The Arctic Dispatches Microform Containing An Account Of The Discovery Of The North West Passage

Author : Robert Maclure
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9781331876359
Total Pages : 126 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (763 download)

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Download or read book The Arctic Dispatches written by Robert Maclure and published by . This book was released on 2015-07-20 with total page 126 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Excerpt from The Arctic Dispatches: Containing an Account of the Discovery of the North-West Passage At length the great geographical question of the North-West Passage is solved. At length the oft repeated attempt of above three centuries is crowned with success. Thanks to the daring of her intrepid seamen, England has achieved her favourite project, and that a passage by sea, north of America, between Davis and Behring Straits, is actually to be made, no longer admits of doubt. It has been performed by Captain M'Clure in command of the Investigator, one of whose officers. Lieutenant Cresswell, is now in England. How many of England's brave and hardy seamen have been successively repulsed in this attempt; how many have yet penetrated beyond their predecessors and wrested from the barriers of eternal frost another, and yet another, small portion of geographic lore, have braved the perils of a snow-clad ocean and this in spite of all the terrors of the Arctic winter "That holds with icy grasp the Polar world" in bonds of perpetual frost? Let the long list of names in history's page, from the times of Willoughby and Frobisher down to those of Parry and Franklin, bear faithful yet painful record. At length, we repeat, the feat is accomplished, and though all have returned and might have justly said with Baffin "I have seen what mine eyes fain would not have seen," when he reported the continuity of land at the head of Baffin Bay, yet it has been left for M'Clure to profit by the energy of Parry, and to give the final answer to the long agitated question, "There is a north-west passage." Such is the general view of the subject at the present moment. While it is placed vividly before us in the despatches which follow, let us glance over a few of its most remarkable points, both past and present. The theory of a communication by the Arctic Sea between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans was a favourite one of old. By England's earliest navigators it was adopted with a degree of zeal and restless determination purely their own. Baffled repeatedly and foiled in their attempts to achieve by it a passage to Cathay, from the days of Elizabeth during each successive reign down to the present, they still returned to the work. But, perhaps, at no period since its commencement has it been so determinedly followed up as it has been in the course of the present peace. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.