urrent carried him to the south more quickly
than he could advance against it, and he was obliged to turn back.

Of later years this method of travelling has not been greatly employed
in approaching the Pole. It may, however, be mentioned that Markham
took boats with him also on his sledge expedition. Many expeditions
have through sheer necessity accomplished long distances over the
drift-ice in this way, in order to reach home after having abandoned or
lost their ship. Especial mention may be made of the Austro-Hungarian
Tegethoff expedition to Franz Josef Land, and the ill-fated American
Jeannette expedition.

It seems that but few have thought of following the example of the
Eskimo--living as they do, and, instead of heavy boats, taking light
kayaks drawn by dogs. At all events, no attempts have been made in
this direction.

The methods of advance have been tested on four main routes: the
Smith Sound route, the sea route between Greenland and Spitzbergen,
Franz Josef Land route, and the Bering Strait route.

In later times, the point from which the Pole has been most
frequently assailed is Smith Sound, probably because American
explorers had somewhat too hastily asserted that they had there
descried the open Polar Sea, extending indefinitely towards the
north. Every expedition was stopped, however, by immense masses of
ice, which came drifting southward, and piled themselves up against
the coasts. The most important expedition by this route was the
English one conducted by Nares in 1875-76, the equipment of which
involved a vast expenditure. Markham, the next in command to Nares,
reached the highest latitude till then attained, 83 deg. 20', but at
the cost of enormous exertion and loss; and Nares was of opinion
that the impossibility of reaching the Pole by this route was fully
demonstrated for all future ages.

During the stay of the Greely expedition (from 1881 to 1884) in this
same region, Lockwood attained a somewhat higher record, viz., 83 deg.
24', the most northerly point on the globe that human feet had trodden
previous to the expedition of which the present work treats.

By way of the sea between Greenland and Spitzbergen, several attempts
have been made to penetrate the secrets of the domain of ice. In
1607 Henry Hudson endeavored to reach the Pole along the east coast
of Greenland, where he was in hopes of finding an open basin and a
waterway to the Pacific. His progress was, however, stayed at 73 d