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THE PROGRESS

OF

ARCTIC DISCOVERY

IN THE

NINETEENTH CENTURY.

If we examine a map of Northern, or Arctic, America, showing what was known of the countries around the North Pole in the commencement of the present century, we shall find that all within the Arctic circle was a complete blank. Mr. Hearne had, indeed, seen the Arctic Sea in the year 1771; and Mr. Mackenzie had traced the river which now bears his name to its junction with the sea; but not a single line of the coast from Icy Cape to Baffin's Bay was known. The eastern and western shores of Greenland, to about 75° latitude, were tolerably well defined, from the visits of whaling vessels; Hudson's Bay and Strait were partially known; but Baffin's Bay, according to the statement of Mr. Baffin, in 1616, was bounded by land on the west, running parallel with the 90th meridian of longitude, or across what is now known to us as Barrow's Strait, and probably this relation led to the subsequently formed hasty opinion of Captain Sir John Ross, as to his visionary Croker Mountains, of which I shall have occasion to speak hereafter.

As early as the year 1527, the idea of a passage to the East Indies by the North Pole was suggested by a

Bristol merchant to Henry VIII., but no voyage seems to have been undertaken for the purpose of navigating the Polar seas, till the commencement of the following century, when an expedition was fitted out at the expense of certain merchants of London. To this attempt several others succeeded at different periods, and all of them were projected and carried into execution by private individuals. The adventurers did not indeed accomplish the object they exclusively sought, that of reaching India by a nearer route than doubling the Cape of Good Hope, but though they failed in that respect, the fortitude, perseverance, and skill which they manifested, exhibited the most irrefragable proofs of the early existence of that superiority in naval af fairs, which has elevated this country to her present eminence among the nations of Europe.

At length, after the lapse of above a century and a half, this interesting question became an object of Royal patronage, and the expedition which was commanded by Captain Phipps (afterward Lord Mulgrave,) in 1773, was fitted out at the charge of Government. The first proposer of this voyage was the Hon. Daines Barrington, F. R. S., who, with indefatigable assiduity, began to collect every fact tending to establish the practicability of circumnavigating the Pole, and as he accumulated his materials, he read them to the Royal Society, who, in consequence of these representations, made that application to Lord Sandwich, then First Lord of the Admiralty, which led to the appointment of this first official voyage. Captain Phipps, however, found it impossible to penetrate the wall of ice which extended for many degrees between the latitude of 80° and 81°, to the north of Spitzbergen. His vessels were the Racehorse and Carcass; Captain Lutwidge being his second in command, in the latter vessel, and having with him, then a mere boy, Nelson, the future hero of England.

From the year 1648, when the famous Russian navigator, Senor Deshnew, penetrated from the river Kolyma through the Polar into the Pacific Ocean, the

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Russians have been as arduous in their attempts to discover a northeast passage to the north of Cape Shelatskoi, as the English have been to sail to the northwest of the American continent, through Baffin's Bay and Lancaster Sound. On the side of the Pacific, many efforts, have, within the last century, been made to further this object. In 1741, the celebrated Captain Behring discovered the straits which bear his name, as we are informed by Muller, the chronicler of Russian discoveries, and several subsequent commanders of that nation seconded his endeavors to penetrate from the American continent to the northeast. From the period when Deshnew sailed on his expedition, to the year 1764, when Admiral Tchitschagof, an indefatigable and active officer, endeavored to force a passage round Spitzbergen, (which, although he attempted with a resolution and skill which would fall to the lot of few, he was unable to effect,) and thence to the present times, including the arduous efforts of Captain Billings and Vancouver, and the more recent one of M. Von Wrangell, the Russians have been untiring in their attempts to discover a passage eastward, to the north of Cape Taimur and Cape Shelatskoi. And certainly, if skill, perseverance, and courage, could have opened this passage, it would have been accomplished.

Soon after the general peace of Europe, when war's alarms had given way to the high pursuits. of science, the government recommenced the long-suspended work of prosecuting discoveries within the Arctic circle.

An expedition was dispatched under the command of Sir John Ross, in order to explore the scene of the former labors of Frobisher and Baffin. Still haunted with the golden dreams of a northwest passage, which Barrington and Beaufoy had in the last age so enthusiastically advocated, our nautical adventurers by no means relinquished the long-cherished chimera.

It must be admitted, however, that the testimony of Parry and Franklin pass for much on the other side of the question. Both these officers, whose researches in the cause of scientific discovery entitle there to very

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