THE NINETEENTH CENTURY AND AFTER: THE POLES _(a) Arctic_ Following the new enthusiasm for Arctic exploration undertaken for purely scientific purposes, the British Government despatched three expeditions between 1773 and 1779. The first, under Captain Phipps, was stopped by ice off the north-west of Spitsbergen; the second, that of James Cook with the vessels _Discovery_ and _Resolution_, sent to search for either a north-west or a north-east passage by the Bering Sea route, met, as has been seen (Chapter VIII.), with a measure of the success characteristic of his work, but his death at Hawaii put an end to the hope that further research in the Arctic lay before him, and the voyage continued under the command of Captain Clarke was carried only a little north of the 70th parallel in the ice-bound Bering Strait, where Clarke also died. Till 1815 little was done to elucidate the still unsolved question of the north-west passage, owing to the disturbed state of Europe and America, but the offer of a reward (the result of the exertions of Sir John Barrow in 1818) of £20,000 for the discovery of the passage and £5,000 for reaching 89° N., led to the sailing of expeditious to the American Arctic region under Lieut. J. Franklin, Captain Ross, and Lieut. E. Parry. Ross on his first voyage took Baffin Bay and Lancaster Sound to be land-locked on the north, and thus missed his chance of forcing the passage. Parry in two voyages, on the results of which he gained the £5,000 reward, succeeded in passing through Lancaster Sound, and reaching and naming Melville Island, thus proving Baffin’s discoveries. Meanwhile Franklin attempted to reach the north shores of America by land; he explored 550 miles of the coast and discovered and named Cape Turnagain, though he and his party suffered great privations on the return journey. Then the energies of explorers were directed towards combining the results obtained by Parry and Franklin; further stretches of the north coast of America were explored, and Point Barrow was reached in Bering Strait. In 1829 an expedition was undertaken by Captain John Ross and his nephew James Clark Ross; the opening of the passage was again missed (though the most northerly part of America was passed), and it was not discovered till 1851 by Kennedy on his search for Franklin. J. C. Ross, however, fixed the position of the north magnetic pole on this voyage of five years’ duration, and other valuable observations were made. The work of tracing the northern shores of America was nearly finished by 1847, chiefly by travellers in the Hudson Bay Company’s service. During this period the north coast of Siberia had also been traced almost in its entirety by the Russians, though they had not succeeded in rounding the most northerly point.