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CHAPTER XXII
The cold was increasing, and the snug, warm cabin of the Orion was a most acceptable substitute for the frost-covered deck of the vessel. At 7 dial breakfast was laid, and the three officers partook of a hearty meal; then lighting their cigars – the necessity for fires aboard the vessel being removed by the substitution of meteorlene for hydrogen – they lay back and enjoyed the hour.
“Why did you bring so much meteorite and acid?” suddenly asked Lester.
“Because,” answered Cobb, “I wished to have enough to meet all emergencies which may arise. I have enough to fully inflate the balloon four times.”
“Do you intend to make direct for the pole from Cape Farewell?” broke in Hugh.
“No. I wish to satisfy myself about the northern extremity of Smith’s Sound first. I shall pass west when on the eightieth parallel of latitude.”
“Can you explain why it is that the pole has never been reached by land parties?” inquired Lester.
“My opinion,” replied Cobb, “is that they have never proceeded upon the proper course. I think that Smith’s Sound leads the waters of an immense polar ocean into Baffin’s Bay; that the sea is a moving sea of ice, and that any northward progress upon it would be more than counterbalanced by its southward movement. I have long believed that the only route lay along the backbone of Greenland.”
“Well,” with satisfaction, “we can soon ascertain the truth or fallacy of your hypothesis,” exclaimed Hugh.
“Yes; for we will pass up on the fortieth meridian of longitude to the eightieth parallel; this course will take us over the central length of Greenland,” and Cobb blew a cloud of smoke about him, and closed his eyes in meditation.
At precisely 4:15 dial the following day the Orion stood poised above the southern extremity of Greenland. The earth below them lay like a white sheet, extending as far to the north as the eye could reach; the waters to the south were covered with floating ice, while great, towering icebergs were visible in many directions. The cold had become very great, and it was necessary to change their clothing for fur. But, despite the freezing atmosphere, they were warm and cozy in the ship. Hugh had worked hard during the two days given him to complete their arrangements; the canvas exterior of the car had been given a thorough coating of heavy varnish, and the interior lined with blankets throughout, while heavy, thick carpets covered all the floors. The electric heaters, except in the pilot’s house and three staterooms, had been replaced by oil-stoves of superior heating properties. Ten barrels of oil had been placed on board, and one hundred cells of storage battery added to the plant. With these wise provisions and the forethought to provide an abundance of the warmest flannel, and fur clothing for all, the severity of the weather had little effect upon the welfare and comfort of those aboard the Orion.
A strong wind was blowing off the coast, and the vessel made but little headway; the barometer marked 26.64 inches, and the elevation was 3,200 feet.
“Lester,” said Cobb, after a pause, and looking through the frosted window, “I wish you would increase the gas; we must rise above this current of air, or we will be blown off the coast.”
Hathaway passed out, and filled the receivers, and soon the Orion was rapidly ascending. Watching the barometer carefully, Cobb soon put his lips to the speaking-tube, and called to Lester: “That will do.” The barometer registered 18.2 inches, and the elevation had been increased to 13,000 feet, striking a strong current which immediately took the vessel swiftly due north.
Cape Farewell was in latitude sixty degrees, and on the forty-fourth meridian from Greenwich. It was over 1,200 miles to the eightieth degree, from which Cobb intended to move west to Smith’s Sound.
The days had become shorter and shorter as they progressed northward.
“It’s a bad time of the year,” said Hugh, “to make the voyage. The cold will be intense, and there will be no sun north of the seventy-fourth degree after to-day.”
“Yes; I know it,” returned Cobb. “But we will have the aurora, and that will give a sufficiency of light for all our purposes.”
In the steady, strong northerly current, the Orion made rapid progress. The great glaciers of Southern Greenland were passed, and then the chain of mountains which traverses the land from north to south were reached. Keeping exactly along the backbone of the range, the Orion sped northward.
On either side great canyons opened toward the west and east; immense rivers of ice and slow-moving glaciers extended toward the sea. The land was white with snow, save here and there where the black rocks of the mountains broke through. A barren, dreary waste was upon every side, and a scene of utter desolation presented itself to these few mortals far up in the clouds.
Still the vessel moved northward; degree after degree was passed, and it was 12 dial when they reached the seventy-fifth degree of latitude. The sun lay like a ball of fire upon the plain of snow to the south, its disc just visible as it seemed to rest on the horizon. The three officers stood at the rail, and raised their fur caps in salutation.
“Good-bye, old Sol; good-bye to your bright light!” cried Cobb, as he waved his cap. “It will be many an hour – days, even, and perhaps years, ere your face is seen by us again!”
“Let us say days only, Junius,” the others exclaimed, together. “We hope soon to see its glorious face again.”
“Perhaps!” With this single word, Cobb turned and entered the cabin, where he spread out before him a chart of the arctic regions, and examined it intently. Five degrees more and he would turn to the west!
Dinner was soon announced, and eaten with a relish, as the bracing air had given each a good appetite. The sunlight had given place to twilight, and that, in turn, had been followed by night. The stars shone out with brilliancy, and studded the heavens in every direction. The Orion, being in an upper current, moved with surprising evenness. The pole-star was high in the sky, and the great bear directly over their heads.
It was 18 dial by their chronometers, and they should be near the eightieth parallel.
“Hugh,” said Cobb, rising from his chair, “will you take the latitude from Polaris? Never mind the refraction; I want it only to within a few minutes.” Hugh took the sextant, and left the cabin, while Cobb turned to Hathaway, and remarked: “Lester, this is a very comfortable room, this one of ours in the arctic regions, is it not?”
“Indeed, it is,” the other replied.
“And we are going north, to the extremity of the earth?”
“I understand such to be your intention.”
“It would be sad for you and Hugh if we never returned!”
“I do not think of it in that light,” smilingly returned his companion, as he lighted a fresh cigar. “There is no reason why we should not return, and return in a halo of glory.”
“I hope so.”
At this moment Hugh came, and announced that he made the latitude 79 degrees 55 minutes. Seven minutes later the course of the Orion was laid due west.
On the 17th of January, at 1 dial, the vessel lay to over Napoleon Island. From this point they proceeded due north, Cobb carefully watching the earth below them. For three degrees the course of Smith’s Sound was plainly visible, then it terminated in a great sea of floating ice to the north. “As I thought,” he murmured: “There is no road to the pole from the continent of North America.”
At 6 dial the Orion’s course was still due north.
Returning to the cabin, breakfast was served, and all enjoyed the good things which had been prepared, and, also, the warmth of the interior. As the hour of 10 dial drew near, Cobb took the sextant, and passed out of the cabin, and stationed himself at the rail near the pilot’s house. There, with instrument in hand, he carefully watched Polaris rise toward the zenith as the ship moved north. Suddenly he dropped the instrument to his side, and cried, in a quick, sharp voice: “Ninety degrees to the right; quick!”
The Orion turned in a graceful curve, and bore due east.
At 16 dial Cobb again came on deck and consulted his sextant. After a moment he laid aside the instrument, and took his watch in his fur-covered hand, and noted the revolution-counter on the side of the pilot’s house. “We are moving due east on the parallel of 83 degrees 24 minutes,” he replied to Hugh and Lester, as the two men came from the cabin and inquired why he was consulting his watch, “and if I am not mistaken, will be on the meridian of 40 degrees 46 minutes in five minutes,” and he put the telescope to his eye and intently examined the earth below them. “Ha! As I thought!” he suddenly cried, excitedly: “Stop her! Stop her! Stop the engines!”
The pilot threw over the electric switch, and the great propeller gradually ceased to revolve. Jumping quickly to the escape-valve, Cobb carefully allowed the gas to escape, and the Orion began gently to settle. Hugh and Lester looked at the man in amazement. Was he crazy? Why was he thus descending into a barren, icy plain miles yet from the pole?
“Make ready, Hugh, to alight,” cried Cobb. “I will explain all afterward.”
The Orion touched the snowy plain. Still discharging gas that the vessel might not ascend, when relieved of the weight of himself and companions, he pointed to a cone of rocks standing high and bare above the snow, some four hundred yards away.
“That is why I have landed,” he quietly said: “Come; follow me, and I will explain.”
Stepping down the ladders, the three men made their way over the snow toward the spot pointed out, and found a pile of rocks about thirty feet high standing on the shore of the icy sea. As Lester and Hugh examined the monument, Cobb, saying nothing, commenced to pull aside the stones. A moment later and he had unearthed an old rusty meat-can, and was excitedly tearing it open. Its contents was a letter. Without waiting to hear the questions which he knew the two men were about to ask, he said: “This is the cairn left by Brainard and Lockwood in 1882. This is the spot, 83 degrees 24 minutes north latitude, and 40 degrees 46 minutes west longitude, which they reached on that day, memorable in history, when the highest latitude on the globe was reached by a human being.”
“And you knew that a letter would be found in that cairn?” inquired Lester, with intense surprise.
“I was told so by Brainard,” Cobb answered, with quiet unconcern.
“And you personally knew the man who left that letter here in this desolate waste?” incredulously broke in Hugh.
“Intimately.”
Transcription of handwritten note
lat. 83° 24' north long 40° 46' west
Copy of record left in Cairn at Farthest.
I left Fort Conger, Discovery Harbor, April 3d, 1882 with party of twelve men and equipment consisting of one dog-sledge and team and four Hudson Bay sledges. Four of the party broke down in crossing the straits and were sent back. Two of the sledges also became useless and another, a large sledge, was substituted for them. Thus equipped the party left the base of supplies (which we had in mean time established at the Boat Camp, Newman Bay) April 16th and reached Cape Bryant April 27th. Near the Black Horn Cliffs the large sledge referred to broke a runner, and at Cape Bryant the two remaining Hudson Bay sledges were unable to go farther, being worn out. Here the rest of the party turned back while I continued on with the dog team. Sergeant David L. Brainard, General Service, U. S. Army, and Frederik Christiansen (Eskimo).
Cape Britannia was reached May 4th and this cape May 13th, 1882. Here I turn back starting tomorrow, the 15th instant. All well at this date.
J. B. Lockwood2d Lieutenant 23d InfantryU.S. Army.
Cobb then detailed all the circumstances attending the fit-out of the Greely expedition, and his personal acquaintance with Brainard and Lockwood. He narrated that they had reached this memorable spot on the 13th of May, 1882, and could go no farther, as a great sea washed the shore in front of them – the time being summer. Opening the letter which he had taken from the meat-can, he read to his astonished friends:
“Now!” he exclaimed, as he raised the letter aloft; “now, in honor to the men who suffered, and to Lockwood, who perished, the record of their search for the pole shall not rest here, but shall continue its journey, even to the pole itself, and be laid upon the pivotal axis of this mighty globe.”
An hour later the Orion was bearing due north, and the three officers were sitting in the warm cabin discussing the cairn, the letter, and the Greeley expedition of 1880.
Higher and higher rose Polaris to the zenith; onward, mile after mile, flew the ship. The cold outside had become intense, and the spirit thermometer registered 86 degrees F. The aurora filled the heavens about them as if a huge, circular tent of brilliantly colored stripes of fire had been pitched above them. No moisture in the air, no sound, save the whir of the propeller, as it rapidly revolved and sent the vessel forward. Below was ice – ice – and nothing more.
So intense was the cold that, as Cobb unthinkingly touched his bare moist hand to the sextant which had been brought in by the boy, the skin and flesh were burnt as by a red-hot iron.
“It was 18 dial when we left the cairn, in latitude 83 degrees 24 minutes,” said Cobb, after a pause in the conversation, “and the distance to the pole was just 458 miles. Our speed has been uniform, and at the rate of forty-three and-a-half miles per hour, we should cover the distance in ten hours thirty-one minutes and forty-eight seconds, and at thirty-one minutes forty-eight seconds past 4 dial ought to be directly over the pole.”
Indeed, Cobb was perfectly correct in his reckoning, for at the hour mentioned the Orion was brought to a standstill, and then gently dropped to the earth below. Excitedly jumping down the ladders, the three men sprang out upon the snow, and, in one voice, exultingly exclaimed: “The pole! the pole! the north pole!”
True, it was the vicinity of the north pole of the earth, but it was not until after five days of hard work and intricate calculations that the exact spot through which the axis of the earth passed, had been located.
The record showed the exact time of locating this spot to be 12 dial, January 23, 2001.
Then was erected, from such materials as could be spared from the Orion, a monument to mark the spot. A hollow aluminum rod was driven deep through the snow into the earth underneath, and within it were placed letters and papers, and a portion of the documents found in the cairn in latitude 83 degrees 24 minutes.
Their task completed, they contemplated their achievement; a dreary waste, with snow in every direction, contained within its center the evidence of their wonderful discovery; and that evidence was a single monument of boxes, barrels, metals, and whatever else could be spared from the Orion to mark the north point of the earth’s axis! Surely this was little reward for the years of arduous toil and physical suffering of mankind, for the vast sums expended and for the hundreds of human lives which had been sacrificed in the vain ambition of discovering the polar axis of the earth!
The Orion lay about a hundred yards from the monument which had been erected, with her great gas bag nearly empty. A large tent, however, had been set up exactly over the pole to shelter them from the cold winds as they made their observations.
On the morning of the 24th of January the three men proceeded to the tent for the last time. Hugh carried a large box in his arms, and Lester had a storage battery well wrapped in warm flannels.
“It will be gladsome news to your father, Hugh, if you can send a message to him from here,” said Cobb, as they entered the tent.
“Indeed, it will!” joyously returned the other. “I will soon have my instruments in position, and then for word from home!” He beamed with the thought, for might he not hear from Marie? Of course he would! They certainly would tell him where she was, and if she and Mollie were well!
Hugh had brought a set of sympathetic instruments with him, the mate to which was in the office of the President’s private secretary. He had cautioned that gentleman to watch at a certain hour of each day for his signals. That hour had been designated as 11 to 12 dial.
Setting his instruments on the top of the little monument, Hugh worked assiduously to get an answering click from the office in Washington, but without success. In every conceivable position that he laid the needle the result was the same – no influence from its Washington mate. Disgusted, he arose from his work, and debated the situation in his mind.
“Ah!” he suddenly exclaimed, pointing to the needle. “I see it now! The needle is directly over the pole, and moves in the plane of the equator, while every other needle of the whole system of the sympathetic telegraph points to the north star.” As he spoke, he seized the instrument, and carefully turned it on its side until the needle moved in a vertical plane; then fixing it solidly, he brought the needle into a perfectly vertical position, and raised his hands from the instrument.
“Ah!” burst sharp and quick from all. “Click – click – click,” and the needle seemed to fondly pat the little brass stud on its right. “Hurrah! we’ve got him!” cried Hugh, and wild with excitement, he sprang to the key and called, “W-W-W.” Again the joyful click, and the “I-I-I-W” of the Washington operator was heard by all. For an hour the instruments clicked, and message upon message had been sent to the President and others in the great, busy world far to the south of them; and from these messages word had been flashed to all the known nations of the globe of the great success – the discovery of the north pole by three American officers.
At last came the words, through the instrument:
“Your father says Mollie and Marie are in San Francisco yet, and have sent word for you to join them there as soon as possible. They have a surprise in store for Mr. Cobb. He says you are not to delay at the pole, but proceed direct to San Francisco, to your aunt’s. Your father further says that, as Captain Hathaway has made such a record for himself with you and Mr. Cobb, he may call upon him, on his return, in regard to a little matter which has been, heretofore, an unpleasant subject between them.”
Hugh smiled as he translated the message, and looked with a glad expression into the eyes of Lester. That gentleman, as he comprehended the meaning of the message, danced a hornpipe in the snow, and cried, with ecstasy: “She’ll be mine at last!”
“Let us be up and away!” exclaimed Hugh, as he gave the final answers to the Washington operator. “On to San Francisco, Lester! on to our girls, is our cry!”
“Then, take your bearings, Hugh, for Behring Strait,” directed Cobb. “It will be necessary for us to go that way to replenish our supply of lipthalite at Port Clarence, or else trust to the currents part of the way.”
A puzzled expression came over the face of the other, and he seemed lost in a quandary. “Easy enough to say, ‘Take your bearings,’” he returned, “but how? I will be hanged if I know one meridian from another here. In fact, we are on all of them.”
“Don’t you know in which direction south is?” asked Lester, with a laugh.
“Of course, I do. But do you know in which direction the meridian of ten degrees runs, for that is the meridian which passes through Behring Strait?”
In fact, it was quite a puzzling question to answer. All the meridians centered at the pole, and the time there was the apparent time of every meridian on the globe. Standing on the pole, it seemed absolutely impossible for one to know if he were facing London or Washington, or any particular point on the earth’s surface. Hugh scratched his head in perplexity.
“Take the needle,” calmly said Cobb.
“Yes; but it don’t point north any more; it points somewhere south,” he answered.
“And where may that south point be?” inquiringly.
“Why, the north magnetic pole of the earth, of course,” with a glimmer of perception.
“And that pole is where?”
“In Boothia Felix.”
“Exactly; in 70 degrees 6 minutes north latitude, and 96 degrees 50 minutes 45 seconds west longitude, on the west coast of Boothia, facing Ross Straits. Your needle points there; so all you have to do is to lay off 73 degrees 9 minutes 15 seconds to the right, and you have the course to Port Clarence, North Alaska.”
The Orion was again made ready, the gas bag filled, a last adieu given to the north pole of the earth, and the three friends mounted the ladders, touched the electric button of the engines, and sped swiftly down the one hundred and seventieth meridian of longitude.
