ARCTIC EXPLORATION

J. DOUGLAS HOARE

It was not until the end of the fifteenth century that the first serious attempts at Arctic exploration were made by John Cabot and his son Sebastian. John Cabot was a Venetian, who settled at Bristol probably about the year 1474, and to him belongs the honour of being the first to suggest the possibility of finding a north-west passage to India. In 1496 he received a commission from Henry VII. to sail out for the discovery of countries and islands unknown to Christian peoples, and though the real object of his voyage, discreetly veiled beneath these purposely vague terms, was not attained, he immortalised his name by the discovery of Nova Scotia and Cape Breton Island. The history of the earlier Cabot voyages is sadly obscure, and was rendered more so by Sebastian himself, who in his later years seems to have claimed discoveries which properly belonged to his father. Sebastian is unquestionably the hero of his own account of the expedition of 1496, which is given by Hakluyt...FROM THE BOOK.

Table of contents

• CHAPTER I EARLY VOYAGES
• CHAPTER II FROM HUDSON TO PHIPPS AND NELSON
• CHAPTER III THE VOYAGE OF BUCHAN AND FRANKLIN
• CHAPTER IV ROSS’S FAILURES AND PARRY’S SUCCESSES
• CHAPTER V FRANKLIN’S FIRST OVERLAND JOURNEY
• CHAPTER VI PARRY’S LAST NORTH-WEST VOYAGES
• CHAPTER VII FRANKLIN’S SECOND LAND JOURNEY
• CHAPTER VIII PARRY’S NORTH-POLAR VOYAGE
• CHAPTER IX ROSS’S ADVENTURES IN THE “VICTORY”
• CHAPTER X BACK’S TWO JOURNEYS
• CHAPTER XI THE DISCOVERIES OF DEASE AND SIMPSON
• CHAPTER XII FRANKLIN’S LAST VOYAGE
• CHAPTER XIII RAE AND THE BOOTHIA PENINSULA
• CHAPTER XIV THE FRANKLIN SEARCH BEGUN
• CHAPTER XV THE VOYAGES OF COLLINSON AND M’CLURE
• CHAPTER XVI BELCHER AND THE FRANKLIN SEARCH
• CHAPTER XVII RAE’S JOURNEYS OF 1851-53
• CHAPTER XVIII M’CLINTOCK AND THE “FOX”
• CHAPTER XIX THE VOYAGES OF KANE AND HAYES
• CHAPTER XX HALL AND THE “POLARIS”
• CHAPTER XXI THE “GERMANIA” AND THE “HANSA”
• CHAPTER XXII THE VOYAGE OF THE “TEGETTHOFF”
• CHAPTER XXIII NARES AND SMITH SOUND
• CHAPTER XXIV THE GREELY TRAGEDY
• CHAPTER XXV NORDENSKIÖLD AND HIS WORK
• CHAPTER XXVI THE STORY OF THE “JEANNETTE”
• CHAPTER XXVII LEIGH SMITH AND THE “EIRA”
• CHAPTER XXVIII GREENLAND AND THE EARLIER JOURNEYS OF NANSEN AND PEARY
• CHAPTER XXIX THE JACKSON-HARMSWORTH EXPEDITION
• CHAPTER XXX NANSEN AND THE “FRAM”
• CHAPTER XXXI CONWAY AND ANDRÉE
• CHAPTER XXXII THE LATER VOYAGES OF SVERDRUP AND PEARY
• CHAPTER XXXIII OTHER RECENT EXPEDITIONS — ABRUZZI, WELLMANN AND TOLL