west passage, and with the discovery of the fate of Sir John Franklin, this chapter naturally ends; but the thirst for knowledge and the spirit of adventure suffered only a slight abatement by these triumphs of untiring energy and perseverance. To the further exploration of the polar seas and of the adjacent lands Americans have largely contributed; and Hayes, by his perilous voyage, Hall, by his long residence among the Eskimos,1 and more recently De Long, by the calmness with which he met a terrible death, to name no others, exhibited a heroism unsurpassed by any of the remarkable men who preceded them. The shapeless America, which was all that Columbus and his immediate followers knew, has put on a clearly defined form, and we can now trace on the map all the northern line of the continent, with its intricate windings, and the size and shape of many of the islands. Much, it is true, remains to be learned; but it has been often doubted and the doubt has been a steadily growing one whether any increase of our geographical or other scientific knowledge can equal in value the costly sacrifices by which alone it can be gained. So long as the present climatic conditions exist, the unvisited north may well remain a closed book. 1 In his first visit to the Arctic regions Hall discovered numerous relics of Frobisher's voyages, which had been seen by no one but the Eskimos for nearly three centuries. These were carefully gathered up by him and sent to England. Cf. Frobisher's Three Voyages, pp. 367 - 374; and Life with the Eskimaux: the Narrative of Capt. Chas. Francis Hall, 29th May, 1860, to 13th Sept., 1862 (London, 1864), known in the Amer. ed. as Arctic Researches and Life among the Esquimaux (N. Y., 1865). THE CRITICAL NOTES ON THE SOURCES OF INFORMATION. -- By the Editor. HE only extensive bibliography of the Arctic explorations includes also those of the Antarctic regions, and was published by the Geographical Society of Vienna in 1878 under a double English and German title, The Literature on the Polar Regions of the Earth, by Dr. J. Chavanne, Dr. A. Karpf, and F. Chevalier de Le Monnier. The contents of the book are sometimes obscurely classified, and the proof-reading is far from accurate. It is, however, useful to the student, and it has sections on the maps. T. R. Jones's Manual of Greenland, etc. (London, 1875), prepared by authority for the use of the Nares Expedition, has a list of publications on the Arctic regions beginning with 1818. This list is used and continued by Prof. J. E. Nourse in his American Explorations in the Ice Zones (Boston, 1884), and in the official edition, edited by Nourse, of Hall's Second Arctic Expedition. J. C. Pilling, in his Bibliog. of the Eskimo language (1887), in searching for books illustrating his special studies, says that he found the best collection in the British Museum, and the next best in the Library of Congress. It is probable that the same inquiry for the broader field of Arctic exploration will produce a corresponding answer. English and American periodical literature for the last seventy years has been rich in recitals of Arctic experiences, and in discussions of the problems of the Northwest passage and the attainment of the Northern pole. This literature is enumerated, in all but the analysis of the proceedings of learned societies, under suggestive headings, in 1 Cf. ante, Vol. III. p. 97. Poole's Index and Supplement, though confined to the English language; but the analysis in Chavanne of periodicals, transactions, and public documents embraces all languages. His lists show how constantly such publications, as Bertuch's Neue Allgemeine geographische Ephemeriden (Weimar, 1817-31), Journal des Voyages (Paris, 1818-30), Annales (Paris, 1808-14), and Nouvelles Annales des Voyages (Paris, 1819, etc.), Bulletin de la Soc. de Géographie (Paris, 1821, etc.), Journal of the Royal Geog. Society (London, 1832-76), Das Ausland (Stuttgart, 1829, etc.), were occupied with the Arctic problem. later publications were more directly concerned with contemporary results, but their papers were occasionally historical, as in the Zeitschrift für Erdkunde of the Berlin Gesellschaft für Erd The kunde (1853), Petermann's Mittheilungen (Gotha, 1855), and the Ocean Highways, Geographical Review, and Geographical Magazine (London, covering collectively 1869-76). Up to 1858 there had been, as is stated in John Brown's Northwest Passage and Search after Sir John Franklin, from the time of Cabot, about 130 exploring expeditions to the Arctic seas, illustrated by 250 books and printed documents, of which 150 had been issued in England. There is a useful tabular statement of Arctic voyages, northeast and northwest of Greenland, A. D. 860 to 1876, in the appendix of Samuel Richard Van Campen's Dutch in the Arctic Seas (London, 1877, vol. i.; vol. ii. never published), which is an examination historically and physically of the north polar problem.1 A SANSON, 1666.* 1 A variety of maps have been given in this History (ante, Vols. I., III., IV.) illustrating the early changeful notions respecting the polar regions. Cf. for instance the earliest map of Greenland, 1427 (I., 117); Ruysch, 1508 (II., 115; III., 9); Ptolemy, 1513 (II., 111); Schöner, 1515 (II., 118); Münster, 1532-1545 (III., 201; IV., * After a plate in the Encyclopédie, Suite du Recueil de planches (Paris, 1777). Cf. the map in connection with Capt. John Wood's Voyage for the discovery of a passage by the northeast (1676) included in An account of several late Voyages and Discoveries (London, 1711). to solve the problem of reaching Asia by the northern passage is D. Capel's Vorstellungen des Norden (Hamburg, 1675).1 The second volume of Harris's Voyages (London, 1702, 1705; again 1744) 2 follows the history of such attempts to find a northwest passage for the preceding one hundred and thirty years. J. G. Foster summarized the voyages in the years next following the voyage of Cook, in his Geschichte der Reisen die seit Cook an der nordwest und nordost Küste von America, unternommen worden sind (Berlin, 1791).3 Mickluyt Detroit de Wales BAYE DE BAFFINS Polaire da Moulin B.der Ours lanes Nord de Vrowens Ode Beard Detroit de Davis Vasing ha Horne Sond Nouveau Gro Hope Sanderson London Coast Pde Del de Bonne Fortime et d'Hudson Resolution de Bouton Enchante res. Pierre GROENLAND Det Ramford Rde Bal arctique Christian C.de Bru Vieil 65 Korb C.de Farwel ou des Blaks Ou DES ESQUIMAUX TERRE DE LABRADOR chibourini Ance Gr.Baye da Equimanx Choward Brast Charles sage de Belle de Grat 325 300 DELISLE, 1700.* 310 41, 84); Ulpius Globe, 1542 (IV., 42); Mercator, 1569 (IV., 373); Gilbert, 1576 (III., 203); Frobisher, 1578 (III., 102); Lok, 1582 (III., 40; IV., 44); Hakluyt, 1587 (III., 42); Molineaux, 1592 (III., 90, 91); Judaeis, 1593 (IV., 97); Linschoten, 1598 (III., 101); Quadus, 1600 (IV., 101); Luke Fox, 1632 (III., 98). 1 Sabin's Dictionary, iii. no. 10,735. 2 See ante, Vol. I. p. xxxiv. 3 Cf. ante, Vol. I. p. xxxvi. *After a plate in the Encyclopédie, Suite du Recueil de planches (Paris, 1777). 1 Cf. ante, Vol. III. 97. There was a French translation of it issued at Paris in the following year. Barrow at a later day continued the story in his Voyages of Discovery and Research within the Arctic Regions, from the Year 1818 to the Present Time: under the Command of the several Naval Officers employed by Sea and Land in Search of a Northwest Passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific; with two attempts to reach the North Pole. Abridged and arranged from the Official Narratives, with Occasional Remarks. By Sir John Barrow, Bart. (London, 1846). After a plate in the Encyclopédie, Suite du Recueil de planches (Paris, 1777). The Herrera of 1728, in its map of North America, shows the general conception of Arctic America during the first quarter of that century. Harper's Family Library. It also appeared with a continuation by R. M. Ballantyne as The Northern coasts of America and the Hudson's Bay Territory (London, 1854). Through the course of these explorations there have been recurrent attempts to square theoretical views by the recorded results, generally towards the settlement of the question touching the desirability of further efforts. In 1836 we find Barrow, Richardson, Franklin, and Ross all considering the question, with this aim, in the Journal of the Royal Geographical Society (vol. vi. 34, etc.). Captain Beechey in 1843, in his Voyage, epitomized the earlier discoveries, while Barrow followed in his supplemental book (1846) already mentioned. The interest in the Franklin search gave rise to new summaries: P. L. Simmond's Sir John Franklin and the Arctic Regions (Lond., 1851,2d ed.); Epes Sargent's Arctic Adventure by Sea and Land (Boston, 1857), which was again issued as Wonders of the Arctic World (Philad., 1873), with an additional chapter on later discoveries; and Sir J. Leslie's Polar Seas and Regions (Lond., 1855; N. Y., 1859). There soon followed some more important books. John Brown published his Northwest Passage and the plans for the Search for Sir John Franklin (London, 1858, 1860), and Sir John Richardson his Polar Regions (Edinburgh, 1861). This last book is a summary of the knowledge then attained, with a review of the progress of discovery both towards the north and south poles, and is enlarged upon an article which he communicated to the Encyclopædia Britannica.1 C. R. Markham's Threshold of the Unknown Regions (London, 1873, 2d ed.) is partly a reprint of a series of articles in Ocean Highways. This book, which rehearses the story of polar explorations down to 1873, is considered one of the most successful summaries.2 It is enough barely to mention some of the later comprehensive surveys: David Murray Smith's Arctic Expeditions (Edinburgh, 1875, etc.), and Recent Polar Voyages, 1848-1876 (London, 1876). Two German works need to be mentioned: Friedrich von Hellwald's Im ewigen Eis. Geschichte der Nordpol-fahrten von den ältesten Zeiten bis auf die Gegenwart (Stuttgart, 1879); and Wilhelm Rubiner's Die Ent 1 There is a life of Richardson by M'Ilraith (1868). deckungsreisen in alter und neuer Zeit. Eine Geschichte der geographischen Entdeckungen, mit besonderer Berücksichtigung des 19. Jahrhunderts, von Gerhard Stein (Glogau, 1883). The separate recitals of the Arctic explorers class themselves easily by their efforts to find the passage to Asia, and by the search for Franklin in his efforts to that end; as well as by an emulating purpose to approach more nearly than before the pole, if not to attain it. The attempts to find the passage, so long the equivalent of a search for the Straits of Anian,3 are mixed up with the geographical vagaries of De Fonte and the rest (of which we can see the effects in the maps of Buache and Jefferys), and were conducted both on the side of the Pacific and on the side of Baffin's and Hudson's bays. Some of the early accounts of combats with the ice in these high latitudes have come down to us in the books that usually show in their thumbing the popularity of their narratives. The creation of the Hudson Bay Company was made on the ostensible ground in part of organizing such a search from the regions brought under their control. It was not till well into the century following its incorporation that the efforts, since the days of Frobisher, Davis, and Hudson, were of any importance on this side. One of the volumes published by the Hakluyt Society chronicles the rising interest: The Geography of Hudson's Bay; being the Remarks of Captain W. Coats, in many Voyages to that Locality, between the Years 1727 and 1751. With an appendix, containing Extracts from the log of Capt. Middleton on his Voyage for the Discovery of the North-west Passage in H. M. S. Furnace" in 1741-2. Edited by John Barrow, Esq. (London, 1852). 66 2 J. A. MacGahan, in his Under the Northern Lights (London, 1876), speaks of it as "the only intelligent synopsis of Arctic knowledge" published up to that time. 3 See ante, Vol. II. 468, etc. 4 See ante, ch. i. NOTE. The opposite map is a part of that in C. R. Markham's Threshold of the Unknown Regions (1873). The same book contains six charts of the Smith Sound route, from Bylot and Baffin to Hall, 1616-1873, compiled by E. G. Ravenstein. Cf. the maps in Lamont's Yachting in the Arctic Seas (London, 1876). |