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A general term for the regions about the North or South Pole, otherwise called the Arctic or Antarctic regions. The ancients had no actual knowledge of History of the Polar regions. They had probably heard rumours Arctic of the light summer nights and the dark winter Exploration. nights in the north, as is shown by Homer's description of the Laestrygons having the short nights and the Cimmerians living in perpetual darkness. By astronomical speculations the Greeks had come to the conclusion that north of the Arctic Circle there must be midnight sun at midsummer and no sun at midwinter. The general view was that the Polar regions, north and south, belonged to the uninhabitable frozen zones; while according to a less scientific notion there was a happy region north of the north wind (Boreas), where the sun was always shining and the Hyperboreans led a peaceful life. The first traveller of history who probably approached the Arctic Circle and reached the land of the midnight Pytheas. sun was the Greek Pytheas (q.v.), from Massalia (Marseilles), who about 3 25 B.C. made a voyage of discovery northwards along the west coast of Europe, which is one of the most remarkable in history. He visited England, Scotland, the Scottish isles, and probably also northern Norway, which he called Thule. He moved the limits of the known world from the south coast of England northward to the Arctic Circle. It seems probable that he made two or perhaps several voyages. He also discovered the northern coasts of Germany as far east as Jutland.

We hear of no other voyages towards the Arctic regions before the Irish monk Dicuil, writing about 825, mentions the discovery by Irish monks of a group of small islands (the Irish Faeroes), and a greater island (Iceland), which he Discovery calls Thule, where there was hardly any night at of Iceland. midsummer. It is possible that Iceland and the Faeroes were inhabited by a small Celtic population before the Irish monks I. Isotherms, January.

2. Isotherms, July.

Isobaric Charts Pressure in millimetres, the Figures indicating the addition to 700. Thus on the charts 55 = 755 mm. = 29.7 in. to the nearest tenth; 60 = 760 mm.= 29.9 in.; 65=765 mm. _= 30

I in,; 75=755 mm. =30.5 in, Isothermal Charts.

Temperature in degrees Centigrade; o°=32° F., - 17.8°=o° F.

5. Isobars, July.

q Isobars, January.

Labrador, but it is unknown whether any remains of the Norse settlements were found on the Greenland west coast.

It is reported by Adam of Bremen (about 1070) that the Norwegian king Harold Haardraade (in the 11th century) made an expedition into the Arctic Sea (probably north came thither. The fact that Irish monks lived in Iceland before the Norsemen settled there in the end of the 9th century is verified by the Icelandic sagas.

In his translation of Orosius, King Alfred inserts the interesting story of the first known really Arctic voyage, told him by the Norwegian Ottar (Alfred calls him Ohthere), who about 870 rounded the North Cape, sailed eastwards along the Murman coast and discovered the White Sea, where he reached the south coast of the Kola Peninsula and the boundary of the land of the Biarmians (Beormas). Ottar told King Alfred that " he chiefly went thither, in addition to the seeing of the country, on account of the walruses." After Ottar's time the king of Norway took possession of all land as far east as the White Sea and the land of the Biarmians, and the native "Finns" had to pay him tribute. Many voyages, mostly of hostile nature but also for trade purposes, were undertaken from Norway to the White Sea, and even kings went as far. It is told of King Eric, called Bloodyaxe, who died as king of York in England, that he made such a voyage, and fought with the Biarmians, about 920, and about 965 his son Harold Graafeld defeated the Biarmians and killed many people in a great battle near the river Dvina, where Archangel was built later.

After having settled in Iceland in the end of the 9th century, the Norsemen soon discovered Greenland and settled there. The first who is reported to have seen the coast of Greenland was a Norwegian, Gunnbj6rn Ulfsson, who on his way to Iceland was storm-driven westwards. He came to some islands, afterwards called GunnbjOrnskier, and saw a coast, but, without exploring the new land, he had evidently continued his way till he reached Iceland. The real discoverer and explorer of Greenland was the Norwegian, Eric the Red, who, with his father had settled in Iceland. As he and his men had there been declared outlaws for having killed several people they had to leave Iceland for three years, and he went westward to find the land which Gunnbjorn was reported to have seen. He explored the west coast of Greenland for three years, probably about 982-985. He then returned to Iceland, but founded the following year a colony in Greenland (q.v.). Many colonists followed, and two Norse settlements were formed, viz. the Eystrabygd (i.e. eastern settlement) on the south-eastern part of the Greenland west coast, between Cape Farewell and about 61° N. lat., where Eric the Red had his house, Brattalid, at the Eiriksfjord; and the Vestrabygd (i.e. western settlement) in the region of the present Godthaab district, between 63° and 66° N. lat. The Norse settlers carried on their seal and whalehunting still farther north along the west coast beyond the Arctic circle, and probably in the region of Disco Bay. A runic stone was found in a cairn on a small island in 72° 55' N. lat. north of Upernivik, showing that Norsemen had been there. The stone probably dates from the 14th century. About 1267 an expedition was sent northwards along the west coast and may possibly have reached some distance north of Upernivik. The last known communication between the Norse settlements in Greenland and Norway was in 1410, when some Icelanders returned, who four years previously had been storm-driven to Greenland. After that time we possess no reliable information about the fate of these settlements. When Greenland was rediscovered in the 16th century no descendants of the Norse settlers were found. The probability is that having gradually been cut off from all communications with Europe, the remaining settlers who had not returned to the motherland were obliged to adopt the Eskimo mode of life, which in those surroundings was far superior to the European, and by intermarriage they would then soon be absorbed amongst the more numerous natives. There is evidence to show that an expedition was probably sent from Denmark or Norway to Greenland in the latter part of the 15th century (perhaps about 1 47 6) under Pining and Pothorst (by Purchas called Punnus and Pothorse "); and perhaps with Johan Scolvus as pilot. It is probable that this expedition had intercourse with the natives of Greenland, and possibly even reached wards) in order to examine how far it extended, Haro ld but we know nothing more about this voyage.

The Icelandic annals report that a land called Svalbardi was discovered in 1194. The name means the cold side or coast. The land was, according to the sagas, situated four days' sailing from north-eastern Iceland northwards in the Hafsbotn (i.e. the northern termination of the sea, which was supposed to end as a bay). There can be no doubt that this land was Spitsbergen. The Norsemen carried on seal, walrus and whale hunting, and it is believed on good ground that they extended their hunting expeditions eastwards as far as Novaya Zemlya and northwards to Spitsbergen.

On his way to Greenland from Norway in the year 1000 Leif Ericsson found America, probably Nova Scotia, which he called Wineland the Good. A few years later Thorfinn Karlsefni sailed from Greenland with three ships to make a settlement in the land discovered by Leif. They first came to Labrador, which they called Helluland, then to Newfoundland, which was called Markland (i.e. woodland), and then to Cape Breton and Nova Scotia ( Vinland; Wineland). After three years they had. to give up the undertaking on account of hostilities with the natives, probably Red Indians, and they returned to Greenland. about io06. We know of no later expedition of the Norsemen that reached Greenland; it is stated that Eric Uppri, the first. bishop of Greenland, went in 1121 to seek Vinland, but it is not related whether he ever reached it, and the probability is that he never returned.

The Icelandic annals state that in 1347 a small Greenland ship which had sailed to Markland (Newfoundland) was afterwards storm-driven to Iceland with seventeen men. This is the last known voyage made by the Norse- Newfound- men of Greenland which with certainty reached America.

The discoveries of the old Norsemen extended over the northern seas from Novaya Zemlya in the east to Labrador, Newfoundland and Nova Scotia in the west; they had visited all Arctic lands in these regions, and had explored the White Sea, the Barents Sea, the Spitsbergen and Greenland Sea, Davis Strait, and even some part of Baffin Bay. They were the first navigators in history who willingly left the coasts and sailed across the open ocean, and they crossed the Atlantic between Norway and America, thereby being the real discoverers of this ocean, as well as the pioneers in oceanic navigation. They were the teachers of the navigators of later centuries, and it is hardly an accident that the undertakings of England towards the west started from Bristol, where many Norwegians had settled, and which from the beginning of the 15th century had much trade with Iceland.

John Cabot, sent out by the merchants of Bristol, rediscovered the American continent in 1497. He came to Cape Breton and Nova Scotia, probably the same land where Leif Ericsson had landed Soo years before. John John ' Cabot started on a new expedition towards the west in 1498, but no more is known of this expedition, not even whether Cabot returned or not. There is no reliable evidence to prove that John Cabot or his son Sebastian ever discovered Labrador, as has been generally believed.

The Portuguese Gaspar Corte-Real rediscovered Greenland in 1500. He sailed along its east coast without being able to land on account of the ice. Whether he visited the Corte-Real. west coast is uncertain. In 1501 he made a new expedition when he also rediscovered Newfoundland. One of his ships returned home to Lisbon, but he himself and his ship disappeared. His brother went in search of him the following year, but was heard of no more.

Cabot's and Corte-Real's discoveries were followed by the development of the Newfoundland and Labrador fisheries, and a whole fleet of English, Portuguese, Basque and Breton fishermen was soon met with in these waters, and they probably went along the Labrador coast northward as far as Hudson Strait, without having left any report of their discoveries.

It is believed, on good grounds, that expeditions (combined English-Portuguese) were sent out to the newly discovered regions from Bristol in 1501 and 1502. It is unknown what their discoveries were, but they may possibly have sailed along the coast of Labrador.

It is possible that John Cabot's son, Sebastian Cabot, made an Arctic expedition in 1508-1509, in search of a short passage to China towards the north-west, and later, in 1521, King Henry VIII. made an attempt to persuade the merchants of London to support him in sending out an expedition, under Sebastian Cabot, to the north-western countries. It is uncertain whether it ever started, but it is certain that it achieved nothing of importance.

John Rut sailed from Plymouth in 1527, in order to seek a passage to China through the Arctic seas towards the northwest, following the suggestion of Robert Thorne of Bristol. He met ice in 53° N. lat. and returned to Newfoundland. Several other expeditions were sent out from various countries towards the north-west and west during this period, but no discoveries of importance are known to have been made in the Arctic regions.

There are rumours that the Portuguese, as early as 1484, under King John II., had sent out an expedition towards Novaya Zemlya in search of a north-east passage to India. The Genovese Paolo Centurione probably proposed to King Henry VIII. of England, in 1525, to make an expedition in search of such a passage to India north of Russia, and there is evidence to show that there had been much talk about an undertaking of this kind in England and at the English court during the following period, as it was hoped that a new market might be found for English merchandise, especially cloth. But it led to nothing until 1553, when Sebastian Cabot was one of the chief promoters. Three ships and 112 men under Sir Hugh Willoughby sailed from Ratcliffe on the 10th (loth) May 15 53. Richard Chancelor commanded one of the ships, which was separated from the two others in a gale off northern Norway on the 3rd (13th) August. Willoughby, after having sighted land in various places, probably Kolguev Island, where they landed, the coast near the Pechora river and Kanin Nos, came on the ,4th (24th) September to a good harbour on the northern coast of the Kola Peninsula. His one ship being leaky, Willoughby resolved to winter there, but he and all his men perished. Chancelor, after his separation from the two other ships, rounded the North Cape, to which he or his sailing-master, Stephen Borough, gave this name. He reached Vardbhus, and after having waited there in vain for Willoughby, he followed the route of the Norsemen to the White Sea and reached the bay of St Nicholas, with a monastery of this name, near the mouth of the Dvina river, where Archangel was built later. Chancelor undertook a journey to Moscow, made arrangements for commercial intercourse with Russia, and returned next year with his ship, which was, however, plundered by the Flemings, but he reached London safely with a letter from the tsar. In spite of the disaster of Willoughby and his men this expedition became of fundamental importance for the development of English trade. Chancelor's success and his so-called discovery of the passage to the White Sea, which was well known to the Norwegian traders in that region, proved to people in England the practical utility of polar voyages. It led to a charter being granted to the Association of Merchant Adventurers, also called the Muscovy or Russia Company, and gave a fresh impulse to Arctic discovery. Chancelor undertook a new expedition to the White Sea and Moscow in 1555; on his way home in the following year he was wrecked on the coast of Scotland and perished.

In 1556 Stephen Borough (Burrough), who had served with Chancelor, was sent out by the Muscovy Company in a small pinnace called the " Search-thrift," in order to try to reach the river Ob, of which rumours had been heard. Novaya Zemlya, Vaigach Island, and the Kara Strait leading into the Kara Sea, were discovered. Borough kept a careful journal of his voyage. In 1580 the company fitted out two vessels under Arthur Pet and Charles Jackman, with orders to sail eastwards north of Russia and Asia to the lands of the emperor of Cathay (China). They penetrated through the Kara Strait into the Kara Sea; they possibly saw the west coast of Yalmal, but met with much ice and were compelled to return. The two ships were separated on the way home, Pet reached London on December 26th in safety; Jackman wintered with his ship in Norway and sailed thence in February, but was never heard of again.

About 1574 the Portuguese probably made an attempt to find the north-west passage under Vasqueanes Corte-Real. They reached "a great entrance," which may have been Hudson Strait, and they "passed above twentie Corte - leagues" into it, "without all impediment of ice," "but their victailes fayling them,. .. they returned backe agayne with ioy." After the expeditions in search of the north-east passage achieved the success of opening up a profitable trade with Russia, via the White Sea, new life was inspired in the undertakings of England on the sea, at the same time the power of the Hanseatic merchants, called the Easterlings, was much reduced. It was therefore only natural that the plan of seeking a north-west passage to China and India should again come to the front in England, a.nd it was much discussed. It was Sir Martin Frobisher who opened that long series of expeditions all of which during three hundred years were sent from England in search of the north-west passage until the last expedition, which actually accomplished it, sailed from Norway. " Being persuaded of a new and neerer passage to Cataya" (China) towards the north-west, Frobisher " determined and resolved wyth himselfe, to go make full proofe thereof ... or else never to retourne againe, knowing this to be the onely thing of the worlde that was left yet undone, whereby a notable mind mighte be made famous and fortunate." After having attempted in vain for fifteen years to find support for his enterprise, he at last obtained assistance from Ambrose Dudley, earl of Warwick, and through him the interest of Queen Elizabeth was also secured. The Muscovy Company was now obliged to give a licence for the voyage in 1574, and the necessary money was found by London merchants. Aided especially by Michael Lok, an influential merchant and diligent student of geography, Frobisher sailed, on the 7th (17th) of June 1576, from Deptford with two small vessels of 20 and 25 tons, called the " Gabriel " and "Michael," and a small pinnace of to tons; the crews amounted to 35 men all told. On the 8th (18th) of July they lost sight of the pinnace, which was seen no more. On the 11th (21st) of July they sighted a high, rugged land, but could not approach it for ice. This was the east coast of Greenland, but, misled by his charts, Frobisher assumed it to be the fictitious Frisland, which was the fabrication of a Venetian, Niccolo Zeno, who in 1558 published a spurious narrative and map (which he pretended to have found) as the work of an ancestor and his brother in the 14th century. The Zeno map was chiefly fabricated on the basis of a map by the Swede Olaus Magnus of 1537 and the map by the Dane Claudius Clavus of the 15th century. It was accepted at the time as a work of high authority, and its fictitious names and islands continued to appear on subsequent maps for at least a century, and have puzzled both geographers at home and explorers in the field. These islands had also been introduced on the charts of Mercator of 1569 and of Ortelius of 1570, which were probably used by Frobisher. Evidently frightened by the sight of the great quantities of ice off the Greenland coast, one ship, the " Michael," left him secretly, " and retourned home wyth greate reporte that he was cast awaye." The gallant Frobisher continued his voyage towards the northwest in the " Gabriel " alone, although his mast was sprung, his topmast blown overboard, and his " mizei-mast " had had to be cut away in a gale. On the 29th of July (Aug. 8) he sighted high land which he called Queen Elizabeth's Foreland. This was the southern part of Baffin Land (Resolution Island) in about 62° N. lat. He was stopped by ice, but nearly two weeks later he reached the coast and entered an inlet which he considered to be the strait of the north-west passage, and he gave it his own name (it is now Frobisher Bay on Baffin Land). The land was called " Meta Incognita." Frobisher was not well prepared for going much farther, and after his boat with five men had disappeared he returned home, where, unfortunately, some " gold-finders " in London took it into their heads that a piece of dark heavy stone brought back contained gold ore. This caused great excitement; it was now considered much more important to collect this precious ore than to find the north-west passage, and much larger expeditions were sent out in the two following years. As many as fifteen vessels formed the third expedition of 1578, and it was the intention to form a colony with a hundred men in the gold land, but this scheme was given up. Frobisher came into Hudson Strait, which was at first thought to be Frobisher Strait and therefore called Mistaken Strait. There was an open sea without any land or ice towards the west, and Frobisher was certain that he could sail through to the " Mare del Sur " (Pacific Ocean) and " Kathaya," but his first goal was the " gold mines," and the vessels returned home with full loads of the ore. One of them, a buss (small ship) of Bridgwater, called the " Emmanuel, " reported that on her voyage home she had first sighted Frisland on the 8th (r8th) of September, but four days later she had sighted another land in the Atlantic and sailed along it till the following day; they reckoned its southern end to be in about 571° N. lat. This land soon found its place on maps and charts south-west of Iceland under the name of Buss Island, and as it was never seen again it was after 1745 called " the sunken land of Buss." The explanation is that, misled by the maps, Frobisher assumed Greenland to be Frisland of the Zeno map and Baffin Land was afterwards assumed to be the east coast of Greenland. When the buss on her way home sighted Greenland in about 62° N., she therefore thought it to be Frisland, but when she four days later again sighted land near Cape Farewell and her dead reckoning probably had carried her about two degrees too far south, she naturally considered this to be a new land, which puzzled geographers and navigators for centuries. Owing to a similar mistake, not by Frobisher, but by later cartographers and especially by Davis, it was afterwards assumed that Frobisher Strait (and also Mistaken Strait) was not in Baffin Land but on the east coast of Greenland, where they remained on the maps till the ,8th century.

John Davis, who made the next attempt to discover a northwest passage, was one of the most scientific seamen of that age.

He made three voyages in three successive years aided and fitted out by William Sanderson and other merchants. Sailing from Dartmouth on the 7th (r7th) of June 1585, with two ships, he sighted on the 10th (30th) of July " the most deformed, rocky and mountainous land, that ever we sawe." He named it the Land of Desolation, although he understood that he had rediscovered " the shore which in ancient time was called Groenland." It was its east coast. He visited the west coast, where Frobisher had also landed mistaking it for Frisland. Davis anchored in a place called Gilbert's Sound in 64° ro' (near the present Danish settlement of Godthaab) and had much intercourse with the Eskimo. He then, crossing the strait which bears his name, traced a portion of its western shore southwards from about 66° 40' N. lat. and came into Cumberland Sound, which he thought to be the strait of the north-west passage, but returned home on account of contrary winds. In the second voyage (with four ships) Davis traced the western shore of Davis Strait still farther southwards, and sailed along the coast of Labrador. In the third voyage (with three ships) in 1587 he advanced far up his own strait along the west coast of Greenland in a small leaky pinnace, the "Ellin," and reached a lofty granite island in 72° 41' N. lat., which he named Hope Sanderson. He met with ice in the sea west of this place, but reported that there was not " any yce towards the north, but a great sea, free, large, very salt and blew, and of an unsearcheable depth." By contrary winds, however, he was prevented from sailing in that direction. He sailed into Cumberland Sound, but now found that there was no passage. He also passed on his way southwards the entrance to Frobisher Strait, which he named Lumley Inlet, and Hudson Strait, without understanding the importance of the latter. When Davis came to Labrador, where his two larger ships were to have waited for him, they had sailed to England. The little " Ellin " now struck a sunken rock and sprung a leak, which was repaired, and he crossed the Atlantic in this small leaky craft. He still believed in the existence of a passage through Davis Strait, but could find no support for another Arctic voyage. Davis was not the first to discover this strait; it was well-known to the Norsemen. Gaspar Corte-Real had possibly also been there, and Frobisher had during his voyages crossed its southern part every year. The result of Davis's discoveries are shown on the Molyneux globe, which is now in the library of the Middle Temple; they are also shown on the " New Map " in Hakluyt's Principal Navigations (1598-1600). When Davis was trying to reconcile his discoveries with the previous ones, especially those of Frobisher, he made fatal mistakes as mentioned above.

As early as 1565, by the intervention of a certain Philip WinterkOnig, an exile from Vardbhus in Norway, Dutch merchants formed a settlement in Kola, and in 1578 two Dutch ships anchored in the mouth of the river Dvina, and a Dutch settlement was established where Archangel was built a few years later. The leading man in these undertakings was Olivier Brunel, who is thus the founder of the White Sea trade of the Dutch; he was also their first Arctic navigator. He had travelled both overland and along the coast to Siberia and reached the river Ob; he had also visited Kostin Shar on Novaya Zemlya. He propounded plans for the discovery of the north-east passage to China, and in 1581 he went from Russia to Antwerp to prepare an expedition. He probably started with one ship in 1582, on the first Arctic expedition which left the Netherlands. Little is known of its fate except that it ended unsuccessfully with the wreck of the ship in the shallow Pechora Bay, possibly after a vain attempt to penetrate through the Yugor Strait into the Kara Sea. In 1583 we find Olivier Brunel in Bergen trying to organize a Norwegian undertaking, evidently towards the north-east, but it is uncertain whether it led to anything.

The Dutch, however, had begun to see the importance of a northern route to China and India, especially as the routes through the southern seas were jealously guarded by the Spaniards and Portuguese, and after 1584 all trade with Portugal, where the Dutch got Indian goods, was forbidden. By Brunel's efforts their attention had been directed towards the north-east passage, but it was not until 1594 that a new expedition was sent out, one of the promoters being Peter Plancius, the learned cosmographer of Amsterdam. Four ships sailed from Huysdunen on the 5th (r 5th) of June 1594. Two of these ships from Amsterdam were under the command of Willem Barents, who sighted Novaya Zemlya, north of Matochkin Shar, on the 4th (14th) of July; and from that date until the 1st (11th) of August Barents continued perseveringly to seek a way through the ice-floes, and discovered the whole western coast as far as the Great Ice Cape, the latitude of which he, with his admirable accuracy, determined to be 77° N. Having reached the Orange Islands at the north-west extremity, he decided to return. The two other ships under the command of Cornelis Nay had discovered the Yugor Strait, through which they sailed into the Kara Sea on the 1st (11th) of August. They reached the west coast of Yalmal; being sure that they had passed the mouth of the river Ob, and finding the sea open, they thought they had found a free passage to Japan and China, and returned home on the rlth (21st) of August. A new expedition was made the following year, 1595, with seven ships under the command of Cornelis Nay, as admiral, and Willem Barents a5 Nay. chief pilot, but it merely made several unsuccessful attempts to enter the Kara Sea through the Yugor Strait. The third expedition was more important. Two vessels sailed from Amsterdam on the 10th (20th) of May 1596, under the command of Jacob van Heemskerck and Corneliszoon Rijp. Barents accompanied Heemskerck as pilot, and Gerrit de Veer, the historian of the voyage, was on board as mate. The masses of ice in the straits leading to the Sea of Kara, and the impenetrable nature of the pack near Novaya Zemlya, had suggested the advisability of avoiding the land and, by keeping a northerly course, of seeking a passage in the open sea. They sailed northwards, and on the 9th (19th) of June discovered Bear Island. Continuing on the same course they sighted a mountainous snow-covered land in about 80° N. lat., soon afterwards being stopped by the polar pack ice. This important discovery was named Spitsbergen, and was believed to be a part of Greenland. Arriving at Bear Island again on the 1st of July, Rijp parted company, while Heemskerck and Barents proceeded eastward, intending to pass round the northern extreme of Novaya Zemlya. On the 26th of August (Sept. 5) they reached Ice Haven, after rounding the northern extremity of the land. Here they wintered in a house built out of driftwood and planks from the 'tween decks and the deck-house of the vessel. In the spring they made their way in boats to the Lapland coast; but Barents died during the voyage. This was the first time that an arctic winter was successfully faced. The voyages of Barents stand in the first rank among the polar enterprises of the 16th century. They led to flourishing whale and seal fisheries which long enriched the Netherlands.

The English enterprises were continued by the Muscovy Company, and by associations of patriotic merchants of London;, and even the East India Company sent an expedition under Captain Waymouth in 1602 to seek for a passage by the opening seen by Davis, but it had no success.

The best servant of the Muscovy Company in the work of polar discovery was Henry Hudson. His first voyage was. undertaken in 1607, when he discovered the most northern known point of the east coast of Greenland in 73 0 N. named " Hold with Hope," and examined the ice between Greenland and Spitsbergen, probably reaching Hakluyt's Headland in 79° 50' N. On his way home he discovered the island now called Jan Mayen, which he named " Hudson's Tutches." In his second expedition, during the season of 1608, Hudson examined the edge of the ice between Spitsbergen and Novaya Zemlya. In his third voyage he was employed by the Dutch East India Company; he again approached Novaya Zemlya, but was compelled to return westwards, and he explored the coasts of North America, discovering the Hudson river. In 1610 he entered Hudson Strait, and discovered the great bay which bears and immortalizes his name. He was obliged to winter there, undergoing no small hardships. On his way home his crew mutinied and set him, his little son and some sick men adrift in a boat, and the explorer perished in the seas he had opened up.

The voyages of Hudson led immediately to the Spitsbergen whale fishery. From 1609 to 1612 Jonas Poole made four voyages for the prosecution of this lucrative business, and he was followed by Fotherby, Baffin, Joseph, Fishery. and Edge. These bold seamen, while in the pursuit of whales, added considerably to the knowledge of the archipelago of islands known under the name of Spitsbergen, and in 1617 Captain Edge discovered an island to the eastward, which he named Wyche's Land.

About the same period the kings of Denmark began to send expeditions for the rediscovery of the lost Greenland colony. In 1605 Christian IV. sent out three ships, a Dane named Lindenov, which reached the western coast of Greenland and had much intercourse with the Eskimo. Other expeditions followed in 1606-1607.

Meanwhile, the merchant adventurers of London continued to push forward the western discovery. Sir Thomas Button, in command of two ships, the " Resolution " and " Discovery," sailed from England in May 1612. He entered Hudson Bay, crossed to its western shore, and wintered at the mouth of a river in 57° 10' N. which was named Nelson River after the master of the ship, who died and was buried there. Next year Button explored the shore of Southampton Island as far as 65° N., and returned home in the autumn of 1613. An expedition under Captain Gibbons despatched in 1614 to Hudson Bay was a failure; but in 1615 Robert Bylot as master and William Baffin as pilot and navigator in the " Discovery" examined the coasts of Hudson Strait and to the north of Hudson Bay, and Baffin, who was the equal of Davis as a scientific seaman, made many valuable observa- Baffin. tions. In 1616 Bylot and Baffin again set out in the " Discovery." Sailing up Davis Strait they passed that navigator's farthest point at Sanderson's Hope, and sailed round the great channel with smaller channels leading from it which has been known ever since as Baffin Bay. Baffin named the most northern opening Smith Sound, after the first governor of the East India Company, and the munificent promoter of the voyage, Sir Thomas Smith. Lancaster Sound and Jones Sound were named after other promoters and friends of the voyage. The fame of Baffin mainly rests upon the discovery of a great channel extending north from Davis Strait; but it was unjustly dimmed for many years, owing to the omission of Purchas to publish the navigator's tabulated journal and map in his great collection of voyages. It was two hundred years before a new expedition sailed north through Baffin Bay. It may be mentioned, as an illustration of the value of these early voyages to modern science, that Professor Hansteen of Christiania made use of Baffin's magnetic observations in the compilation of his series of magnetic maps. In 1619 Denmark sent out an expedition, under the command of Jens Munk, in search of the north-west passage, with two ships and 64 men. They reached the west coast of Hudson Bay, where they wintered near Churchill river,, but all died with the exception of one man, a boy, and Munk himself, who managed to sail home in the smallest ship.

In 1631 two expeditions were despatched, one by the merchants of London, the other by those of Bristol. In the London ship " Charles" Luke Fox explored the western side of Hudson Bay as far as the place called " Sir Thomas Roe's Welcome." In August he encountered Captain James and the Bristol ship " Maria " in the middle of Hudson Bay, and went north until he reached "North-west Fox his farthest," in 66° 47' N. He then returned home and wrote an entertaining narrative. Captain James had to winter off Charlton Island, in James Bay, the southern extreme of Hudson Bay, and did not return until October 1632. Another English voyager, Captain Wood, attempted, without success, to discover a north-east passage in 1676 through the sea round the North Pole, but was wrecked on the coast of Novaya Zemlya. The 16th and 17th centuries were periods of discovery and daring enterprise. Hudson Strait and Bay, Davis Strait and Baffin Bay, the icy seas from Greenland to Spitsbergen and from Spitsbergen to Novaya Zemlya had all been explored; but much more was not discovered than had been well known to the Norsemen five or six centuries earlier. The following century was rather a period of reaping the results of former efforts than of discovery. It saw the settlement of the Hudson Bay Territory and of Greenland, and the development of the whale and seal fisheries.

The Hudson's Bay Company was incorporated in 1670, and Prince Rupert sent out Zachariah Gillan, who wintered at Rupert river. At first very slow progress was made. A voyage undertaken by Mr Knight, nearly 80 years old, who had been appointed governor of the factory at Nelson river, was unfortunate, as his two ships were lost and the crews perished. This was in 1719. In 1722 John Scroggs was sent from Churchill river in search of the missing ships, but merely entered Sir Thomas Roe's Welcome and returned. His reports were believed to offer decisive proofs of the existence under the Englishmen Cunningham and Hall and of a passage into the Pacific; and a naval expedition was despatched under the command of Captain Christopher Middleton, consisting of the " Discovery " pink and the " Furnace bomb. Wintering in Churchill river, Middleton started in July 1742 and discovered Wager river and Repulse Bay. In 1746 Captain W. Moor made another voyage in. the same direction, and explored the Wager Inlet.

Later in the century the Hudson's Bay Company's servants made some important land journeys to discover the shores of the American polar ocean. From 1769 to 1772 Samuel Hearne descended the Coppermine River to the polar sea; and in 1789 Alexander Mackenzie discovered the mouth of the Mackenzie river. (For the establishment of the modern Danish settlements in Greenland, see Greenland.) The countrymen of Barents vied with the countrymen of Hudson in the perilous calling which annually brought fleets of ships to the Spitsbergen seas during the 17th and 18th centuries. The Dutch had their large summer Fishery. station for boiling down blubber at Smeerenberg, near the northern extreme of the west coast of Spitsbergen. Captain Vlamingh, in 1664, advanced as far round the northern end of Novaya Zemlya as the winter quarters of Barents. In 1700 Captain Cornelis Roule is said by Witsen to have sailed north in the longitude of Novaya Zemlya and to have seen an extent of 40 m. of broken land, but Theunis Ys, one of the most experienced Dutch navigators, believed that no vessel had ever been north of the 82nd parallel. In 1671 Frederick. Martens, a German surgeon, visited Spitsbergen, and wrote the best account of its physical features and natural history that existed previous to the time of Scoresby. In 1707 Captain Cornelis Gilies went far to the eastward along the northern shores of Spitsbergen, and saw land to the east in 80° N., which has since been known as Gilies Land. The Dutch geographical knowledge of Spitsbergen was embodied in the famous chart of the Van Keulens (father and son), 1700-1728. The Dutch whale fishery continued to flourish until the French Revolution, and formed a splendid nursery for training the seamen of the Netherlands. From 1700 to 1775 the whaling fleet numbered Too ships and upwards. In 1719 the Dutch opened a whale fishery in Davis Strait, and continued to frequent the west coast of Greenland for upwards of sixty years from that time.

The most flourishing period of the British fishery in the Spitsbergen and Greenland seas was from 1752 to 1820. Bounties British of 40s. per ton were granted by act of parliament; Whale and in 1778 as many as 255 sail of whalers were Fishery. employed. In order to encourage discovery 5000 was offered in 1776 to the first ship that should sail beyond the 89th parallel (16 Geo. III. c. 6). Among the numerous daring. and able whaling captains, William Scoresby takes scoresby the first rank, alike as a successful whaler and a scientific observer. His admirable Account of the Arctic Regions is still a textbook for all students of the subject. In 1806 he succeeded in advancing his ship " Resolution " as far north as 81° 12' 42". In 1822 he forced his way through the ice which encumbers the approach to land on the east coast of Greenland, and surveyed that coast from 75° down to 69° N., a distance of 400 m. Scoresby combined the closest attention to his business with much valuable scientific work and no insignificant amount of exploration.

The Russians, after the acquisition of Siberia, succeeded in gradually exploring the whole of the northern shores of that vast. region. In 1648 a Cossack named Simon Dezhneff is said to have equipped a boat expedition in the river Kolyma, passed through the strait since named after Bering, and reached the Gulf of Anadyr. In 1738 a voyage was made by two Russian officers from Archangel to the mouths of the Ob and the Yenisei. Efforts were then made to effect a passage from the Yenisei to the Lena. In 1735 Lieut. T. Chelyuskin. Chelyuskin got as far as 77° 25' N. near the cape which bears his name; and in 1743 he rounded that most northern point of Siberia in sledges, in 77° 41' N. Captain Vitus Bering, a Dane, was appointed by Peter the Great to command an expedition in 1725. Two vessels were built at Okhotsk, and in July 1728 Bering ascertained the existence of a strait between Asia and America.

In 1740 Bering was again employed. He sailed from Okhotsk in a vessel called the " St Paul," with G. W. Steller on board as naturalist. Their object was to discover the American side of the strait, and they sighted the magnificent peak named by Bering Mt St Elias. The Aleutian Islands were also explored, but the ship was wrecked on an island named after the ill-fated discoverer, and scurvy broke out amongst his crew. Bering himself died there on the 8th of December 1741.

Thirty years after the death of Bering a Russian merchant named Liakhoff discovered the New Siberia or Liakhoff Islands, and in 1771 he obtained the exclusive right from the Hedenstr?m. empress Catherine to dig there for fossil ivory.

These islands were more fully explored by an officer named Hedenstr6m in 1809, and seekers for fossil ivory annually resorted to them. A Russian expedition under Captain Chitschakoff, sent to Spitsbergen in 1764, was only able to attain a latitude of 80° 30' N.

From 1773 onwards to the end of the 19th century the objects of polar exploration were mainly the acquisition of knowledge in various branches of science. It was on these grounds that Daines Barrington and the Royal Society induced the British government to undertake arctic exploration once more. The result was that two vessels, the "Racehorse " and " Carcass " bombs, were commissioned, under the command of Captain J. C. Phipps. The expedition sailed from the Phipps. Nore on the 2nd of June 1773, and was stopped by the ice to the north of Hakluyt Headland, the north-western point of Spitsbergen. Phipps reached the Seven Islands and discovered Walden Island; but beyond this point progress was impossible. When he attained their highest latitude in 80° 48' N., north of the central part of the Spitsbergen group, the ice at the edge of the pack was 24 ft. thick. Captain Phipps returned to England in September 1773. Five years afterwards James Cook received instructions to proceed northward from Kamchatka and search for a north-east or north-west passage from the Pacific to the Atlantic. In accordance with these orders Captain Cook, during his third voyage, reached Cape Prince of Wales, the western extremity of America, on the 9th of August 1778. His ships, the " Resolution " and " Discovery," arrived at the edge of the ice, after passing Bering Strait, in 70° 41' N. On the 17th of August the farthest point seen on the American side was named Icy Cape. On the Asiatic side Cook's survey extended to Cape North. In the following year Captain Clerke, who had succeeded to the command, made another voyage, but his ship was beset in the ice, and so much damaged that further attempts were abandoned.

The wars following the French Revolution put an end to voyages of discovery till, after the peace of 1815, north polar research found a powerful and indefatigable advocate in Sir John Barrow. Through his influence a measure for promoting polar discovery became law in 1818 (58 Geo. III. c. 20), by which a reward of 20,000 was offered for making the north-west passage, and of 5000 for reaching 89° N., while the commissioners of longitude were empowered to award proportionate sums to those who might achieve certain portions of such discoveries. In 1817 the icy seas were reported by Captain Scoresby and others to be remarkably open, and this circumstance enabled Barrow to obtain sanction for the despatch of two expeditions, each consisting of two whalers - one to attempt discoveries by way of Spitsbergen and the other by Baffin Bay. The vessels for the Spitsbergen route, the " Dorothea " and " Trent," were commanded by Captain David Buchan and Lieut. John Franklin, and sailed in April 1818. Driven into the pack by a heavy swell from the south, both vessels were severely nipped, and had to return to England. The other expedition, consisting of the " Isabella " and " Alexander," commanded by Captain John Ross and Lieut.

Edward Parry, followed in the wake of Baffin's voyage of 1616. Ross sailed from England in April 1818. The chief merit of his voyage was that it vindicated Baffin's accuracy as a discoverer. Its practical result was that the way was shown to a lucrative fishery in the " North Water " of Baffin Bay, which continued to be frequented by a fleet of whalers every year. Captain Ross thought that the inlets reported by Baffin were merely bays, while the opinion of his second in command was that a wide opening to the westward existed through the Lancaster Sound of Baffin.

Parry was selected to command a new expedition in the following year. His two vessels, the " Hecla " and " Griper, " Parry's passed through Lancaster Sound, the continuation First and of which was named Barrow Strait, and advanced Second westward, with an archipelago on the right, since Voyages. known as the Parry Islands. He observed a wide opening to the north, which he named Wellington Channel, and sailed onwards for 300 m. to Melville Island. He was stopped by the impenetrable polar pack of vast thickness which surrounds the archipelago to the north of the American continent, and was obliged to winter in a harbour on the south coast of Melville Island. Parry's hygienic arrangements during the winter were judicious, and the scientific results of his expedition were valuable. The vessels returned in October 1820; and a fresh expedition in the " Fury " and " Hecla," again under the command of Captain Parry, sailed from the Nore on the 8th of May 1821, and passed their first winter on the coast of the newly discovered Melville Peninsula in 66° 11' N. Still persevering, Parry passed his second winter among the Eskimo at Igloolik in 69° 20' N., and discovered a channel leading westward from the head of Hudson Bay, which he named Fury and Hecla Strait. The expedition returned in the autumn of 1823. Meantime Parry's Franklin's friend Franklin had been employed in attempts to First reach by land the northern shores of America, Journey. hitherto only touched at two points by Hearne and Mackenzie. Franklin went out in 1819, with Dr John Richardson, George Back and Robert Hood. They landed at York factory, and proceeded to the Great Slave Lake. In August of the following year they started for the Coppermine river, and, embarking on it, reached its mouth on the 18th of July 1821. From that point 550 m. of coast-line were explored, the extreme point being called Cape Turnagain. Great sufferings, from starvation and cold, had to be endured during the return journey; but eventually Franklin, Richardson and Back arrived safely at Fort Chippewyan.

It was thought desirable that an attempt should be made to connect the Cape Turnagain of Franklin with the discoveries Parry's made by Parry during his second voyage; but the Third first effort, under Captain Lyon in the " Griper," was Voyage. unsuccessful. In 1824 three combined attempts were organized. While Parry again entered by Lancaster Sound and pushed down a great opening he had seen to the south named Prince Regent Inlet, Captain Beechey was to enter Bering Strait, and Franklin was to make a second journey by land to the shores of Arctic America. Parry was unfortunate, but Beechey entered Bering Strait in the " Blossom " in August 1826, and extended our knowledge as far as Point Barrow Franklin's in 71° 23' 30" N. lat. Franklin, in 1825-1826, de Second scended the Mackenzie river to its mouth, and ex- Journey. plored the coast for 374 m. to the westward; while Dr Richardson discovered the shore between the mouths of the Mackenzie and Coppermine, and sighted land to the northward, named by him Wollaston Land, the dividing channel being called Union and Dolphin Strait. They returned in the autumn of 1826.

Work was also being done in the Spitsbergen and Barents Seas. From 1821 to 1824 the Russian Captain Liitke was surveying the west coast of Novaya Zemlya as far. as Gritke. Cape Nassau, and examining the ice of the adjacent sea. In May 1823 the " Griper " sailed, under the command of Captain Clavering, to convey Captain Sabine to Clavering. the polar regions in order to make pendulum observations. Clavering pushed through the ice in 75° 30' N., and succeeded in reaching. the east coast of Greenland, where observations were taken on Pendulum Island. He charted the coast-line from 76° to 72° N.

In Parry's attempt to reach the pole from the northern coast of Spitsbergen by means of sledge-boats (see Parry), the highest latitude reached was 82° 45' N., and the attempt was persevered in until it was found that the ice as a whole was drifting to the south more rapidly than it was possible to travel over it to the north.

In 1829 the Danes undertook an interesting piece of exploration on the east coast of Greenland. Captain Graah of the Danish navy rounded Cape Farewell in boats, with four Europeans and twelve Eskimo. He advanced Graah. as far as 65° 18' N. on the east coast, where he was stopped by an insurmountable barrier of ice. He wintered in 63° 22' N., and returned to the settlements on the west side of Greenland in 1830.

In the year 1829 Captain John Ross, with his nephew James Clark Ross, having been furnished with funds by a wealthy distiller named Felix Booth, undertook a private expedition of discovery in a small vessel called the The Rosses. " Victory. " Ross proceeded down Prince Regent Inlet to the Gulf of Boothia, and wintered on the eastern side of a land named by him Boothia Felix. In the course of exploring excursions during the summer months James Ross crossed the land and discovered the position of the north magnetic pole on the western side of it, on the 1st of June 1831. He also discovered a land to the westward of Boothia which he named King William Land, and the northern shore of which he examined. The most northern point was called Cape Felix, and thence the coast trended southwest to Victory Point. The Rosses could not .get their little vessel out of its winter quarters. They passed three winters. there, and then fell back on the stores at Fury Beach, where they passed their fourth winter, 1832-1833. Eventually they were picked up by a whaler in Barrow Strait, and brought home. Great anxiety was naturally felt at their prolonged absence, and in 1833 Sir George Back, with Dr Richard King as a companion, set out by land in search of the missing Back. explorers. Wintering at the Great Slave Lake, they left Fort. Reliance on the 7th of June 1834, and descended the Great Fish river for 530 m. The mouth was reached in 67° 11' N., and then the want of supplies obliged them to return. In 1836 Sir George Back was sent, at the suggestion of the Royal Geographical Society, to proceed to Repulse Bay in his ship, the " Terror, " and then to cross an assumed isthmus and examine the v coastline thence to the mouth of the Great Fish river; but the ship was obliged to winter in the drifting pack, and was brought home in a sinking condition.

The tracing of the polar shores of America was completed by the Hudson's Bay Company's servants. In June 1837 Thomas Simpson and P. W. Dease left Chippewyan, reached the mouth of the Mackenzie, and connected that position Simpson and Dease.. with Point Barrow, which had been discovered by the " Blossom " in 1826. In 1839 Simpson passed Cape Turnagain of Franklin, tracing the coast eastward so as to connect with Back's work at the mouth of the Great Fish river. He landed at Montreal Island in the mouth of that river, and then advanced eastward as far as Castor and Pollux river, his farthest eastern point. On his return he travelled along the north side of the channel, the south shore of the King William Island discovered by James Ross. The southwestern point of this island was named Cape Herschel, and there Simpson built a cairn on the 26th of August 1839. Little remained to do in order to complete the delineation of the northern shores of the American continent, and this task was entrusted to Dr John Rae, a Hudson's Bay factor, in Rae. 1846. He went in boats to Repulse Bay, where he wintered in a stone hut nearly on the Arctic Circle; and there he and his six Orkney men maintained themselves on the deer they shot. During the spring of 1847 Dr Rae explored on foot the shores of a great gulf having 700 m. of coast-line. He thus connected the work of Parry, at the mouth of Fury and Hecla Strait, with the work of Ross on the coast of Boothia, proving that Boothia was part of the American continent.

While British explorers were thus working hard to solve some of the geographical problems relating to Arctic America, the Russians were similarly engaged in Siberia. In 1821 Lieut. P. F. Anjou made a complete survey of the New Siberia Islands, and came to the conclusion that it was not possible to advance far from them in a northerly direction, owing to the thinness of the ice and to open water Wrangell. existing within 20 or 30 m. Baron Wrangell prosecuted similar investigations from the mouth of the Kolyma between 1820 and 1823. He made four journeys with dog sledges, exploring the coast between Cape Chelagskoi and the Kolyma, and making attempts to extend his journeys to some distance from the land, but he was always stopped by thin ice.

. In 1843 Middendorf was sent to explore the region wh i ch terminates in Cape Chelyuskin. He reached Taimyr Bay in the height of the short summer, whence he saw open water and no ice blink in any direction. The whole arctic shore of Siberia had now been explored and delineated, but no vessel had yet rounded the extreme northern point.

The success of Sir James Ross's Antarctic expedition and the completion of the northern coast-line of America by the Hudson's Bay Company's servants gave rise in 1845 to a fresh to Bering Strait. The story of the unhappy expedition of Sir John Franklin, in the " Erebus " and " Terror," is told under Franklin; but some geographical details may be given here. The heavy polar ice flows south-east between Melville and Baring Islands, down M'Clintock Channel, and impinges on the north-west coast of King William Land. It was this branch from the " palaeocrystic " sea which finally stopped the progress of Franklin's expedition. On leaving the winter quarters at Beechey Island in 1846 Franklin found a channel leading south, along the western shore of the land of North Somerset discovered by Parry in 1819. If he could reach the channel on the American coast, he knew that he would be able to make his way along it to Bering Strait. This channel, now called Peel Sound, pointed directly to the south. He sailed down it towards King William Island, with land on both sides. But directly the southern point of the western land was passed and no longer shielded the channel, the great ice stream from Melville Island, pressing on King William Island, was encountered and found impassable. Progress might have been made by rounding the eastern side of King William Island, but its insularity was then unknown.

It was not until 1848 that anxiety. began to be felt about the Franklin expedition. In the spring of that year Sir James Ross Search was sent with two ships, the " Enterprise " and Investigator, " by way of Lancaster Sound. He Ross. wintered at Leopold Harbour, near the north-east point of North Devon. In the spring he made a long sledge journey with Lieut. Leopold M'Clintock along the northern and western coasts of North Somerset, but found nothing.

On the return of the Ross expedition without any tidings, the country became thoroughly alarmed. An extensive plan of search was organized - the " Enterprise " and " Investigator " under Collinson and M'Clure proceeding by Bering Strait, while the " Assistance " and " Resolute," with two steam tenders, the " Pioneer " and " Intrepid," sailed on the 3rd of May 1850 to renew the search by Barrow Strait, under Captain Horatio Austin. Two brigs, the " Lady Franklin " and " Sophia," under William Penny, an energetic and able whaling captain, were sent by the same route. He had with him Dr Sutherland, a naturalist, who did much valuable scientific work. Austin and Penny entered Barrow Strait, and Franklin's winter quarters of1845-1846were discovered at Beechey Island; but there was no record of any kind indicating the direction taken by the ships. Stopped by the ice, Austin's expedition wintered (1850-1851) in the pack off Griffith Island, and Penny found refuge in a harbour on the south coast of Cornwallis Island. Austin, who had been with Parry during his third voyage, was an admirable organizer. His arrangements for passing the winter were carefully thought out and answered perfectly. In concert with Penny he planned a thorough and extensive system of search by means of sledge-travelling in the spring, and Lieut. M'Clintock superintended every detail of this part of the work with unfailing forethought and skill. Penny undertook the search by Wellington Channel. M'Clintock advanced to Melville Island, marching over 770 m. in eighty-one days; Captain Ommanney and Sherard Osborn pressed southward .and discovered Prince of Wales Island. Lieut. Brown examined the western shore of Peel Sound. The search was exhaustive; but, except the winter quarters at Beechey Island, no record was discovered. The absence of any record made Captain Austin doubt whether Franklin had ever gone beyond Beechey Island; so he also examined the entrance of Jones Sound, the next inlet from Baffin Bay north of Lancaster Sound, on his way home, and returned to England in the autumn of 1851. This was a thoroughly well conducted expedition, especially as regards the sledge-travelling, which M'Clintock brought to great perfection. So far as the search for Franklin was concerned, nothing remained to be done west or north of Barrow Strait.

In 1851 the " Prince Albert " schooner was sent out by Lady Franklin, under Captain Wm. Kennedy, with Lieut. Bellot of the French navy as second. They wintered on the east coast of North Somerset, and in the spring of Be?Iot dy; 1852 the gallant Frenchman, in the course of a long sledging journey, discovered Bellot Strait, separating North Somerset from Boothia - thus proving that the Boothia coast facing the strait was the northern extremity of the continent of America.

The " Enterprise " and " Investigator " sailed from England in January 1850, but accidentally parted company before they reached Bering Strait. On the 6th of May 1851 the " Enterprise " passed the strait, and rounded Point Barrow on the 25th. Collinson then made his way up the narrow Prince of Wales Strait, between Banks and Prince Albert Islands, and reached Princess Royal Islands, where M'Clure had been the previous year. Returning southwards, the "Enterprise " wintered in a sound in Prince Albert Island in 71° 35' N. and 11 7° 35' W. Three travelling parties were despatched in the spring of 1852 - one to trace Prince Albert Land in a southerly direction, while the others explored Prince of Wales Strait, one of them reaching Melville Island. In September 1852 the ship was free, and Collinson pressed eastward along the coast of North America, reaching Cambridge Bay (Sept. 26), where the second winter was passed. In the spring he examined the shores of Victoria Land as far as 70° 26' N. and 45' W.: here he was within a few miles of Point Victory, where the fate of Franklin would have been ascertained. The " Enterprise " again put to sea on the 5th of August 1853, and returned westward along the American coast, until she was stopped by ice and obliged to pass a third winter at Camden Bay, in 70° 8' N. and 145° 29' W. In 1854 this remarkable voyage was completed, and Captain Collinson brought the " Enterprise " back to England.

Meanwhile M'Clure in the " Investigator " had passed the winter of1850-1851at the Princess Royal Islands, only 30 m. from Barrow Strait. In October M'Clure ascended a hill whence he could see the frozen surface of Barrow Strait, which was navigated by Parry in 1819-1820.. Thus, like the survivors of Franklin's crews when they reached Cape Herschel, M'Clure discovered a north-west passage. It was impossible to reach it, for the stream of heavily packed ice which stopped Franklin off King William Land lay athwart their northward course; so, as soon as he was free in 1851, M'Clure turned southwards, round the southern extreme of Banks Land, and commenced to force a passage to the northward between the western shore of that land and the enormous fields of ice which pressed upon it. The cliffs rose like walls on one side, while on the other the stupendous ice of the " palaeocrystic sea " rose from the water to a level with the " Investigator's " lower yards. After many hairbreadth escapes M'Clure took refuge in a bay on the northern shore of Banks Land, which he named the Bay of attempt to make the passage from Lancaster Sound The drift of the " Resolute " was a remarkable proof of the direction of the current out of Barrow Strait. She was abandoned in 74° 41' N. and 101° 11 W. on the 14th of May 1854. On the 10th of September 1855 an American whaleerle of, Resolutethe.

sighted the " Resolute " in 67° N. lat. about twenty miles from Cape Mercy, in Davis Strait. She had drifted nearly a thousand miles, and having been brought into an American port, was purchased by the United States and presented to the British government.

In 1853 Dr Rae was employed to connect a few points which would quite complete the examination of the coast of America, and establish the insularity of King Willian Land.

He went up Chesterfield Inlet and the river Quoich, Rae's p Q ? Discovery. wintering with eight men at Repulse Bay, where venison and fish were abundant. In 1854 he set out on a journey which occupied fifty-six days in April and May. He succeeded in connecting the discoveries of Simpson with those of James Ross, and thus established the fact that King William Land was an island. Rae also brought home the first tidings and relics of Franklin's expedition gathered from the Eskimo, which decided the Admiralty to award him the £10,000 offered for definite news of Franklin's fate. Lady Franklin, however, sent out the " Fox " under the command of M'Clintock (see Franklin). M`Clintock prosecuted an exhaustive search over part of the west coast of Boothia, the whole of the shores of King William Island, the mouth of the Great Fish river and Montreal Island, and Allen Young completed the discovery of the southern side of Prince of Wales Island.

The catastrophe of Sir John Franklin's expedition led to 7000 m. of coast-line being discovered, and to a vast extent of unknown country being explored, securing very considerable additions to geographical knowledge.

The American nation was first led to take an interest in Polar research through a noble and generous sympathy for Franklin and his companions. Mr Grinnell of New York gave God's Mercy. Here the " Investigator " remained, never to move again. After the winter of1851-1852M'Clure had made a journey across the ice to Melville Island, and left a record at Parry's winter harbour. Abundant supplies of musk ox were fortunately obtained, but a third winter had to be faced. In the spring of 1853 M`Clure was preparing to abandon the ship with all hands, and attempt, like Franklin's crews, to reach the American coast; but succour arrived in time.

The Hudson's Bay Company continued the search for Franklin. In 1848 Sir John Richardson and Dr Rae examined the American coast from the mouth of the Mackenzie to that of the Rae's Co ermine. In 1849 and 18 o Rae continued the Journeys. pp 49 5 search; and by a long sledge journey in the spring of 1851, and a boat voyage in the summer, he examined the shores of Wollaston and Victoria Lands, which were afterwards explored by Captain Collinson in the " Enterprise. " In 1852 the British government resolved to despatch ano