By Elissa B.G. Mullins
Twenty-one pieces of manuscript correspondence relating to Arctic and Antarctic exploration have recently been cataloged! These materials can now be accessed as Post-1650 MS 0840-0852.
Many pieces of correspondence contain information of great scientific and historical significance, while others are only indirectly connected to polar exploration, such as Sir John Richardson’s letter to his daughter Beatrice concerning her social life in London (Post-1650 MS 0846) and Frederick Schwatka’s note to the booksellers Estes & Lauriat requesting their most recent catalogue (Post-1650 MS 0847).
Among the more scientifically significant pieces are the letters from Joseph Dalton Hooker to James Croll (Post-1650 MS 0849), which discuss the “hopelessly unintelligible” question of whether specimens of wood found in the Arctic are evidence of interglacial warming periods, expressing particular skepticism as to Sir Edward Belcher’s claims to have found a tree stump embedded in frozen clay:
“Belcher you know was a notoriously untruthful man and an officer of his ship whom I questioned pooh-poohed the story of the digging the tree out of frozen soil …” (pages [2]-[3], letter of March 28, 1884).
Another item of interest is William Scoresby’s letter to Archibald Smith (Post-1650 MS 0844), written in 1855 on the eve of his Australian voyage. Scoresby’s objective in making the voyage was to prove his belief that an iron ship changed its magnetic signature after crossing the magnetic equator:
“You will probably have heard from Col. Sabine of my contemplated voyage, on to Australia in the iron ship, Royal Charter, of 2700 tons … I hope, please God, to be able, in this instance, to ascertain something of the nature & extent of the magnetic changes which take place on proceeding to as high a southerly as we have northerly at Liverpool …”
The mission was successful, and its results appeared in a posthumous publication edited by this letter’s recipient, Archibald Smith.
Yet another collection of interest is the group of letters and photographs relating to a German expedition to West Greenland in 1892-1893 (Post-1650 MS 0851). The collection features two letters (dated 1895) from Erich von Drygalski and three (dated 1894-1897) from Ernst Vanhöffen; the letters include references to the Greenland expedition and speculations regarding a potential voyage to the Antarctic, which Drygalski and Vanhöffen would indeed undertake together in 1901. The letters are accompanied by four photographs, including two images of their adorable sled dogs.
Come check out these and many other intriguing (and chilling) items—from Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld’s plea for assistance for Aleksandr Sibiriakov, believed to be trapped in ice at the mouth of the Yenisei River (Post-1650 MS 0848), to Alexander von Humboldt’s letter to his publisher John Murray (featured in the RBML’s exhibit of January-April 2013, “Names Swallowed by the Cold: Hidden Histories of Arctic Exploration”; now accessible at Post-1650 MS 0841), to Ejnar Mikkelsen’s correspondence with J.W.W. Spencer concerning the latter’s article “On the physiographic improbability of land at the North Pole” (American Journal of Science, May 1905) and Mikkelsen’s upcoming expedition to the Beaufort Sea (Post-1650 MS 0852).
