The English at the North Pole

  CHAPTER XVI

  THE MAGNETIC POLE

  Hatteras felt his anxiety increase as he neared the strait; the fateof his voyage depended upon it; up till now he had done more thanhis predecessors, the most fortunate of whom, McClintock, had takenfifteen months to reach this part of the Polar Seas; but it was littleor nothing if he did not succeed in clearing Bellot Strait; he couldnot retrace his steps, and would be blocked up till the followingyear.

  He trusted the care of examining the coast to no one but himself;he mounted the crow's nest and passed several hours there during themorning of Saturday. The crew perfectly understood the ship'sposition; profound silence reigned on board; the engine slackenedsteam, and the _Forward_ kept as near land as possible; the coastbristled with icebergs, which the warmest summers do not melt; anexperienced eye alone could distinguish an opening between them.Hatteras compared his maps with the land. As the sun showed himselffor an instant towards noon, he caused Shandon and Wall to take apretty exact observation, which was shouted to him. All the crewsuffered the tortures of anxiety for half the day, but towards twoo'clock these words were shouted from the top of the mizenmast:

  "Veer to the west, all steam on."

  The brig instantly obeyed; her prow was directed towards the pointindicated; the sea foamed under the screws, and the _Forward_, withall speed on, entered between two ice-streams. The road was found,Hatteras descended upon deck, and the ice-master took his place.

  "Well, captain," said the doctor, "we are in the famous strait atlast."

  "Yes," answered Hatteras, lowering his voice; "but getting in isn'teverything; we must get out too," and so saying he regained his cabin.

  "He's right," said the doctor; "we are here in a sort of mousetrap,with scarcely enough space for working the brig, and if we are forcedto winter in the strait!... Well, we shan't be the first that havehad to do it, and they got over it, and so shall we."

  The doctor was not mistaken. It was in that very place, in a littlesheltered harbour called Kennedy Harbour by McClintock himself, thatthe _Fox_ wintered in 1858. The high granite chain and the steep cliffsof the two banks were clearly discernible.

  Bellot Strait is seventeen miles long and a mile wide, and about sixor seven fathoms deep. It lies between mountains whose height isestimated at 1,600 feet. It separates North Somerset from BoothiaLand.

  It is easy to understand that there is not much elbow-room for vesselsin such a strait. The _Forward_ advanced slowly, but it did advance;tempests are frequent in the strait, and the brig did not escape them;by Hatteras's order all sails were furled; but, notwithstanding allprecautions, the brig was much knocked about; the waves dashed overher, and her smoke fled towards the east with astonishing rapidity;her course was not certain amongst the moving ice; the barometer fell;it was difficult to stop on deck, and most of the men stayed belowto avoid useless suffering.

  Hatteras, Johnson, and Shandon remained on the poop in spite of thegales of snow and rain; as usual the doctor had asked himself whatwould be the most disagreeable thing he could do, and answered himselfby going on deck at once; it was impossible to hear and difficultto see one another, so that he kept his reflections to himself.Hatteras tried to see through the fog; he calculated that they wouldbe at the mouth of the strait at six o'clock, but when the time cameall issue seemed closed up; he was obliged to wait and anchor thebrig to an iceberg; but he stopped under pressure all night.

  The weather was frightful. The _Forward_ threatened to break herchains at every instant; it was feared that the iceberg to which theywere anchored, torn away at its base under the violent west wind,would float away with the brig. The officers were constantly on thelook-out and under extreme apprehension; along with the snow therefell a perfect hail of ice torn off from the surface of the icebergsby the strength of the wind; it was like a shower of arrows bristlingin the atmosphere. The temperature rose singularly during thisterrible night; the thermometer marked fifty-seven degrees, and thedoctor, to his great astonishment, thought he saw flashes of lightningin the south, followed by the roar of far-off thunder that seemedto corroborate the testimony of the whaler Scoresby, who observeda similar phenomenon above the sixty-fifth parallel. Captain Parrywas also witness to a similar meteorological wonder in 1821.

  Towards five o'clock in the morning the weather changed withastonishing rapidity; the temperature went down to freezing point,the wind turned north, and became calmer. The western opening to thestrait was in sight, but entirely obstructed. Hatteras looked eagerlyat the coast, asking himself if the passage really existed. However,the brig got under way, and glided slowly amongst the ice-streams,whilst the icebergs pressed noisily against her planks, the packsat that epoch were still from six to seven feet thick; they wereobliged carefully to avoid their pressure, for if the brig hadresisted them she would have run the risk of being lifted up and turnedover on her side. At noon, for the first time, they could admire amagnificent solar phenomenon, a halo with two parhelia; the doctorobserved it, and took its exact dimensions; the exterior bow was onlyvisible over an extent of thirty degrees on each side of its horizontaldiameter; the two images of the sun were remarkably clear; the coloursof the luminous bows proceeded from inside to outside, and were red,yellow, green, and very light blue--in short, white light withoutany assignable exterior limit. The doctor remembered the ingenioustheory of Thomas Young about these meteors; this natural philosophersupposed that certain clouds composed of prisms of ice are suspendedin the atmosphere; the rays of the sun that fall on the prisms aredecomposed at angles of sixty and ninety degrees. Halos cannot,therefore, exist in a calm atmosphere. The doctor thought this theoryvery probable. Sailors accustomed to the boreal seas generallyconsider this phenomenon as the precursor of abundant snow. If theirobservation was just, the position of the _Forward_ became verydifficult. Hatteras, therefore, resolved to go on fast; during theremainder of the day and following night he did not take a minute'srest, sweeping the horizon with his telescope, taking advantage ofthe least opening, and losing no occasion of getting out of the strait.

  But in the morning he was obliged to stop before the insuperableice-bank. The doctor joined him on the poop. Hatteras went with himapart where they could talk without fear of being overheard.

  "We are in for it," began Hatteras; "it is impossible to go anyfurther."

  "Is there no means of getting out?" asked the doctor.

  "None. All the powder in the _Forward_ would not make us gain halfa mile!"

  "What shall we do, then?" said the doctor.

  "I don't know. This cursed year has been unfavourable from thebeginning."

  "Well," answered the doctor, "if we must winter here, we must. Oneplace is as good as another."

  "But," said Hatteras, lowering his voice, "we must not winter here,especially in the month of June. Wintering is full of physical andmoral danger. The crew would be unmanageable during a long inactionin the midst of real suffering. I thought I should be able to stopmuch nearer the Pole than this!"

  "Luck would have it so, or Baffin's Bay wouldn't have been closed."

  "It was open enough for that American!" cried Hatteras in a rage.

  "Come, Hatteras," said the doctor, interrupting him on purpose,"to-day is only the 5th of June; don't despair; a passage may suddenlyopen up before us; you know that the ice has a tendency to break upinto several blocks, even in the calmest weather, as if a force ofrepulsion acted upon the different parts of it; we may find the seafree at any minute."

  "If that minute comes we shall take advantage of it. It is quitepossible that, once out of Bellot Strait, we shall be able to go northby Peel Strait or McClintock Channel, and then----"

  "Captain," said James Wall, who had come up while Hatteras wasspeaking, "the ice nearly carries off our rudder."

  "Well," answered Hatteras, "we must risk it. We must be ready dayand night. You must do all you can to protect it, Mr. Wall, but Ican't have it removed."

  "But----" added Wall.

  "That is my busines
s," said Hatteras severely, and Wall went backto his post.

  "I would give five years of my life," said Hatteras, in a rage, "tobe up north. I know no more dangerous passage. To add to the difficulty,the compass is no guide at this distance from the magnetic pole: theneedle is constantly shifting its direction."

  "I acknowledge," answered the doctor, "that navigation is difficult,but we knew what we had to expect when we began our enterprise, andwe ought not to be surprised at it."

  "Ah, doctor, my crew is no longer what it was; the officers arespoiling the men. I could make them do what I want by offering thema pecuniary reward, but I am not seconded by my officers, but theyshall pay dearly for it!"

  "You are exaggerating, Hatteras."

  "No, I am not. Do you think the crew is sorry for the obstacles thatI meet with? On the contrary, they hope they will make me abandonmy projects. They do not complain now, and they won't as long as the_Forward_ is making for the south. The fools! They think they aregetting nearer England! But once let me go north and you'll see howthey'll change! I swear, though, that no living being will make medeviate from my line of conduct. Only let me find a passage, that'sall!"

  One of the captain's wishes was fulfilled soon enough. There was asudden change during the evening; under some influence of the wind,the current, or the temperature, the ice-fields were separated; the_Forward_ went along boldly, breaking up the ice with her steel prow;she sailed along all night, and the next morning about six clearedBellot Strait. But that was all; the northern passage was completelyobstructed--to the great disgust of Hatteras. However, he hadsufficient strength of character to hide his disappointment, and asif the only passage open was the one he preferred, he let the _Forward_sail down Franklin Strait again; not being able to get up Peel Strait,he resolved to go round Prince of Wales's Land to get into McClintockChannel. But he felt he could not deceive Shandon and Wall as to theextent of his disappointment. The day of the 6th of June wasuneventful; the sky was full of snow, and the prognostics of the halowere fulfilled.

  During thirty-six hours the _Forward_ followed the windings ofBoothia Land, unable to approach Prince of Wales's Land; the captaincounted upon getting supplies at Beechey Island; he arrived on theThursday at the extremity of Franklin Strait, where he again foundthe road to the north blocked up. It was enough to make him despair;he could not even retrace his steps; the icebergs pushed him onwards,and he saw the passages close up behind him as if there never hadexisted open sea where he had passed an hour before. The _Forward_was, therefore, not only prevented from going northwards, but couldnot stop still an instant for fear of being caught, and she fled beforethe ice as a ship flies before a storm.

  On Friday, the 8th of June, they arrived near the shore of Boothia,at the entrance to James Ross Strait, which they were obliged to avoid,as its only issue is on the west, near the American coasts.

  Observations taken at noon from this point gave 70 degrees 5 minutes17 seconds latitude, and 96 degrees 46 minutes 45 seconds longitude;when the doctor heard that he consulted his map, and saw they wereat the magnetic pole, at the very place where James Ross, the nephewof Sir John, had fixed it. The land was low near the coast, and atabout a mile's distance became slightly elevated, sixty feet only.The _Forward's_ boiler wanted cleaning, and the captain caused thebrig to be anchored to an ice-field, and allowed the doctor and theboatswain to land. He himself cared for nothing but his pet project,and stayed in his cabin, consulting his map of the Pole.

  The doctor and his companion easily succeeded in reaching land; thedoctor took a compass to make experiments with. He wished to try ifJames Ross's conclusions hold good. He easily discovered thelimestone heap raised by Ross; he ran to it; an opening allowed himto see, in the interior, the tin case in which James Ross had placedthe official report of his discoveries. No living being seemed tohave visited this desolate coast for the last thirty years. In thisspot a loadstone needle, suspended as delicately as possible,immediately moved into an almost vertical position under the magneticinfluence; if the centre of attraction was not immediately under theneedle, it could only be at a trifling distance. The doctor made theexperiment carefully, and found that the imperfect instruments ofJames Ross had given his vertical needle an inclination of 89 degrees59 minutes, making the real magnetic point at a minute's distancefrom the spot, but that his own at a little distance gave him aninclination of 90 degrees.

  "Here is the exact spot of the world's magnetic pole," said the doctor,rapping the earth.

  "Then," said the boatswain, "there's no loadstone mountain, afterall."

  "Of course not; that mountain was only a credulous hypothesis. Asyou see, there isn't the least mountain capable of attracting ships,of attracting their iron anchor after anchor and nail after nail,and you see it respects your shoes as much as any other land on theglobe."

  "Then how do you explain----"

  "Nothing is explained, Johnson; we don't know enough for that yet.But it is certain, exact, mathematical, that the magnetic pole isin this very spot!"

  "Ah, Mr. Clawbonny! how happy the captain would be to say as muchof the boreal pole!"

  "He will some day, Johnson, you will see."

  "I hope he will," answered the boatswain.

  He and the doctor elevated a cairn on the exact spot where theexperiment had been made, and returned on board at five o'clock inthe evening.