Nearly forgotten but glorious art, envisionings and historical oddments from the back corners of the internet
Images of the polar sea from back when the arctic was the last frontier. Taken from Edward L. Moss’s work “Shores of the Polar Sea: A Narrative of the Arctic Expedition of 1875–6.” Published in London in 1878.
Lunar Haloes:This is a sketch from the floes alongside the ship, of an unusually distinct Paraselena that appeared on 11th December, 1875. The haloes and cross round the moon are caused by the passage of her light through a tissue of impalpably minute needle-like crystals of ice slowly falling through the atmosphere. The snow-covered hills of Floeberg Beach are in the background, and in the foreground two officers are measuring the site with a sextant, while the long-lost Sally looks on. In summer the sun was often surrounded by a similar meteor, but intensely dazzling and tinted with colors like an outside rainbow. Plate VIII, page 84 of Shores of the Polar Sea: A Narrative of the Arctic Expedition of 1875–6. Collections of and digitalized by the Boston Public Library. In the public domain due to age. via https://archive.org/details/shoresofpolarsea00moss/page/n84/mode/1upPlate IX- The Dawn of 1876. H.M.S. ‘Albert” in Winter Quarters – page 49: Dawn in the latitude of Floeberg Beach is a season rather than an hour, and the growing brightness skirts round the whole horizon almost impartially. This is a sketch very early in March, looking north at midnight. At the time it was made, the spirit thermometers on the small stand, and on the tripod seen to the left of the ship, registered -70 degrees Fahrenheit. The outlines were made without much difficulty, with a pencil pushed through two pairs of worsted mitts. The colours were laide on the warmth and candlelight between decks, and verified by repeated trips into the cold. In regions where wind could crush the ice together, or where open water existed to leeward, Arctic ships have more than once been blown to sea with the ice at their winter quarters; and, as a precautionary measure, our ship was secured to shore by chain cables, raised at intervals on casks to prevent them soaking into the sea. Page 86 of Shores of the Polar Sea: A Narrative of the Arctic Expedition of 1875–6. Collections of and digitalized by the Boston Public Library. In the public domain due to age. via https://archive.org/details/shoresofpolarsea00moss/page/n86/mode/1upPlate X – The ‘Albert’ in Winter Quarters, From Amongst the Barrier Bergs, March, 1876. P 50. Nowhere is it more true that ‘the low sun makes the color’ than in the Arctic regions. The ice and snow, that are wearily white in midsummer, glow with all sorts of opaline tints in the sunrise lights of March. The sketch is from amongst the floebergs to seaward of the ship. The sides of the berg in the center have been worn into columns and alcoves by the surface floods of some former summer; but it has since been forced higher on the beach, and into shallower water. Snowdrifts fill up all the gorges and ravines amongst the bergs, and are in some places so hardened by wind and infiltration of seawater, that tidal motion cracks and fissures them, especially round the grounded bergs. Page 94 of Shores of the Polar Sea: A Narrative of the Arctic Expedition of 1875–6. Collections of and digitalized by the Boston Public Library. In the public domain due to age. via https://archive.org/details/shoresofpolarsea00moss/page/n94/mode/1upPlate XI – WINTER QUARTERS, FROM AMONGST THE FLOEBERGS, LOOKING SOUTH. March 1876 – page 50 Quarter of a mile north of the “Alert” a field of polar floe had been pushed on shore, and split up into a number of floe bergs, with lanes and streets between them. This view of our winter quarters was obtained from the top of one of the fragments. Beyond the ship, Cape Rawson may be seen forming the western portal of Robeson Channel, while away across the strait the snowy hills of Greenland make the eastern. Page 102 of Shores of the Polar Sea: A Narrative of the Arctic Expedition of 1875–6. Collections of and digitalized by the Boston Public Library. In the public domain due to age. via https://archive.org/details/shoresofpolarsea00moss/page/n102/mode/1upPLATE XII – A FLOE BERG, SIMMON’S ISLAND, APRIL 1876 – page 59. The great stratified masses of salt ice that lie grounded along the shores of the Polar Sea are nothing more than fragments broken from the edges of the perennial floes. We call them floe bergs in order to distinguish them from, and yet express their kinship to, icebergs – the latter and their parent glaciers belong to more southern regions. Partly because it was a conspicuous point to push on for before halting for lunch, the floe berg on Simmon’s Island became a familiar landmark in the many trips of the supporting sledges across Black Cliff Bay; and the chill hour, while tea was preparing, was often spent in speculating on the enormous force required to push the huge square mass so high on shore. Page 106 of Shores of the Polar Sea: A Narrative of the Arctic Expedition of 1875–6. Collections of and digitalized by the Boston Public Library. In the public domain due to age. via https://archive.org/details/shoresofpolarsea00moss/page/n106/mode/1upPLATE XIII – ON THE NORTHERN MARCH, APRIL 8, 1876 – Page 60. On the sixth day’s march of the united northern and western parties from the ship, this sketch was outlined in pencil while the sledges passed across a floe, little if at all under one hundred and fifty feet in thickness. Like most heavy floes, its edges were piled with rubble ice, cemented and smoothed off with snow drift, showing a perpendicular wall outside, but sloping inside to the general undulating surface. The easiest road lay right across it, and with the aid of picks, a natural gap in its walls was soon converted into a practicable path. The united crews of the “Bull-dog” and “Marco Polo” are hauling the latter sledge down through the gap, while the “Challenger’s” and “Poppie’s” have just reached the spot with the first of their sledges.. Page 114 of Shores of the Polar Sea: A Narrative of the Arctic Expedition of 1875–6. Collections of and digitalized by the Boston Public Library. In the public domain due to age. via https://archive.org/details/shoresofpolarsea00moss/page/n114/mode/1upPLATE XV – BACK FROM THE FARTHEST NORTH – Page 65. On June 14, the northern detachment, with the relief sledges sent to its assistance, returned to the ship from its ten weeks’ march over the polar floes. The detachment had started northward seventeen strong, but only four remained able to pull in the drag belts, and of these one was the officer in command. Frost-peeled and sun-burnt, with stiffened knees, and faces and clothes stained with stearine smoke, these four led the way alongside the ship, flying the Union Jack they had carried a month’s hard march beyond every predecessor. Page 130 of Shores of the Polar Sea: A Narrative of the Arctic Expedition of 1875–6. Collections of and digitalized by the Boston Public Library. In the public domain due to age. via https://archive.org/details/shoresofpolarsea00moss/page/n130/mode/1upPLATE XVI – THE LAST OF THE PALEOCRYSTIC FLOE, KANE’S OPEN POLAR SEA, CAPE CONSTITUTION, FRANKLIN AND CROZIER ISLANDS IN THE DISTANCE, AUGUST 20, 1876 – Page 81. As the ships returned southward, they steamed through a large “polynia,” or water space, in Kennedy Channel. It was on a still night, late in August, and the ice-locked sea was calm enough to be the veritable “Peace Pool.” A few last fragments of polar floe lay here and there in the water, strangely reflected, and a dovekie swam beside one of them. Far away to the east, between Franklin and Crozier Islands, Cape Constitution rose above a faint line of pack. It was Kane’s farthest point. From its base, Morton, looking on another such polynia, had naturally enough reported an open Polar Sea. The sea was open now as far southward as could be seen from the crow’s nest, and yet both ships were in difficulties before morning, and a hundred miles of Smith’s Sound pack still separated them from the North Water and home. Page 147 of Shores of the Polar Sea: A Narrative of the Arctic Expedition of 1875–6. Collections of and digitalized by the Boston Public Library. In the public domain due to age. via https://archive.org/details/shoresofpolarsea00moss/page/n146/mode/1up
Sir Edward L. Moss was an artist and esteemed Royal Navy Surgeon, was part of the expedition and recorded this journey from his first-hand seat in the belly of HMS Alert . So a double role. All these expeditions included an artist.
On a voyage to see how much mileage I can get from the creative ability and eye for images that my family thought was useless. On line art curator, fiction writer and now blogger. Historian's daughter. Follow me . . .even I have no idea where I'm going next.
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