This knowledge has been gained by slow degrees, and by the exercise of the most heroic courage and endurance.  It is a heroic tate, in which love of adventure and zeal for science have combated with and conquered the horrors of an Arctic winter, the six months’ darkness in silence and desolation, the excessive cold, and the dangers of starvation.  It is impossible here to go into any of the details which rendered the tale of Arctic voyages one of the most stirring in human history.  All we are concerned with here is the amount of new knowledge brought back by successive expeditions within the Arctic Circle.

This region of the earth’s surface is distinguished by a number of large islands in the eastern hemisphere, most of which were discovered at an early date.  We have seen how the Norsemen landed and settled upon Greenland as early as the tenth century.  Burrough sighted Nova Zembla in 1556; in one of the voyages in search of the north-east passage, though the very name (Russian for Newfoundland) implies that it had previously been sighted and named by Russian seamen.  Barentz is credited with having sighted Spitzbergen.  The numerous islands to the north of Siberia became known through the Russian investigations of Discheneff, Behring, and their followers; while the intricate network of islands to the north of the continent of North America had been slowly worked out during the search for the north-west passage.  It was indeed in pursuit of this will-of-the-wisp that most of the discoveries in the Arctic Circle were made, and a general impetus given to Arctic exploration.

It is with a renewed attempt after this search that the modern history of Arctic exploration begins.  In 1818 two expeditions were sent under the influence of Sir Joseph Banks to search the north-west passage, and to attempt to reach the Pole.  The former was the objective of John Ross in the Isabella and W. E. Parry in the Alexander, while in the Polar exploration John Franklin sailed in the Trent.  Both expeditions were unsuccessful, though Ross and Parry confirmed Baffin’s discoveries.  Notwithstanding this, two expeditions were sent two years later to attempt the north-west passage, one by land under Franklin, and the other by sea under Parry.  Parry managed to get half-way across the top of North America, discovered the archipelago named after him, and reached 114 deg.  West longitude, thereby gaining the prize of L5000 given by the British Parliament for the first seaman that sailed west of the 110th meridian.  He was brought up, however, by Banks Land, while the strait which, if he had known it, would have enabled him to complete the north-west passage, was at that time closed by ice.  In two successive voyages, in 1822 and 1824, Parry increased the detailed knowledge of the coasts he had already discovered, but failed to reach even as far westward as he had done on his first voyage.  This somewhat discouraged Government attempts at exploration, and the next expedition, in