From his earliest days Prince Louis Amadeus of Savoy, Duke of the Abruzzi, displayed a strong taste for adventure, and while he was still very young, he made a name for himself as a mountaineer of more than average daring and skill. It was in 1897, after he had returned from a successful attempt to climb Mount Elias, the great Alaskan mountain which had hitherto proved too much for even the most intrepid adventurers, that he first conceived the idea of organising an expedition, the object of which should be the discovery of the North Pole. After spending some eighteen months in considering the problem and consulting authorities as to the best course to pursue, he purchased a whaler of 358 tons and 400 horse-power, which was originally known as the Jason, but which he rechristened the Stella Polare, and set to work to fit her out for the expedition which he proposed to make.

The Stella Polare was provisioned for five years, and her company included Umberto Cagni, who sailed as captain, Count Franco Quirini, who served as lieutenant, Doctor A. C. Molinelli, and three Alpine guides. Sailing from Laurvik, near Christiania, on June 14 1899, she touched at Tromsö, Hammerfest, Vardö and Archangel, where she picked up 120 Siberian dogs. Thence her course was set for Franz Josef Land, which was made in the neighbourhood of Jackson’s house at Cape Flora. Finding the house in excellent condition, the Duke landed a store of provisions there to secure himself and his crew against starvation, in the event of their vessel being lost. Having taken this precaution, he continued his voyage up British Channel, passing on his way the members of the Wellmann expedition, who were being conveyed home in the Capella. From them he heard rumours of a new archipelago to the north of Franz Josef Land, of which, however, he subsequently failed to find any traces whatever.

Ice rendered the passage up the channel very difficult, but the Stella Polare succeeded in making her way along Karl Alexander Land and Crown Prince Rudolph Land, till she doubled Cape Fligely. Here further progress was totally impossible, so the Duke put back to Teplitz Bay, where he had decided to spend the winter.

On September 8 the ice in the harbour became very much disturbed, and the Stella Polare was nipped so severely that she sprang a leak. The engine room was soon flooded, and for three successive days and nights half the crew were at the pumps, while the rest were engaged in transferring the provisions and equipment to the shore. Thanks to the efforts of the officers and men, the ship was saved, but, being half full of water, she was perfectly useless as a place of abode, and tents had to be erected on land.

The winter was spent in making such short expeditions as the weather permitted, and it was while he was away on one of these that the Duke had the misfortune to be caught in a snowstorm, during which two of his fingers were so badly frost-bitten, that they had to be amputated. This was particularly unlucky for him, as the wound had not sufficiently healed by the beginning of March to allow him to take part in the great sledge expedition which was to be the chief feature of the voyage. The command was, accordingly, entrusted to Captain Cagni, who started out on the 13th with general instructions to push as far north as he could. During the early part of his journey he was accompanied by two supporting parties, on whose stock of provisions he and his men were to subsist for as long as possible, in order that his own little store might remain intact until he was well on his way. The first of these parties to leave him was that conducted by Lieutenant Quirini, and it was never heard of again. The Duke sent out search parties in every direction, but not a trace of their missing comrades could they find, and it can only be supposed that they either fell down in a crevasse, or were overtaken by a storm, and frozen to death.

In the meanwhile, Cagni and his three companions pushed on northward as rapidly as possible. They found the ice comparatively smooth, and by April 25 they had reached lat. 86° 33´, thus beating Nansen’s record by some thirty miles. Unfortunately their provisions began to give out, and they were compelled to beat a hasty retreat. The outward journey had been a comparatively simple matter, but on their homeward way they were beset by all sorts of unexpected difficulties which brought them to the very verge of starvation. The field of ice over which they were travelling was constantly drifting in a westerly direction, carrying them further and further from the bay which they were trying to reach. Leads were always opening ahead of them, which had to be crossed by some means or other, but, though they had kayacks with them, these had been so damaged as that they were hardly seaworthy, while it was often quite impossible to use them amidst the constantly shifting ice. On several occasions Cagni had to cross a channel on a small piece of floe, taking with him a rope by which his companions, with their impedimenta, were towed across on a larger block, while once a short voyage was made on a large sheet of ice which was propelled by means of the sails of the kayacks. Moreover, their provisions were getting very low, and for the last fortnight of their voyage they were obliged to subsist entirely on their dogs. Of the eighty with which they started out on their journey, only six remained when at last they reached the ship.

To attempt to spend another winter in the ice with the ship in so bad a condition would have been folly. Accordingly, the leak in the Stella Polare’s side was found and stopped, she was released from her bed of ice by means of gun-cotton, and on September 6 she was safely back at Hammerfest.

It was in 1894 that the American paper, the New York Herald, sent out Mr Walter Wellmann to search for Nansen and to make for the North Pole if conditions permitted. Leaving Tromsö on the first of May in the Ragnald Jarl, he set his course for Spitzbergen, which he proposed to make the base of his sledge expedition, and his ship was soon lying off Walden Island. A fortnight later Wellmann set off north with a party of thirteen men and an equipment of the most improved design. He had only been travelling for about four days, however, when a sailor brought him the unpleasant tidings his ship had been crushed to pieces by the ice, and that but little had been saved. Wellmann, however, was not to be deterred from carrying on his plans, and he sent back orders to the captain to build himself a hut out of the wreckage, while he himself pushed pluckily forward. Unfortunately for him the ice soon became so rough that further progress was out of the question, and he was obliged to abandon the attempt when six miles north of the east of the Platen Islands. Eventually the whole party made its way back to America in safety.

Undiscouraged by his first experiences, Wellmann started out again in 1898 with a view to completing the exploration of Franz Josef Land. Reaching Cape Flora on July 28, he found Jackson’s houses still in perfect condition, and, acting with Sir Alfred Harmsworth’s permission, he proceeded to transfer one of them to Cape Tegetthoff, which he proposed to make his headquarters. During the next few months he succeeded in mapping out much of that part of Franz Josef Land which was still unknown, and he would doubtless have accomplished more had he not unfortunately fallen down a small crevasse and injured his leg so severely that he was obliged to order a retreat.

At the present moment Mr Wellmann is considering a plan for reaching the North Pole by airship, in which he hopes to have the co-operation of M. Santos-Dumont.

Profiting by the advance of science and the experiences of their predecessors, Arctic explorers have, of course, reduced the danger of travelling in the frozen regions to a minimum, and it is very rarely that an expedition ends in tragedy. In recent years, indeed, with the exception of Captain Cagni and his party who perished during the Duke of the Abruzzi’s expedition, only four men, Baron Toll, F. G. Seeberg, and their two hunters, have lost their lives in the cause of science in the Arctic regions.

The principal field of Baron Toll’s Arctic investigations lay among the islands of the Siberian Ocean, whither, from the year 1885 onwards, he conducted a series of brilliantly successful expeditions, all of which added greatly to the world’s knowledge of the geology, meteorology, botany, and palæontology of these unexplored lands. He started out on his last journey on July 22, 1900, in the splendidly equipped laboratory ship Sarya, which was provisioned for four years, with the object of continuing the work by which his name had already become famous. The first winter was spent at Taimur, at the mouth of the Khatanga, and in the following summer he rounded Cape Chelyuskin, paid a visit to Bennett Island, and was ultimately frozen into Nerpchya Bay, where he met an auxiliary expedition sent out under Volossovich. On June 20 he set out with the astronomer, F. G. Seeberg, and two hunters on a journey of exploration. From a record subsequently found on Bennett Island by Lieutenant Kolchak, we know that the party followed the north coast of Kotelnyi and Thadeef Islands, keeping their course towards New Siberia. Here the ice broke up, and, taking to their boats, they reached Bennett Island on August 26. The record ends with these words: “To-day we are going southwards. We have provisions for 14 to 20 days. All in good health.” That is all we shall ever know of the fate of Baron Toll and his companions.

M. Brusneff is of opinion that they must have perished on their way across from Bennett Island to New Siberia. Before they could have reached the end of that journey the weather was becoming cold and ice must have been forming upon the sea, making it impossible for them to cross it in their boats. They had only provisions for a fortnight or three weeks, and little prospect of adding to their supplies, while, to make matters worse, they had no warm clothing with them. It is to be feared that the latest victims claimed by the Arctic regions must have suffered severely before death brought them release from their troubles and robbed the world of two of its ablest and most enthusiastic men of science.

So ends the story of Arctic exploration up to the present time. Those who have read these pages cannot fail to have been impressed by the gallantry with which generations of brave men have willingly faced, in the cause of science, the terrible privations and sufferings only to be met with in the frozen North, or to have felt proud of the part which Great Britain has played in solving the secrets of the Polar regions. Yet, dangerous though the service unquestionably is, it is a fact that at no time in the whole of its history has the death-rate among those engaged in it exceeded the average death-rate of the navy, while so immense has been the advance made in the science of Arctic travel during recent years that the risks attending it have now been reduced to a minimum.

Much has been accomplished, but much still remains to be done. There is around the Pole a tract of over two million square miles which have never yet been visited by a human being, and there can be no doubt that if this tract can be made to give up its secrets the world of science will profit immensely. The Pole itself still remains to be conquered, and though it is difficult at present to see how that terribly arduous journey over the rough seas of palæocrystic ice is to be accomplished, science will doubtless find a way. Of this, at any rate, we may be sure; so long as the Pole retains a single secret, there will not be wanting brave men who will gladly go through any dangers, and suffer any privations, if they can but wrest it from its prison of ice.