PATER'S CHATS WITH THE BOYS.

Otago Witness, Issue 2251, 22 April 1897, Page 51

PATER'S CHATS WITH THE BOYS.

Nansen's " Farthest Xorth." About three years ago I gave you the outline of a lecture Nansen gave before the Royal Geographical Society, and in that outline I gave his reasons for fitting out his expedition to the North Pole, and also his reasons for approaching the Pole in a different manner from that of any previous Arctic explorer. Perhaps you have forgotten what I then wrote. Briefly, it was to be a scientific expedition— not one fitted out merely to reach the Pole and nothing else ; it was a matter of indifference in one sense whether the Pole waa reached at all. All Nansen wanted was to know whether there was land or water there ; the direction of the ocean currents and of prevailing winds and their rates ; the temperature of air and sea, what animal life existed there, and other questions of interest to scientists generally; and it wasn't absolutely necessary to cross the Pole to know these. Then, instead of having a large expedition, he resolved on a small compact one ; and instead of going up the west coast of Greenland and advancing against the southward ice drift there as mosb previous expeditions had done, he proposed to build a specially strong ship and to get into a position to drift with the ice drift across the Pole, and so come ont with the ice drifting south to Franz Josef Land, or Spitzbergen, or along the east coast of Greenland. Previous explorers hugged the land; bis idea was to get from it. He was laughed at for a fool, and the idea of

building a ship that would withstand the terrific pressure of packing ice was ridiculed. Bat we now see that his ideas were sound ones, and his conclusions justified. I remember that when I read bis address hie arguments seemed to me to be reasonable ones, bnt at the same time it seemed a madnesß for him to oppose himself to experienced^ Arctic explorers, and to make the attempt to reach the Pole by such an unusual method. Briefly, his reasons for opposing himself to all other Arctic explorers were these: by seeing Siberian mad and driftwood on the ice and in the current setting south along the east coast of Greenland he had formed i the opinion that that ice and current came > from the Arctic coast of Siberia, and that if i he got into that current and had provisions i to last long enough, and a ship strong enough ' to resist the nippicg of tbe ice, it was only a question of time when he would come out somewhere about one of the three lan^s ' mentioned. He made still more sure of thin through the fact that the Jeannette in 1880 or in 1881, after passing through the Behring Sea, drifted north-west before being crushed in the ice north of the New Siberian Islands, and that relics of that ship had evidently drifted right across tha polar region,, for if tbey hadn't how did -they get along the ' south-west coast of Greenland 1 Farther, (•he drift ice coming south along the east of Greenland was, in appearance, Siberian ice. So for tbeae and other reasons Naneen thought that a nuccessfal polar expedition was practicable, and that even if his thip did not get to the Pole the drifting would be alow enough to rillow him-to make a d^sh to the Pole by Hledge and kayak, in Esquimaux fashion, and to return to tbe ship before it got onl; of its ice grip ; but even supposing , ho could not regain' the ship, he saw no insuperable difficulty to reaching ©ither Franz Josef Land or ypilzbergen. Now.'-what actually happened 1 for theory *nd practice da not always agree. The reai wovk of the expedition begari when tbe Fram left Vsrdo. on the north coast of Norway, on July 21, 1893. A bee Hnewaa made for the south point of Novs. Zembla— some of> your - maps. Nelson's 2s 6d school atlae, for in- ' stance, have in a map of the Arctic regions most of the names I'll give, — and Yugor Strait, the passage nsxt to the mainland of Siberlo, wai paag«d through before the end of tbe month, and here the 34 dogs pur- , chafed for Nanisen were taken aboard. Capo Chelyuskin (North Cape) was breasted on September 10, and the event tigoalled by punch, fruit, and cigars; but the pnnoh was very mild, and Nansen had by t3)i« time mellowod a little, for on his Greenland expedition ilrink and tobacco w<ire both prohibited. A few days later t»e Ne<v Siberian Mnnrfs -"vers eichted ahead, ard tb«- Fram's noso turned to the north. Bj September 25, - 1893. tha Arnlic night had commenced to set in, and tha ice hold the Fratn taßfc ; uv this tim« o-ossrvatioua showed that 78deg 50rain north lat'tude had been reached in longifcuda, 138rk<g euat of Greenwich. Aad . now Nanßen\» drifting theory was to be put tothe test! for the Fram, rb subsequent events showed, was new to be imprisoned 4p the ice for almost three years without, a break, when she emerged on August 13 (1896) in latitude about 81^0^ north and in .longitude lOckg ease, or alrnoJit within sighting distance of the north west of Spi'z'ierijen, cnu of the three places Nausee calculated the Fr^m wonld come out nX Now as to her projjrovs, From thr? time blis was frozen in she driftcci, on cbe whole steadiir in a north west dSrec1 tion, until latitude 85^eg GS.Jtnia was reached ;n longSfcud? Cfirlc^ Slmin <s*«t; this was on November J5, 1895. From that time «ho drifted with the huge ice field flbe w«s embedded Jn. in a genera' direction almost soaio-wesfc until latitude 83 and longitude 10 was reached ; afrer that by blasting she was K.ade parfiaii.v frae, nnd»with steam steered! xoutb, gettine into the open sea as. stated, • and arrivirg tic Tromso on A./gust 20, 1896, jnst a weak after Nanseu stepped ashore at Vardo; for N"\n.«en. as you know, left the Frßm with Johaußen a«d made a dash for thfl Pole. I'll tell you about that next week. •Tho safe return of the Fram shows that Nansen's orift. theory had si solid foundation ; and when we remember tbftfc the Gulf Stream, \he current through Bs'hring Sea, ' and all fche d w?. nf Northern Europe, Asia, i ami America all ficv/ north, and that there • are two currents setting south — I refer, of course, to surfacu currents — it is only reaaonj a.bls to suppose that the opposite, currents t balance and that what comes south' must hava previously gone north. In two respects i Nansen wrb at fault : he assumed that the Polar Ocean wan shallow, and did not know that the polar winds opposed the ice drift. • And what are the results of the expedition ? Nansen aays that, as yet, only a general estimate can be arrived at. for It will be sorqp time before the scientific "observations brought back can be worked out and valued. Bufc this much is known : the Polar Ocean i<* r deep, not shallow ; the drift theory is com et, but the westerly drift is retarded by the pi availing polar winds being in the opposite direction ; there is neither an j expanre of land nor a mass of islands, and 1 therefore no population about the Pole ; the waters of the polar basin are brinief than in generally supposed ; and that the polar depths are made up of water layerg^tbe top • cold, a layer under warm, a thmHayer cold, ; and the bottom warm again. But, aB Nansen says, the value of the expedition to tcießCS > cannot be estimated until tbe hydrogiaphic. I magnetic, astronomical, meteorological, and ] other observations are worked out and studied. The only anxious time the men had on board was when the ship was nipped in the ice between- the ridges heaped up in more or ' less parallel lines, and at right angles to tbe I direction of the drift — the drift being west and the ridging north and south. When the ice was not strong enough to resist the packing by the under current and perhaps an opposing or assisting wind, this danger was apprehended at times corresponding to the • rid of the tide — that is, the tidal wave. An instance .is. given where two huge tongues of ice came into collision with a noise like thunder. In a moment one slid under the other, and instantly a hammock of ice 20ft high was pitched up, only to collapse and disappear with equal suddenness. These ice conflicts I were such stupendous spectacles that Nan- ! sea cannot help recording descriptions of them, Here 1b one:— "One feels one's tell

to] be in the presence of titanic forces, and it is easy to understand how timid aouls may be overawed and feel as if nothing can stand before it, for when the packing begins in earnest it seems as if no spot on the earth's surface ift left unshaken. First you hear a sound like the thundering rumble of an earthquake far away on a great waste ; then you hear it in seieral places, always coming nearer and nearer. The silent iceworld re-echoes with thunders; Nature's giants are awakening to the battle. The ice cracks on everyside of you, and begins to pile itself up, and all of a Budden you find yourself m the midßt of the struggle. There are howlings and thunderings round you; you feel the ice trembling, and hear it tumbling under your feet ; there is no peace anywhere. In the semi-darkness you see it piling and tossing itself up into high ridges nearer and nearer you — floes 10ft, 12ft, 15f thick, broken and flung on the top of one another as if they were featherweights. They are quite near you now, and you jump away to save your life. But the ice splits in front of you, a black gulf opens, and water' streams up. You turn in anDther direction, but there, through the dark, you can just see anew ridge of moving ioe blocks coming towards you. You try another direction, but there it is the same. All round there is thundering and roaring as Df some enormous waterfall, with explosions like cannon salvoes. By-and-bye the disturbance begins to calm down. The noise passes on, and is lost by degrees in the distance."

Nansen said, when he mentioned his project of starting for the Pole, that he would build a ship that would stand this crunching and smashing, and men laughed at the idea that be could do such a thing. The Fram went through it, and has returned. Was it lucky, or has the force of tho ice-heaving been exaggerated, or is the Fram really as ltiODg as to be able to resist the terrific ice pressure? At first the men were anxioup, but at last familiarity bred contempt, and one of the crew one day, amid the thunderings and crashiDgs, went down and played on the organ the tune, " Listen to the song of the nightingale."

Next week I'll give you a little more about what was, as compared witb previous Arctic expeditions, an extended excursion, leaving out, of course, the sledge and kayak journey of Nansen and bis companion.