Part 16

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.

Let us now consider the third danger, that of the darkness. The seriousness of this may be inferred from the following description of the journey of the Nassau balloon, published at the time: “It seemed to the aeronauts as if they were cleaving their way through an interminable mass of black marble in which they were imbedded, and which, solid a few inches before them, seemed to soften as they approached in order to admit them still further within its cold and dusky enclosure. In this way they proceeded blindly, as it may well be called, until about 3.30 A.M., when in the midst of the impenetrable darkness and profound stillness an unusual explosion issued from the machine above, followed by a violent rustling of the silk, and all the signs which might be supposed to accompany the bursting of the balloon. The car was violently shaken. A second and a third explosion followed in quick succession. The danger seemed immediate, when suddenly the balloon recovered her usual form and stillness. These alarming symptoms seemed to have been produced by collapsing of the balloon under the diminished temperature of the upper regions after sunset, and the silk forming into folds under the netting. Now, when the guide rope informed the voyagers that the balloon was too near the earth, ballast was thrown out, and the balloon rising rapidly into a thinner air experienced a diminution of pressure, and consequent expansion of the gas.

“The cold during the night ranged from a few degrees below to the freezing point. As morning advanced the rushing of waters was heard, and so little were the aeronauts aware of the course which they had been pursuing during the night, that they supposed themselves to have been thrown back upon the shores of the German Ocean, or about to enter the Baltic, whereas they were actually over the Rhine, not far from Coblentz.”

All this blind drifting for hours, during which the balloon may be carried out to sea, and opportunities of safe descent may be lost, is averted in an Arctic balloon voyage, which would be made in the summer, when the sun never sets. There need be no break in the survey of the ground passed over, no difficulty in pricking upon a chart the course taken and the present position at any moment. With an horizon of 50 to 100 miles’ radius the approach of such a danger as drifting to the open ocean would be perceived in ample time for descent, and as a glance at the map will show, this danger cannot occur until reaching the latitudes of inhabited regions.

The Arctic aeronauts will have another great advantage over those who ascend from any part of England. They can freely avail themselves of Mr. Green’s simple but most important practical invention—the drag-rope. This is a long and rather heavy rope trailing on the ground. It performs two important functions. First, it checks the progress of the balloon, causing it to move less rapidly than the air in which it is immersed. The aeronaut thus gets a slight breeze equivalent to the difference between the velocity of the wind and that of the balloon’s progress. He may use this as a fulcrum to effect a modicum of steerage.

The second and still more important use of the drag-rope is the very great economy of ballast it achieves. Suppose the rope to be 1000 feet long, its weight equal to 1 lb. for every ten feet, and the balloon to have an ascending power of 50 lbs. It is evident that under these conditions the balloon will retain a constant elevation of 500 feet above the ground below it, and that 500 feet of rope will trail upon the ground. Thus, if a mountain is reached no ballast need be thrown away in order to clear the summit, as the balloon will always lift its 500 feet of rope, and thus always rise with the up-slope and descend with the down-slope of hill and dale. The full use of this simple and valuable adjunct to aerial traveling is prevented in such a country as ours by the damage it might do below, and the temptation it affords to mischievous idiots near whom it may pass.

In the course of many conversations with various people on this subject I have been surprised at the number of educated men and women who have anticipated with something like a shudder the terrible cold to which the poor aeronauts will be exposed.

This popular delusion which pictures the Arctic regions as the abode of perpetual freezing, is so prevalent and general, that some explanation is demanded.

The special characteristic of Arctic climate is a cold and long winter and a short and _hot summer_. The winter is intensely cold simply because the sun never shines, and the summer is very hot because the sun is always above the horizon, and, unless hidden by clouds or mist, is continually shining. The summer heat of Siberia is intense, and the vegetable proportionately luxuriant. I have walked over a few thousand miles in the sunny South, but never was more oppressed with the heat than in walking up the Tromsdal to visit an encampment of Laplanders in the summer of 1856.

On the 17th July I noted the temperature on board the steam packet when we were about three degrees north of the Arctic circle. It stood at 77° well shaded in a saloon under the deck; it was 92° in the “rōk lugar,” a little smoking saloon built on deck; and 108° in the sun on deck. This was out at sea, where the heat was less oppressive than on shore. The summers of Arctic Norway are very variable on account of the occasional prevalence of misty weather. The balloon would be above much of the mist, and would probably enjoy a more equable temperature during the twenty-four hours than in any part of the world where the sun sets at night.

I am aware that the above is not in accordance with the experience of the Arctic explorers who have summered in such places as Smith’s Sound. I am now about to perpetrate something like a heresy by maintaining that the summer climate there experienced by these explorers is quite exceptional, is not due to the latitude, but to causes that have hitherto escaped the notice of the explorers themselves and of physical geographers generally. The following explanation will probably render my view of this subject intelligible:

As already stated, the barrier fringe that has stopped the progress of Arctic explorers is a broken mountainous shore down which is pouring a multitude of glaciers into the sea. The ice of these glaciers is, of course, fresh-water ice. Now, we know that when ice is mixed with salt water we obtain what is called “a freezing mixture”—a reduction of temperature far below the freezing point, due to the absorption of heat by the liquefaction of the ice. Thus the heat of the continuously shining summer sun _at this particular part of the Arctic region_ is continuously absorbed by this powerful action, and a severity quite exceptional is thereby produced. Every observant tourist who has crossed an Alpine glacier on a hot summer day has felt the sudden change of climate that he encounters on stepping from _terra firma_ on to the ice, and in which he remains immersed as long as he is on the glacier. How much greater must be this depression of temperature where the glacier ice is broken up and is floating in sea-water, to produce a vast area of freezing mixture, which would speedily bring the hottest blasts from the Sahara down to many degrees below the freezing point.