Slave lake, about latitude 62°. Here they sufifered terribly from 

 scarcity of food and cold, the thermometer at one time marking 70° below zero, or 102^* 

 below freezing point, the lowest as yet anywhere authentically noted. In the follow- 

 ing April, when Back was about to start north-eastward, he received tidings that Ross 



IP. 351. 



