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The Jackson-Harmsworth North Polar Expedition The Jackson-Harmsworth North Polar Expedition: An Account of Its First Winter and of Some Discoveries in Franz Josef Land Author(s): Arthur Montefiore Source: The Geographical Journal, Vol. 6, No. 6 (Dec., 1895), pp. 499-519 Published by: geographicalj Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1774008 Accessed: 26-06-2016 20:45 UTC Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://about.jstor.org/terms JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. The Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers), Wiley are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Geographical Journal This content downloaded from 129.219.247.33 on Sun, 26 Jun 2016 20:45:14 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms THE JACESON--HARMSWORTH NORTH POL AR EXPEDITION. 499 session, after their adventurous journey in Tibet. We also anticipate the reception of several important papers of a more specially scientific character and the afternoon meetings in the Society's map-room, which were commenced in the last session, will bei continued. As President of the International Geographical Congress, it has becotne my duty, in compliance with the terms of a resolution, to re- present the importance of Antarctic exploration to the First Lord of the Admiralty. We shall certainly do our best to secure the great end in view; if not now, at least when happier times arrive. It has been our conviction that, while much exploring work can well be executed through private enterprise, there are some services of this kind which are better done under Government auspices. Antarctic exploration, combining a matnetic survey, is one of the latter. In times past our Governments have ever been prompt to undertake such work, knowing that they were representing the feelings and wishes of the people. If this is not the case now, we must resort to the other alternlative, an(l strive to do this great national work ourselves. For private enterprise has done and is doing glorions work in the interests of geographical science. AVe have all been deeply interested in the return of the Windleard, and in the news she has brought of the proceedings of the gallant explorers in Franz Josef Land. You are longin to hear this news at first hand, and I will now, therefore introduce Mr. PJontefiore, who has done such good service in connection with the equipment of the Jackson-Earmsworth expedition, and request bin to read his paper. THE JACKSON-HARMSWORTH NORTH POLAR EXPEDITION. AN ACCOUNT OF ITS FIRST WINTER AND OF SOME DISCOVERIES IN FRANZ JOSEF LAND.ie By ARTHUR MONTEFIORE, F.G.S. Two and twenty years ago on August 30, 1873 the group of ice- col ered islands known as Franz tTosef Land was discovered accidentally by- the Austro-Hungarian Expedition under circumstances of more than ordinary interest. For the Tegethoff, the ship of that expedition, had been beset off the coast of Novaia Zemlia on August 20, 1872, in 76° 22 N. lat., 63° 3' E. long. and throughout the succeeding autumn and a vinter of exceptional severity had slowly drifted, first in a north- easterly, tllen in a westerly, and finally in a northerly direction. With tbe return of the sun in the early sprinc,r, and the gradual moderation of the climate, the explorers looked for that breaking up of the ice which would enable them to steer their ship on its course. For they had been * Pnper read before the Roya1 Geographica1 Society, November 11,1895. 2 L 2 This content downloaded from 129.219.247.33 on Sun, 26 Jun 2016 20:45:14 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 500 THE JACKSON-HARMS\\'ORTH XORTH POLAR EXPEDITION. held captive in the ice, carried by wind and current along; a course wbich varied from day to day, and at a speed seldorn exceeding a mile1 or two per diem. But the sumlner of 187.3 broutht no such escape, and as tlle month of August drew to an end, the esplorers gave up all hope of their being able either to advance in the route1 they desired, or return to Europe to recoup the strength alreacly tbreateninO to succumb. Yet, just at the moment when their hopes seemed mo3t baffled and their chance of escape least probable, the hour of a glolious discovery drew near. "N-ot a man among us,N' wrote Julius Payer, "helieved in the possibility of discoveries;" and yet the long ailuless eirift of the Teyethoff had brought them to the most northeln land yet discovered in the eastern portion of the Arctic Regions. For on AuCust 30, 1873, when in 79° 43' N. lat. ancl 599 33' E. long., the deep mist in which the ship lay enveloped sllddenly lifted and left the northern horizon clear. There, away to the nortll-west, ranged the bold lines of lofty coasts and the glistening slopes of an ice sheeted land. Separated from the ship by lllany miles of dense and rugt,ed pack, and obviously a country to the last degree inhospitable, the siU,ht of this land might sTell have checlKed the erlthusiasm of the party, already enfeebled by exposure to ice and snow, and well entitled to be weary of the ricotlrs of Arctic scenery. But it is scarcely necessary to remind this Society that both+Veyprecht and Payer, our gold medallists, lvere true geographers and explorers, and that the men they commanded were loyal to the core. The sight of this land had turned the lont melan- choly drift of failule into a great and splendid success, for a new and llitherto unsuspected country had been disconered in a latitude higher than that of any known land in the easteln llemisphere. The possi- bilities it nlight aSord of further advance into the unknown ret,ion about tlle North Pole were probaloly greater than those offered by any other route-ill a word, the discosTery was of the firit magnitude, and Payer enthusiastically wrote, " There was now not a sick man bn board the Teyef hoff." Here, and in this way, then, ^^as Franz Josef Land disco-ered- Franz Josef Land, named in loyalty after the Emperor of Austria, in the same spirit which placed the Ilame of our sovereit,n in the highest southern latitudes JTet reached, alld wvhich led Peary to ,ive to the tertnirlation of his northern advance, on July 4, 1892, tlle tlame of Independence Bay. But the fate of long endurance, which up to this date had character- ized the Austro-IIung;arian expedition, dogged it to the end. Locked fast in the ice, and slowly drifting now north, now south, and now lvest, it was impossible to leave the ship even for the t9mporary satisfac- tion of an hour's exatnination of the coast; and altllough brief visits were uade on November 1, G, and 7, {o the shores of what was called Wilezek Land; the position of the sllip was so -perilous, and tlie- xvinter clarkness This content downloaded from 129.219.247.33 on Sun, 26 Jun 2016 20:45:14 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms THF. JACESON-IIARMS\N OPiTH NORTH POLAR EXPEDITION. 501 sr illlpenetraLles that nothing further eould be done till tlle following spring. It zvas thell that Payer nlade his nlemorable mareh up Avlstria £ound, and, ascending Cape Fligeley, looked poleward over that mass of hit,h land ]ying north of the 83rd det,ree, whiell, ealled by him Peter- mann Land, remains to-day the land of the greatest promise in the whole of tlle Arctie Regions. Then, too, did he reveal the intenselfr Aretie eharaeter of Frallz ,Tosef Land, and lay down loughly, in his rapicl lllareh north and south, those eoast-lines and glaeiers wllich until the other day formed our only eonception of tlle interior of Franz Josef Land. I need not add here the story of the ultimate abandonment of the Teyetho.ff, nor that of the ever- memorable retreat of tlle expedition ill open boats and under eireulu- stanees of terrible privation; but tlleir expersenee proved suffieient for a number of years to give Franz Josef Land, its eonfiguration, its e]imate and its avenues of approaeh, a serr bad name indeed. If thse land eould be safely made and safely left, it lleld out great possibilities; but the Austro-Hungarian Expedition had apparently made it elear that neither the one nor the other eould be relied on- that the ehanee of the safety of an expedition was remote indeed. It remained for our own countrJTman, Mr. Leigh Stnith, to give Franz Josef Land a better name. As a matter of faet, we owe it to him ansl his interesting votTages in the Eix a, that the general eoneeption of the diflieulty of reaehing Frans Josef Land underwent, not merely a ehange, but a eomplete revolution. The voyage he nlade in 1880 served to elupha- size, among other things, the great variation from year to year in the eonditions of Aretie navigation. Over the very spot where the Tegethof was abandoned, frozen fast in the solid paek, Mr. Leigh Smith steamed without diffieulty in open water. The Austrian Expedition, beyond going almost due north ancl south to and from (1ape Fligely, had only just touehed the south-east point of M'Clintoek island and, as we now learn from Mr.
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