Those grim fields which lie silent as night and uninhabited, and where no sound of human voice breaks the repose, where no dead are buried and where none can rise. --KLOPSTOCK. Centuries of efforts to attain the north pole, under the auspices of the government of Great Britain, had their final culmination in the arctic expedition of 1875-6. The squadron was commanded by Captain Sir George Nares, R.N., of _Challenger_ fame, whose flag-ship, the _Alert_, wintered at Floeberg Beach, exposed to the full force of the mighty pack of the frozen Arctic Ocean. Of the many sledge journeys made with the _Alert_ as the base of operations, the most important was naturally expected to accomplish the main object of the expedition. It was commanded by Commander Albert H. Markham, R.N., who with three man-sledges, two boats, and seventeen men all told marched directly northward over the hummocky surface of the Great Frozen Sea in an effort to reach the north pole. By most strenuous labors and heroic persistency Markham reached on the surface of the ice-covered sea latitude 83 deg. 20' N., a point nearer the north pole than had ever before been attained by man. This tale sets forth the lamentable experiences of Markham's homeward march, and particularly the vitally important and heroic journey of Lieutenant A. A. C. Parr, R.N., which saved the lives of his slowly perishing comrades. * * * * * The northward sledge journey over the floes of the frozen sea, though conducted by brave and experienced officers with selected men, was made under unusual physical disadvantages which made impossible any further success than was actually accomplished. The party was encumbered with heavy boats, which were carried as a precautionary measure through fear lest the main polar pack might be disrupted during their journey. The sledges were fearfully overloaded, for while their burdens of two hundred pounds per man might be hauled short distances over good ice, the later conditions of four hundred pounds (three sledges with two crews) per man, in deep snow and through rough ice, was simply impossible. The extreme roughness of the ice of the Arctic Ocean was beyond expectation or earlier experience. Finally it developed on the march that the health and strength of the men were impaired by attacks of incipient and unsuspected scurvy. So it happened that when only thirteen days out from the ship a scurvy-stricken man had to be hauled on the already overloaded sledge. With true British grit Markham went ahead, but four days later, in order to spare the strength of his men, who were daily falling out of the traces, he decided to take the chances of pack-disruption and so abandoned one of his boats. [Illustration: Great Frozen Sea and Robeson Channel.]