RETURN OF THE ARCTIC EXPEDITION.

Globe, Volume VII, Issue 767, 5 December 1876, Page 2

RETURN OF THE ARCTIC EXPEDITION.

[SPECIAL TELEGRAM TO THE PRESS.] Auckland, December 4. London, October 27. At length news has been received announcing the return at Yalentia of the British Arctic Expedition under Captain Nares, comprising the steamers Alert and Discovery. Progress to the north pole was found impracticable. Captain Nares reports that no land could be discovered to the northward of the highest latitude reached, namely, 83°20, but in other respects the expedition was a success. The Alert has proceeded to Queenstown, and Captain Nares to London; all well. The Alert arrived in Yalentia at 2.30 p.m, being the first land made since leaving the frozen regions. She parted company with the Discovery in Yalentia. The Alert and Discovery left Port Foulke on July 291 b, 1875, and after a severe and continuous struggle they reached the north aide of Lady Franklin Bay, where the Discovery was left in her winter quarters. The Alert pushed on and reached the limits of navigation on the shore of the Polar Sea, with ice varving in thickness, being in some places 160£t deep. The Alert wintered in lat 82deg 27min At this time the sun was invisible for 142 days, and the temperature the lowest ever reached was experienced by them, A party with sledges was despatched northwards. It was absent seventy days, and reached latitude 82deg 20min. Another party reached Cape Columbia, the northernmost part of America, and traced 220 miles westward from Greenland, and also explored to the eastward, These sledge parties met with no game, and suffered from scurvy. Hans Petersen from frost bite, John Porter, of the Alert, and James Hans and Clarke Rawle, of the Discovery, died on the sledging expedition. No Esquimaux were seen, nor were any bergs met with beyond Cape Union. The expedition encountered great difficulty iu returning. The vessels left Smith’s Sound on September 9th. They signalled the Pandora on October 16th ; all well. The Alert parted from the Discovery in a gale on October 19th She will shift her rudder at Yalentia and pioceed to Queenstown to coal. The Admiral at Queenstown telegraphed that the Discovery is expected to arrive hourly. During the sledge journeys the ice was so rugged that it was onlj possible to advance a mile during the day in winter. Rich collections in the department of natural history were made, and excellent coal was found near the place

where the Discovery wintered. The expedition experienced the coldest weather ever registered, the temperature being 59deg below zero for a fortnight, and falling to over lOideg below the freezing point. The Pandora when spoken by the Alert reported her screw slightly damaged by ice. The Pandora, called at Littelton Island and Gape Isabella, but was unable to reach Cape Savana. As the Expedition did not touch at Littelton Island on its return, it missed the letters left by the Pandora. The health of the crews, with the exception of those already mentioned, has been good. The frost bites were severe, but not numerous. Petersen, the interpreter, died in forty days, after both feet had been amputated from frost bite. All the members of the Expedition declare it impossible to reach nearer the Pole than their northern exploring party did, which penetrated to within four hundred miles of it. On the return from the sledge journey, the men were in a very helpless condition, and it was necessary to draw some of them in the sledges, The plating of the Alert was much damaged by ice. London, October 80. The narrative of the Arctic Expedition is published. It relates that the expedition was detained several days at Port Payer. It started thence on August 8 th, but before reaching the shore of Greenland the vessels were caught in an ice pack. After this their progress northward was an incessant struggle through chance openings made through the ice by the wind and currents, the channel through which the ships moved constantly closing behind them. The Discovery wintered in a well sheltered harbor in the west of Hall’s basin, a few miles north of Polaris Bay, The Alert pushed onward, and rounded the north-east point of Grant’s land, but instead of finding, as expected, a continuous coast 100 miles towards the north, she found herself on the border of an extensive sea, with impenetrable ice on every side, and no harbor. The ship wintered behind a barrier of grounded ice close to land. Floating masses of thick Polar ice had in meeting pressed up quantities in blocks frequently a mile in diameter, and varying in height from ten to fifty feet. Obstacles of this kind destroyed all hope of reaching the pole by sledges before the attempt was made. The sledge party was obliged to make roads with pick axes nearly half the distance it travelled, as it was always necessary to drag sledge loads by instalments. The party really travelled 276 miles, although it merely progressed seventy-three. All the cairns erected by the Polaris expedition were visited. At the boat depot at Newmans’ Bay a chronometer was found in perfect order, which was left by the Polaris when at Polaris Bay. The Discovery hoisted the American Hag and fired a salute. A brazen tablet with the following inscription was fixed in the grave of Captain Hall:—“Sacred to the memory of Captain Hall of the Polaris, who sacrificed his life in the advancement of science ; this tablet is erected by the British Polar Expedition, who following his footsteps have profited by his experience.” Two sailors of the Greenland sledge party were buried near Captain Hall’s grave. The sufferings of sledge partiesjfrom scurvy were frightful. The expedition under Commander Markham, which endeavored to reach the pole, consisted of seventeen persons, nine of whom became entirely helpless, and had to be carried in sledges. Three could barely walk and were unable to render assistance.