THEY NEVER RETURNED.

Golden Bay Argus, Volume XIII, Issue 51, 19 May 1910, Page 3

THEY NEVER RETURNED.

THE TRAGIC HISTORY OF POLAR

EXPLORATION

Lieutenant Shackleton’s return fittingly rounds off one of the most brilliant achievements in Arctic discovery. Too often, alas ! explorers have wrested secrets from the regions of perpetual ice only themselves to pay the heaviest of penalties. The first great tragedy of Arctic exploration was the mysterious disappearance of Sir John Franklin and more than 100 of his companions. After having made two successful voyages to tjie frozen North, Franklin left Greenhithe in May, 1845. Just, about two months later he sent* despatches borne from Whalefish Island, and then followed a silence which has never since been broken.

In 1871 there was another Arctic tragedy. Captain Hall, the commander of the Ij.S. ship Polaris, left New York with high hopes in the June ol that year, was frozen in by the following September, and died in November. 1-lis crew, more fortunate than he, survived, and, after intense suffering, reached Newfoundland id May, J 873. Still more disastrous was an expedition which left San Francisco a few years later —that of the Jeannette, commanded by Captain de Long. This steamer, after braving a thousand perils, eventually sank during a terrific hurricane, previously having broken clean in two. The whole of her crew escaped, only, however, soon to meet with another disaster. While they were making for the Siberian coast, one of the three ship’s boats foundered with all hands, and the other two, in charge of De Long and Commodore Melville, respectively, separated, the leader’s boat drifting to the shores of the Lena delta, and Melville’s reaching a Siberian settlement on the River Lena. Melville and his campanions—a party of ten in all—travelled inland, succeeded in procuring assistance, and returned to succour the leader and his party. After many hardships they reached De Long’s last camp-ing-place ; but., unhappily, they were too late. Thirteen frozen bodies lay half buried in tbeisnow.

Intensely tragic, again, was the Greeley expedition. Through the failure of e relief-ship—which was fast in t.he ice, far away to' the south—Greeley and bis comrades found themselves, at the beginning ot the long Polar night with only forty days’ provisions, less than one fifth the quantity required. One man became so madly ravenous that be actually pilfered from the slender store of rations, and, being ultimately caught red-handed, was condemned to death. ,l ‘ Private Henry will be executed to-day,” wrote Greeley. And he was. When the end was very near a steamer’s whistle was heard, and soon afterwards a relief-party burst into the but in wjiich the survivors lay. Saved—saved from the very jaws of death ! Later, August Andree threw away his life in an attempt to reach the North Pole by balloon. He vanished completely. So, too, about fifteen years ago, did a small party which left St, John’s under the command of the Swedish naturalists Bjorling and Kalstennius.

Such is in part—the list might easily be extended —the heavy toll which has been exacted from explorers by the frozen North. It illustrates as nothing else can the dangers of the Arctic regions, and emphasis the credit due to Lieutenant SbackletoD and his brave comrades. "Answers ”