Science in Short Chapters — Aerial Exploration of the Arctic Regions, Part I

AERIAL EXPLORATION OF THE ARCTIC REGIONS.

On our own hemisphere, and separated from our own coasts by only a few days’ journey on our own element, there remains a blank circle of unexplored country above 800 miles in diameter.

We have tried to cross it, and have not succeeded.

Nothing further need be said in reply to those who ask, “Why should we start another Arctic Expedition?

” The records of previous attempts to penetrate this area of geographical mystery prove the existence of a formidable barrier of mountainous land, fringed by fjords or inlets, like those of Norway, some of which may be open, though much contracted northward, like the Vestfjord that lies between the Lofoden Islands and the mainland of Scandinavia.

The majority evidently run inland like the ordinary Norwegian fjords or the Scotch firths, and terminate in land valleys that continue upwards to fjeld regions, or elevated humpy land which acts as a condenser to the vapor-laden air continually flowing towards the Pole from the warmer regions of the earth, and returning in lower streams when cooled.

The vast quantities of water thus condensed fall upon these hills and table lands as snow crystals.

What becomes of this everlasting deposit?

Unlike the water that rains on temperate hill-sides, it cannot all flow down to the sea as torrents and liquid rivers, but it does come down nevertheless, or long ere this it would have reached the highest clouds.

It descends mainly as glaciers, which creep down slowly, but steadily and irresistibly, filling up the valleys on their way; and stretching outwards into the fjords and channels, which they block up with their cleft and chasmed crystalline angular masses that still creep outward to the sea until they float, and break off or “calve” as mountainous icebergs and smaller masses of ice.

These accumulations of ice thus _formed on land_ constitute the chief obstructions that bar the channels and inlets fringing the unknown Polar area.

The glacier fragments above described are cemented together in the winter time by the freezing of the water between them.

An open frozen sea, pure and simple, instead of forming a barrier to arctic exploration, would supply a most desirable highway.

It must not be supposed that, because the liquid ocean is ruffled by ripples, waves, and billows, a frozen sea would have a similar surface.

The freezing of such a surface could only start at the calmest intervals, and the ice would shield the water from the action of the wave-making wind, and such a sea would become a charming skating rink, like the Gulf of Bothnia, the Swedish and Norwegian lakes, and certain fjords, which, in the winter time, become natural ice-paved highways, offering incomparable facilities for rapid locomotion.

In spite of the darkness and the cold, winter is the traveling season in Sweden and Lapland.

The distance that can be made in a given time in summer with a wheeled vehicle on well-made post roads can be covered in half the time in a _pulk_ or reindeer sledge drawn over the frozen lakes.

From Spitzbergen to the Pole would be an easy run of five or six days if nothing but a simply frozen sea stood between them.

This primary physical fact, that arctic navigators have not been stopped by a merely frozen sea, but by a combination of glacier fragments with the frozen water of bays, and creeks, and fjords, should be better understood than it is at present; for when it is understood, the popular and fallacious notion that the difficulties of arctic progress are merely dependent on latitude, and must therefore increase with latitude, explodes.

_It is the physical configuration of the fringing zone of the arctic regions, not its mere latitude, that bars the way to the Pole.

_ I put this in italics because so much depends upon it—I may say that all depends upon it—for if this barrier can be scaled at any part we may come upon a region as easily traversed as that part of the Arctic Ocean lying between the North Cape and Spitzbergen, which is regularly navigated every summer by hardy Norsemen in little sailing sloops of 30 to 40 tons burden, and only six or eight pair of hands on board; or by overland traveling as easily as the Arctic winter journey between Tornea and Alten.

This trip over the snow-covered mountains is done in five or six days, at the latter end of every November, by streams of visitors to the fair at Alten, in latitude 70°, 3½ degrees N. of the Arctic circle; its distance, 430 miles, is just about equal to that which stands between the North Pole and the northernmost reach of our previous Arctic expeditions.

One or the other of the above-named conditions, or an enclosed frozen Polar ocean, is what probably exists beyond the broken fjord barrier hitherto explored; a continuation of such a barrier is, in fact, almost a physical impossibility; and therefore the Pole will be ultimately reached, not by a repetition of such weary struggles as those which ended in the very hasty retreat of our last expedition, but by a bound across about 400 miles of open or frozen Polar ocean, or a rapid sledge-run over snow-paved fields like those so merrily traversed in Arctic Norway by festive bonders and their families on their way to Yule-time dancing parties.

Reference to a map of the circumpolar regions, or, better, to a globe, will show that the continents of Europe, Asia, and America surround the Pole, and hang, as it were, downwards or southwards from a latitude of 70° and upwards.

There is but one wide outlet for the accumulations of Polar ice, and that is between Norway and Greenland, with Iceland standing nearly midway.

Davis’s and Behring’s Straits are the narrower openings; the first may be only a fjord, rather than an outlet.

The ice-block, or crowding together and heaping up of the glacier fragments and bay ice, is thus explained.

Attempts of two kinds have been made to scale this icy barrier.

Ships have sailed northwards, threading a dangerous course between the floating icebergs in the summer, and becoming fast bound in winter, when the narrow spaces of brackish water lying between these masses of land ice become frozen, and the “ice-foot” clinging to the shore stretches out seaward to meet that on the opposite side of the fjord or channel.

The second method, usually adopted as supplementary to the first, is that of dragging sledges over these glacial accumulations.

The pitiful rate of progress thus attainable is shown by the record of the last attempt, when Commander Markham achieved about one mile per day, and the labor of doing this was nearly fatal to his men.

Any tourist who has crossed or ascended an Alpine glacier with only a knapsack to carry, can understand the difficulty of dragging a cartload of provisions, etc. , over such accumulations of iceberg fragments and of sea-ice squeezed and crumbled up between them.

It is evident that we must either find a natural breach in this Arctic barrier or devise some other means of scaling it.

The first of these efforts has been largely discussed by the advocates of rival routes.

I will not go into this question at present, but only consider the alternative to all land routes and all water routes, viz.

: that by the other available element—an aerial route—as proposed to be attempted in the new Arctic expedition projected by Commander Cheyne, and which he is determined to practically carry out, provided his own countrymen, or, failing them, others more worthy, will assist him with the necessary means of doing so.

To reach the Pole from the northernmost point already attained by our ships demands a journey of about 400 miles, the distance between London and Edinburgh.

With a favorable wind, a balloon will do this in a few hours, On November 27, 1870, Captain Roher descended near Lysthuus, in Hitterdal (Norway), in the balloon “Ville d’Orleans,” having made the journey from Paris in fifteen hours.

The distance covered was about 900 miles, more than double the distance between the Pole and the accessible shores of Greenland.

On November 7, 1836, Messrs. Holland, Mason, and Green ascended from Vauxhall Gardens, at 1. 30 P.

M.

, with a _moderate breeze_, and descended eighteen hours afterwards “in the Duchy of Nassau, about two leagues from the town of Weilburg,” the distance in a direct line being about 500 miles.

A similar journey to this would carry Commander Cheyne from his ship to the North Pole, or thereabouts, while a fresh breeze like that enjoyed by Captain Roher would, in the same time, carry him clear across the whole of the circumpolar area to the neighborhood of Spitzbergen, and two or three hours more of similar proceeding would land him in Siberia or Finland, or even on the shores of Arctic Norway, where he could take the Vadsö or Hammerfest packet to meet one of Wilson’s liners at Trondhjem or Bergen, and thus get from the North Pole to London in ten days.

Lest any of my readers should think that I am writing this at random, I will supply the particulars.

I have before me the “Norges Communicationer” for the present summer season of 1880. Twice every week a passenger excursion steam packet sails round the North Cape each way, calling at no less than twenty stations on this Arctic face of Europe to land and embark passengers and goods.

By taking that which stops at Gjesvaer (an island near the foot of the North Cape) on Saturday, or that which starts from Hammerfest on Sunday morning, Trondhjem is reached on Thursday, and Wilson’s liner, the “Tasso,” starts on the same day for Hull, “average passage seventy hours.

” Thus Hammerfest, the northernmost town in the world, is now but eight days from London, including a day’s stop at Tromsö, the capital of Lapland, which is about 3 degrees N. of the Arctic circle, and within a week of London.

At Captain Roher’s rate of traveling Tromsö would be but twenty-three hours from the Pole.

These figures are, of course, only stated as _possibilities_ on the supposition that all the conditions should be favorable, but by no means as _probable_.

What, then, are the _probabilities_ and the amount of risk that will attend an attempt to reach the Pole by an aerial route?

I have considered the subject carefully, and discussed it with many people; the result of such reflection and conversation is a conviction that the prevalent popular estimate of the dangers of Commander Cheyne’s project extravagantly exaggerates them on almost all contingencies.

I do not affirm that there is no risk, or that the attempt should be made with only our present practical knowledge of the subject, but I do venture to maintain that, after making proper preliminary practical investigations at home, a judiciously conducted aerostatic dash for the Pole will be far less dangerous than the African explorations of Livingstone, Stanley, and others that have been accomplished and are proposed.

And further, that a long balloon journey starting in summer-time from Smith’s Sound, or other suitable Arctic station, would be less dangerous than a corresponding one started from London; that it would involve less risk than was incurred by Messrs. Holland, Mason, and Green, when they traveled from Vauxhall Gardens to Nassau.

The three principal dangers attending such a balloon journey are: 1st.

The variability of the wind.

2d.

The risk of being blown out about the open ocean beyond the reach of land.

3d.

The utter helplessness of the aeronaut during all the hours of darkness.

I will consider these seriatim in reference to Arctic ballooning _versus_ Vauxhall or Crystal Palace ballooning.

As regards the first danger, Vauxhall and Sydenham are in a position of special disadvantage, and all the ideas we Englishmen may derive from our home ballooning experience must tend to exaggerate our common estimate of this danger, inasmuch as we are in the midst of the region of variable winds, and have a notoriously uncertain climate, due to this local exaggeration of the variability of atmospheric movements.

If instead of lying between the latitudes of 50° and 60°, where the N. E.

Polar winds just come in collision with the S. W.

tropical currents, and thereby effect our national atmospheric stir-about, we were located between 10° and 30° (where the Canary Islands are, for example), our notions on the subject of balloon traveling would be curiously different.

The steadily blowing trade-wind would long ere this have led us to establish balloon mails to Central and South America, and balloon passenger expresses for the benefit of fast-going people or luxurious victims of sea-sickness.

To cross the Atlantic—three thousand miles—in forty-eight hours, would be attended with no other difficulty than the cost of the gas, and that of the return carriage of the empty balloon.

It is our exceptional meteorological position that has generated the popular expression “as uncertain as the wind.

” We are in the very centre of the region of meteorological uncertainties, and cannot go far, either northward or southward, without entering a zone of greater atmospheric regularity, where the direction of the wind at a given season may be predicted with more reliability than at home.

The atmospheric movements in the Arctic regions appear to be remarkably regular and gentle during the summer and winter months, and irregular and boisterous in spring and autumn.

A warm upper current flows from the tropics towards the Pole, and a cold lower one from the Arctic circle towards the equator.

Commander Cheyne, who has practical experience of these Arctic expeditions, and has kept an elaborate log of the wind, etc. , which he has shown me, believes that, by the aid of pilot balloons to indicate the currents at various heights, and by availing himself of these currents, he may reach the Pole and return to his ship, or so near as to be able to reach it by traveling over the ice in light sledges that will be carried for that purpose.

In making any estimate of the risk of Arctic aerostation, we must banish from our minds the preconceptions induced by our British experience of the uncertainties of the wind, and only consider the atmospheric actualities of the Polar regions, so far as we know them.

Let us now consider the second danger, viz.

, that of being blown out to sea and there remaining until the leakage of gas has destroyed the ascending power of the balloon, or till the stock of food is consumed.

A glance at a map of the world will show how much smaller is the danger to the aeronaut who starts from the head of Baffin’s Bay than that which was incurred by those who started from Vauxhall in the Nassau balloon, or by Captain Roher, who started from Paris.

Both of these had the whole breadth of the Atlantic on the W. and S. W.

, and the North Sea and Arctic Ocean N. and N. E.

The Arctic balloon, starting from Smith’s Sound or thereabouts, with a wind from the South (and without such a wind the start would not, of course, be made), would, if the wind continued in the same direction, reach the Pole in a few hours;

in seven or eight hours at Roher’s speed; in fourteen or fifteen hours at the average rate made by the Nassau balloon in a “moderate breeze.

” Now look again at the map and see what surrounds them.

Simply the continents of Europe, Asia, and America, by which the circumpolar area is nearly land-locked, with only two outlets, that between Norway and Greenland on one side, and the narrow channel of Behring’s Straits on the other.

The wider of these is broken by Spitzbergen and Iceland, both inhabited islands, where a balloon may descend and the aeronauts be hospitably received.

Taking the 360 degrees of the zone between the 70th parallel of latitude and the Arctic circle, 320 are land-locked and only 40 open to the sea; therefore the chances of coming upon land at _any one_ part of this zone is as 320 to 40; but with a choice of points for descent such as the aeronauts would have unless the wind blew precisely down the axis of the opening, the chances would be far greater.

If the wind continued as at starting, they would be blown to Finland; a westerly deflection would land them in Siberia, easterly in Norway; a strong E. wind at the later stage of the trip would blow them back to Greenland.

In all the above I have supposed the aeronauts to be quite helpless, merely drifting at random with that portion of the atmosphere in which they happened to be immersed.

This, however, need not be the case.

Within certain limits they have a choice of winds, owing to the prevalence of upper and lower currents blowing in different and even in opposite directions.

Suppose, for example, they find themselves N. of Spitzbergen, where “Parry’s furthest” is marked on some of our maps, and that the wind is from the N. E.

, blowing them towards the Atlantic opening.

They would then ascend or descend in search of a due N. or N. by W. wind that would blow them to Norway, or W. N.

W.

to Finland, or N.

W.

to Siberia, or due E. back to Greenland, from whence they might rejoin their ships.

One or other of these would almost certainly be found.

A little may be done in steering a balloon, but so very little that small reliance should be placed upon it.

Only in a very light wind would it have a sensible effect, though in case of a “near shave” between landing, say at the Lofodens or Iceland, and being blown out to sea, it might just save them.

As already stated, Commander Cheyne believes in the possibility of returning to the ship, and bases his belief on the experiments he made from winter quarters in Northumberland Sound, where he inflated four balloons, attached to them proportionately different weights, and sent them up simultaneously.

They were borne by diverse currents of air in _four different directions according to the different altitudes_, viz.

, N.

W.

, N.

E.

, S.

E.

, and S. W.

, “thus proving that in this case balloons could be sent in any required direction by ascending to the requisite altitude.

The war balloon experiments at Woolwich afford a practical confirmation of this important feature in aerostation.

” Cheyne proposes that one at least of the three balloons shall be a rover to cross the unknown area, and has been called a madman for suggesting this merely as an alternative or secondary route.

I am still more lunatic, for I strongly hold the opinion that the easiest way for him to return to his ship will be to drift rapidly across to the first available inhabited land, thence come to England, and sail in another ship to rejoin his messmates; carrying with him his bird’s-eye chart, that will demonstrate once for all the possibility or impossibility of circumnavigating Greenland, or of sailing, or sledging, or walking to the Pole.

The worst dilemma would be that presented by a dead calm, and it is not improbable that around the Pole there may be a region of calms similar to that about the Equator.

Then the feather-paddle or other locomotive device worked by man-power would be indispensable.

Better data than we at present possess are needed in order to tell accurately what may thus be done.

Putting various estimates one against the other, it appears likely that five miles an hour may be made.

Taking turn and turn about, two or three aeronauts could thus travel fully 100 miles per day, and return from the Pole to the ship in less than five days.

Or take the improbable case of a circular wind blowing round the Pole, as some have imagined.

This would simply demand the working of the paddle always northwards in going to the Pole, and always southwards in returning.

The resultant would be a spiral course winding inwards in the first case, and outwards in the second.

The northward or southward progress would be just the same as in a calm if the wind were truly concentric to the Pole.

Some rough approximation to such currents may exist, and might be dealt with on this principle.