iLog-Mundi: THE MIRAGE TO SHUT OFF THE NORTHWEST, www.publico.es
The August 30, 1818, the United Kingdom was on the verge of a historic achievement. The Arctic expedition aboard the Isabella and Alexander had left in April that day holed Lancaster Sound, north of Canada. Its waters were the key to cross the Northwest Passage, the route connecting the Atlantic with the Pacific through the Arctic and that the Marines had searched without success since the days of Columbus. "We are on the threshold and equipped with all the supplies we need," held in its daily mission astronomer, Edward Sabine. Although the objective of the mission was to find the path, Sabine longed to be the first to locate the North Magnetic Pole of the Earth. His diary is available on the website of the Royal Society
London, which digitized its 115 pages that reflected the bad end of the adventure.
On September 9, when all seemed won, something went wrong. The captain, John Ross, said he was close to the bottom of a mountain blocking the path. I was so sure to see their summits closing the straits and mountains named Croker, Admiralty clerk's name. There was, as the captain, another option to turn back.
According to the newspaper with Sabine, Ross also "feared that the lateness of the season, the closeness of the equinox and the rough seas due to winds, we forced to leave the area. "No other crew on board the boat saw the monatañas Ross recalls Keith Moon, librarian of the Royal Society, on the web.
is still a mystery whether Ross was swept away by a fluke saw or he could genuinely fear that the Arctic will become his tomb. According to Moon, it is unlikely that the Marines also should be driven by optical effects reflected in the waters, which were used after months at sea.
Ross
The decision was very critacada by Sabine, who confesses "mortified" by the fact that he traveled "the most interesting place in the world" and not being able to achieve its long-awaited location of magnetic North Pole. Back in England, Sabine acknowledge the captain to thwart his mission.
Ross in 1829 recognized his mistake and got funding for a new trip to the Arctic, this time in a steamer. The expedition crossed the Strait of Lancaster but was stranded on the ice, where they would spend four years before being rescued. As a reward, James Clark Ross, nephew of the captain, located the magnetic North Pole Sabine longed. In 1906, half a century after the death of Ross, the Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen was the first and cross the Northwest Passage.