The Siege and Conquest of the North Pole

Abstract

As a record of a group of Arctic journeys which had the object of attaining the North Pole, this volume has a real value. It gives, usually in the explorers' own words, the most stirring stories of the Far North, many of which are now difficult to procure in the original form. The record only deals with the last hundred years, the three centuries of earlier efforts being dismissed in a brief introduction. The expeditions chronicled are those of Parry in 1827, Kane in 1853–5, Hayes in 1860–1, the German expedition of 1869–70, the Polaris expedition of 1871–3, the Austro-Hungarian expedition of 1872–4, the British expedition of 1875–6, the voyage of the Jeannette in 1879–81, Greely's in 1881–4, Nansen's in 1893–6, Sverdrup's in 1898–1902, the Duke of the Abruzzi's in 1899–1900, Peary's from 1886 to 1909, and lastly, Cook's in 1907–9. There were, of course, several other expeditions in the period covered, some, such as Andrée's, avowedly aimed at the pole; others, like the Jackson-Harmsworth, the Ziegler, and the Wellman expeditions, in which the attainment of the pole was at least as much an object of ambition as was the case,with Nansen, and much more so than with Greely or Sverdrup. We are, indeed, inclined to suspect that the hope of gaining the fame of first reaching the pole has animated a good many explorers whose ostensible ideals were more modest.

The Siege and Conquest of the North Pole.

By George Bryce. Pp. xvi+334. (London: Gibbings and Co., Ltd., 1910.) Price 7s. 6d.