Lost expeditions. 7 missing expeditions: main secrets

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Lost expeditions. 7 missing expeditions: main secrets

The disappearance of an entire expedition is always a mystery. Trained people, polar explorers, tropical explorers, pioneers - disappeared under mysterious circumstances. Traces of some groups were never found.

La Perouse Expedition

On August 1, 1785, the Comte de La Perouse set out on a risky voyage on the ships Boussol and Astrolabe. trip around the world, to systematize the discoveries made by Cook and establish trade relations with the native tribes.

During the first year of his journey, La Perouse rounded Cape Horn, visited Chile, Easter Island, and in July 1786 reached Alaska.

The following year, the explorer arrived on the shores of Northeast Asia and discovered the island of Kelpaert there.

Then the expedition moved to Sakhalin - finding a strait that now bears the name of the count. At the end of 1787, La Perouse was already off the coast of Samoa, where he lost 12 people in a skirmish with savages.

In the winter of 1788, the expedition transmitted the last message to their homeland through British sailors. Nobody saw them again. Only in 2005 was it possible to reliably identify the site of the shipwreck, but the fate of La Perouse is still unknown. Most of his records also perished with him.

"Terror" and "Erebus"

These two British ships, with 129 people on board, left Greenhithe Wharf one morning in May 1845. Under the leadership of Sir John Franklin, they intended to explore the last blank spot on the map of the Canadian Arctic and complete the discovery of the Northwest Passage.

For 170 years now, the fate of this expedition has haunted scientists and writers.

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But all that was discovered during this time was only a few graves and two wintering camps.

Based on the findings, it was concluded that the ships were frozen in ice, and the crew, suffering from scurvy, pneumonia, tuberculosis and terrible cold, did not disdain cannibalism.

Walking across Australia

On April 4, 1848, the German explorer Ludwig Leichhardt set out with eight companions. He planned to cross the Australian mainland from east to west on foot in three years.

However, after the agreed time, none of the members of this expedition showed up. In 1852, the first team set out to search, followed by the second, then the third, and so on for seventeen years in a row.

Until one tramp wandering around the mainland accidentally mentioned that he had lived for several months on the banks of the Muligan River with a certain Adolf Klassen.

When he found out that this was one of those whom they had been looking for for so long, he went in search of him, but died on the way.

And only after for a long time it turned out that Klassen had lived in captivity among savages for almost thirty years. They killed him around 1876. The last hope of learning about the fate of Leichgard and his expedition also died with him.

In search of Arctida

In 1900, Baron Eduard Vasilyevich Toll set out on an expedition on the schooner Zarya to search for new islands in the Arctic. Toll also firmly believed in the existence of the so-called Sannikov Land and wanted to become its discoverer.

In July 1902, the baron, accompanied by astronomer Friedrich Seeberg and two hunters Vasily Gorokhov and Nikolai Dyakonov, left the schooner to reach the coveted Arctida on sleighs and boats.

Zarya was supposed to arrive there in two months.

However, due to poor ice conditions, the ship was damaged and was forced to leave for Tiksi. On next year under the leadership of Kolchak, then still a lieutenant, a rescue expedition was assembled.

They discovered Toll's site, as well as his diaries and notes. It followed from them that the researchers decided not to wait for Zarya and continued on their own. No other traces of these four people were ever found.

Hercules

This is a small hunting vessel, on which in 1912, experienced polar explorer Vladimir Aleksandrovich Rusanov, together with members of his expedition, went to the island of Spitsbergen in order to secure Russia’s right to extract minerals there before other countries.

Everything went well. But for unknown reasons, Rusanov decided to return through the northwestern tip of Novaya Zemlya, and if the ship survived, then go east to the first island he encountered. A telegram with his intentions was the last news from Hercules.

Only in 1934, on one of the islands near the shore of Khariton Laptev, a pillar with the carved inscription “Hercules 1913” was discovered. And on the neighboring island things from Hercules were found: a nautical book, notes, pieces of clothing, etc. But the bodies of the expedition members were never found.

On the night of February 1-2, 1959, in the Northern Urals, on the pass between Mount Kholatchakhl and the unnamed height 905, a tourist group led by Igor Dyatlov disappeared. In memory of the dead tourists, we talk about other expeditions that disappeared under mysterious circumstances.

Buried in the ice

At the age of 59, the English navigator John Franklin set out on his fourth expedition to explore the Arctic.

For sailing ships of the Royal navy were re-equipped with the latest technology. The 378-ton Erebus and the 331-ton Terror went to the Arctic. There was enough food for three years; the ship had a steam locomotive engine, many books, and even a small tame monkey.

On May 19, 1845, the expedition was launched, its goal was to pass the Northwest Passage. During the summer, the wives of sailors received several letters. The latter arrived in August, they were all detailed and optimistic, and one of the expedition members, the housekeeper from the Erebus Osmer, wrote that they were expected home already in 1846.

However, neither in 1846 nor in 1847 was there any news from the expedition. Only in 1848 did the first three ships set off in search. Jane Franklin, the wife of a brave navigator, begged them to check the mouth of the Big Fishes, but no one heeded her requests. However, only she sensed the approaching disaster.

Shortly before the expedition departed, Jane was sewing a flag for the ship, while John fell asleep on the sofa nearby. It seemed to Jane that her husband was frozen, and she threw a flag over his feet. When he woke up, he exclaimed, “Why did they cover me with a flag? They only do that to the dead!” From that moment on, the woman did not know peace. Through her efforts, the search for the missing continued until 1857.

In 1859, the McClintock expedition, fully paid for by Jane Franklin, found a cairn on King William Island, and underneath it a detailed note dated 1847 and 1848. A skeleton was also found, and with it a notebook with notes. Strange, but they were written backwards and ended in cursive, contained many spelling errors, and there were no punctuation marks at all. One of the sheets ended with the words “O Death, where is your sting”; on the next sheet, notes were made in a circle, inside which was written “The Camp of Terror (Horror) is empty.”

A boat with two skeletons was also found. For some reason, the boat stood on a sleigh, which was pulled with a rope. The sentries' guns were cocked. The first to die was the one sitting on the bow, the second was ready for defense, but died from exhaustion. Among the provisions, tea and 18 kilograms of chocolate were found, among vital items: silk scarves, fragrant soap, boots, books in large quantities, sewing needles, 26 silver table forks and much more that were not at all suitable for survival.

The remains that were found at the expedition sites were gnawed, which indicates cannibalism; scientists also found that the sailors died from tuberculosis, pneumonia and scurvy. In addition, a huge amount of lead was found in the bones, but where it came from is not known.

Franklin's body was not found, although the last search operations took place in the middle of the 20th century.

The unfinished expedition of "St. Anne"

Probably, the saying “a woman on a ship means trouble” has real roots. 20-year-old Erminia Zhdanko, the daughter of a famous hydrographer, was going to take a “ride” on the schooner “St. Anna” around the Scandinavian Peninsula to Aleksandrovsk in the Kola Bay with family friend Barentsev. After this, the girl planned to return home to her dad, but this was not destined to come true.

In Aleksandrovka, the expedition found out that several people were missing for the voyage, and there was also no doctor. Erminia, who still during Russo-Japanese War she trained as a nurse and dreamed of going to the front, she declared that she would not leave the ship and was ready to sail: “I feel that I acted as I should have, and then whatever happens,” she wrote to her father.

In the winter of 1912, the schooner “grew” into the ice; in the spring of 1913, the frozen ship was carried into the Arctic Ocean. Even in the summer, when polynyas appeared, the ice floe did not melt. The second winter has begun. By that time, navigator Valeryan Albanov and captain Georgy Brusilov had quarreled, and Albanov was not fulfilling his duties. In January 1914, he asked permission to disembark and declared that he would reach civilization himself. Suddenly, 13 more people joined him (by the way, there were only 24 sailors on the schooner).

Two people reached Cape Flora - navigator Valeryan Albanov and sailor Alexander Kondar. A miracle happened and they were picked up by a passing ship. The remaining 11 travelers died in the ice. In Russia, Valeryan sent Brusilov's report and an extract from the ship's log, along with all the documents of the sailors on the St. Anna, to the Hydrographic Directorate. By the way, in his book Albanov wrote about the letters that those remaining on the St. Anna sent with him, but for some reason the letters never reached the recipients.

After the expedition, Albanov and Kondar never spoke to each other. Albanov tried for many years to organize a rescue and search operation, but in vain. Kondar dramatically changed his life, changed jobs and tried not to remember swimming. He refused to talk to the relatives of the expedition members and only once had dinner with Georgy Brusilov’s brother Sergei, who came to him in Arkhangelsk in the mid-thirties. Seeing his guest off in the dark, he suddenly looked intently into his face and shouted: “But I didn’t shoot at you! I didn’t shoot!!” It was not possible to find out what he was talking about.

Brusilov's ship was never found.

The death of Scott's expedition

The expedition of Robert F. Scott studied the southern continent for three years - from 1901 to 1904. The Englishman approached the shores of Antarctica, explored the sea and the Ross Glacier, and collected extensive material on geology, flora, fauna and minerals. And then he made an attempt to penetrate deep into the mainland. It is believed that to no avail. But this is not entirely true.

During a sleigh ride in the interior of the mainland - 40-50 km from the coast - Scott discovered a rock, on the top of which there was a well-equipped hole, carefully camouflaged with cut out thick plates of ice. Amazed by what they saw, Scott and his companions managed to move aside several slabs, and their eyes revealed a steel staircase made of pipes leading down. The amazed British did not dare to go down for a long time, but finally took the risk.

At a depth of more than 40 meters, they discovered premises in which a food supply base of meat products was equipped. Insulated clothing was neatly folded in special containers. Moreover, they were of such styles and quality that neither Scott nor his assistants had ever seen before, although they themselves were very thoroughly preparing for a long and unsafe expedition.

After examining all the clothes, Scott realized that the labels on them had been carefully cut off to preserve the incognito of the owners. And only on one of the jackets was a label left, apparently due to someone’s negligence: “Ekaterinburg sewing artel of Elisey Matveev.” Scott carefully transferred this label, and most importantly, the inscription from it, into his papers, although, of course, at that moment the travelers did not understand what this Russian script meant. They generally felt uncomfortable in this strange haven, and therefore they hastened to leave it.

Having walked half the way to the base camp, one of the travelers realized that he had to take at least some food, his own was running out... Another suggested returning, but Scott considered it dishonest: someone was preparing for themselves without counting on it. that they will use the reserves uninvited guests. But, most likely, his decision was influenced by fear bordering on horror.

Arriving at Mainland, travelers for a long time did not dare to tell the public about the mysterious cellar, equipped in the icy desert; but in his report on the work of the expedition, Scott spoke in great detail about the find. However, soon the materials he submitted to the British Geographical Society mysteriously disappeared.

Hallucination?

A few years later, another English explorer, E. Shackleton, went to the South Pole. However, he did not find any storage facility with food and warm clothes: either he did not find it according to the coordinates that Scott personally told him, or the owners of the warehouse changed their location... However, Antarctica also posed a riddle for Shackleton’s expeditions. In his diaries, the Englishman left a record of a strange incident that happened to one of his companions, a certain Jerley.

During a suddenly violent snowstorm, he got lost, but a week later... he caught up with his comrades. At the same time, he “didn’t look exhausted at all and talked about some deep hollow, where hot springs gush out from under the ground. Birds live there, grass and trees grow. He came across this hollow by chance and spent the whole day there, restoring his strength None of us particularly believed him - most likely, the poor guy was hallucinating..."

On the assault!

Shackleton did not reach the Pole 178 km. The “peak” remained unconquered, and it still attracted travelers. Among those who went to storm the South Pole was again Robert F. Scott. But - alas! - he was overtaken by the Norwegian R. Amundsen: he reached the final goal on December 14, 1911. A little later - on January 18, 1912 - a group led by R. Scott ended up at the South Pole. However, on the way back - 18 kilometers from the base camp - the travelers died.

The bodies, notes and diaries of the victims were found eight months later. While the search was going on, a note was discovered in the base camp (!) English, which reported: Scott and his companions fell off the glacier, their equipment, which included food, fell into a deep crevice. And if the polar explorers do not receive help in the next week, they may die. For some unknown reason, no one attached any importance to this document: either they considered it an inappropriate prank, or a provocation of a comrade whose nerves had lost their nerve... Or maybe this was also written off as hallucinations?!

Meanwhile, the note indicated exactly where the victims were. In the diary left after the expedition, a most curious entry was found: “We were left without food, feeling bad, took refuge in a snow cave we created. When we woke up, we found at the entrance a decent supply of canned meat, a knife, crackers and, surprisingly, some briquettes contained frozen apricots."

Where all this came from, Scott and his comrades did not know. Unfortunately, the crackers and apricots did not last long... The products ran out after a few days. Surely those who wanted to help them believed that their compatriots would come for the polar explorers who found themselves in a difficult situation if they only read the note. But...

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In the 19th century, during the era of outstanding geographical discoveries, Britain faced two tasks: first, to prove the existence of the Northwest Passage (that is, the possibility of successfully sailing from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean around the northern tip of America). Secondly, get to the North Pole. By 1845, less than 62 miles (100 km) remained to be explored. Franklin had to solve this problem. However, the expedition, conceived by the Admiralty as a brilliant conclusion to the many years of searching for the Northwest Passage, went down in history as the largest tragedy in the Arctic. Only based on the terrible finds that are still found on King William Island, it was possible to partially restore the circumstances of this terrible drama.

King William Island is one of the most isolated places on the planet. At first glance, this is an unremarkable polar semi-desert, in which limestone outcrops and swamps are generously diluted with icy lakes. The island is located in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago and is separated from the northern coast of the North American continent by Simpson Strait. Despite the fact that it occupies a significant area - 13,111 km², the island does not have mountain peaks or significant hills. The highest point rises above sea level by only 137 m. However, the history of this island, boring in terms of landscape, is full of real dramatic events. It was here in 1848 that the superbly equipped and prepared British Arctic expedition led by Sir John Franklin ended in unprecedented tragedy. All 129 participants were killed, and both expedition ships - Her Majesty's ships Erebus and Terror - disappeared without a trace, as well as all written reports of the expedition.

First searches

At first there was no reason to worry. And only towards the end of 1847 did the London Admiralty begin to worry about the fate of Franklin and his crew. The question of the need to provide assistance to the expedition was first raised in the House of Commons in March 1848.

The Admiralty sent three new expeditions to help Sir John Franklin. Captain Henry Kellett received instructions to arrive at the Bering Strait, where, according to calculations, Franklin was supposed to sail, freed from the Arctic ice. The second expedition, under the command of Sir James Clark Ross, was sent to Lancaster Sound, where Franklin began his journey. And a land expedition led by Dr. John Ray and Sir John Richardson went to the ocean down the Mackenzie River. However, all three rescue expeditions failed to find traces of the missing people. It became obvious that something had gone wrong with Franklin's expedition.

On April 4, 1850, the Toronto Globe advertised a reward of £20,000 "from Her Majesty's Government to any crew of any country who can render effective assistance to the crews of the ships under the command of Sir John Franklin." A further £10,000 was offered to anyone who could rescue any of the crew or provide information leading to their rescue. Finally, another £10,000 was promised to anyone who confirmed the death of the expedition. Until the fall of 1850, a whole flotilla combed the waters of the Arctic in search of traces of Franklin's missing people.

On August 23, 1850, Captain Erasmus Ommanney and the officers of the search ship Assistance found traces of the Franklin expedition at Cape Riley, on the southwestern coast of Devon Island. But everything found spoke only of a short stop, perhaps to conduct geomagnetic surveys.

Among the search ships of the flotilla that arrived at the site was the Lady Franklin, commanded by Captain William Penney. On August 27, a breathless sailor deafened Penny with a cry: “Graves, Captain Penny! Graves! Franklin's Wintering!" Dates carved on the gravestones indicated that the doomed expedition spent the winter of 1845-1846 sheltered in a small cove on the eastern side of Beechey Island. But this was only the beginning of a long series of discoveries. On an island blown by all the winds, members of search expeditions for short days During the passing summer, other artifacts were also found: the remains of a tent camp, a weapons forge, a large warehouse, a locksmith's workshop and several other smaller ones. A small vegetable garden was also found among the pebbles.

The vegetable garden implied by its presence the purpose of either staying or returning: the one who grew it hoped for the future. This discovery on Beechey Island inspired the lines of Charles Dickens: Then, Linger on the trail of the heroes who planted a garden in the desert, conquered Parry and killed Franklin.

Death from accident or illness during research voyages occurred quite often. And yet, three deaths in the first winter was already too much. As a result of constant discussions, the searchers came to the conclusion that the cause of death most likely lay in problems with food supplies. The most that the researchers could find on Beechey Island was an account of the first year of the expedition away from the rest of the world. Nobody knew where to look next.

Evidence from the Inuit

On October 28, 1854, word reached the British that the veil covering the fate of Sir John Franklin had been torn away. In a letter to the Secretary of the Admiralty, John Ray of the Hudson's Bay Company outlined his findings: “...during my journey through the ice and snow this spring with the intention of completing the survey of the western shore of the Boothia Peninsula, I met the Inuit (Canadian Eskimos - Ed.) at Pelly Bay. , from whom I learned that the “white people” (Kabluns) had gone in search of food in westward... Subsequently, a more detailed study of the evidence and the redeemed items allowed us to draw a conclusion that leaves no doubt - some (if not all) of the then survivors of Sir John Franklin’s long-lost group died. Their deaths were so terrible that we cannot imagine them.”

Using gestures, the Eskimo told Ray that "they found eight or ten books where the dead bodies were, and that there were stamps on the books, but they did not say whether the text was printed or handwritten." Ray asked what they did with these books? After all, perhaps these were in-flight magazines. The Eskimo replied that they gave them to their children, "who tore them while playing." Ray brought with him items that he was able to buy from local residents, including monogrammed silver forks and spoons, one of which bore Crozier's initials, and Sir John Franklin's Hanoverian Order of Merit.

Lady Franklin continues her search for her husband

Lady Franklin, née Jane Griffin, refused to give up hope that her husband and his crew would be found safely. Her determination, coupled with her willingness to spend much of her fortune on outfitting expeditions, not only haunted Victorian society, but also greatly inspired her contemporaries. Using funds raised by the society, Lady Franklin purchased the steam yacht Fox. By August 1858, the Fox reached Beachy Island, Franklin's first wintering place. On April 20, 1859, expedition leader McClintock met two Eskimo families. He exchanged Franklin's things with them and, upon questioning, learned that they had seen two ships. One sank in deep water, the second crashed on coastal hummocks. They said that the white people went to the big river with a boat or boats, and the next winter they found their bones. McClintock later met a group of 30-40 Eskimos who lived in a village on King William Island. From them he purchased a silver plate with the monograms and initials of Franklin, Crozier and two other officers. A woman from a local village said that “many white men were abandoned on the way to the big river. Some were buried and some weren't." McClintock's party reached the mainland and continued south to Montreal Island, where they found several more items, including part of a meat tin, two pieces of an iron hoop and several pieces of metal. After this, the sleigh party returned to King William Island. Shortly after midnight on May 24, 1859, on a sandy ridge near the mouth of the Peffer River on the southern shore of the island, they came across a human skeleton, on which the remains of the uniform of the steward of the ship of the missing expedition were still preserved.

Locked in ice since September 1846, both Franklin ships were to be freed during the short summer of 1847 and continue on to the western gate of the Bering Strait Passage. Instead, they continued to stand, and the crew had to spend a second winter on King William Island. For Franklin's expedition, this was the final verdict. Mortality rates, especially among officers, exceeded all possible limits. Having abandoned their ships on April 22, 1848, the 105 surviving officers and sailors set up camp on the northwestern shore of the island, preparing to march south to the mouth of the Baka River. They then faced a difficult climb to the remote Hudson's Bay Company base at Fort Resolution, 1,250 miles (2,210 km) away.

Leaving camp on April 26, Franklin's expedition moved along the southern coast of King William Island. Everyone walked in one bunch, with difficulty dragging behind them the boats taken from the ships and installed on huge sleighs. People were already suffering from rapidly deteriorating health, and heavy physical exertion made them feel even worse. As it turned out, McClintock found a field hospital organized by Franklin's team just 80 miles after the start of their journey. McClintock suspected that they had developed scurvy. He was prompted to this conclusion by the fact that at that time Franklin’s people still had canned food. The Eskimos later said that they tried to eat the contents of the cans “and this made many very sick, and some simply died.” As for Franklin's people, most of them remained forever on the western and southern coasts of King William Island.

Franklin's expedition had no equal in its equipment. She had at her disposal all the achievements of progress that science and industry could provide at that time. And one of them led to the death of the expedition.

The picture of dying sailors, barely dragging their feet, pulling behind them laden sleighs with the wreckage of Victorian England, is an enduring image of Franklin's tragic expedition. Putting the evidence together, McClintock concluded in 1881 that the surviving members of the Franklin expedition “...were stricken with scurvy long before landing on shore. The change from a cramped lower deck and a sedentary lifestyle to extreme exposure to polar frosts, combined with the intense labor of dragging a sleigh, can almost immediately cause a peak in scurvy, even from the initial stage. A hospital tent only 80 miles (130 km) from where they started their trek, I think, proves this conclusion."

The successful voyage brought honor and glory to McClintock and Hobson, as well as the comfort of Lady Franklin. She now knew the exact date of her husband's death and that he had died on board the ship long before the final, disgusting events on King William Island, which saved his reputation. He died in the last steps towards his goal - the discovery of the Northwest Passage. He has a right—at least a moral right—to be considered a pioneer.

Thus, McClintock's studies of King William Island helped to recreate the complete picture last days expeditions. The remaining 30 or 40 survivors of Franklin's expedition apparently abandoned the terrible island near the mouth of the Peffer River and crossed Simpson Sound in a last, forlorn hope of reaching an area called Starvation Bay.
Despite the fact that it was not possible to find the logbooks and the ships themselves, the researchers studied the Arctic widely enough to unravel the main mysteries of the disappearance of the Franklin expedition. Her route was established, the reason for leaving the ships "Erebus" and "Terror", and the evidence of the Eskimos became clear.

Unexpected version of the causes of death

More than a century later, Owen Beatty, an associate professor of anthropology at the University of Alberta, prepared for the Arctic journey by carefully studying sites associated with the expedition identified by 19th-century explorers, and set off on June 25, 1981. In the first year of exploration, the expedition discovered the remains of only one of the 105 officers and sailors who left Erebus and Terror, as well as the bones of a local resident. Thin sections of bone tissue samples collected from the skeletons were sent to the laboratory for trace element analysis.

The analysis revealed that the levels of lead found in the bones of the Franklin group were abnormally high. The difference in performance between the Eskimo skeletons and the British sailor was striking. From 22 to 36 mcg/g in local residents and 228 mcg/g in Europeans. These results meant that if Franklin's crew had had this level of lead intake throughout the expedition, it was likely that it could have caused poisoning, the effects of which have been well studied.

Exposure to lead causes a number of physical and neurological problems, which can occur individually or in any combination, depending on the individual and the degree of poisoning. Anorexia, weakness, fatigue, irritability, stupor, paranoia, abdominal pain and anemia are just a few of the possible symptoms. Lead caused not only physical illness, but also mental disorders. Poisoning may cause central and peripheral disturbances nervous system, cause neurotic and unstable behavior, paralysis of the limbs. Bitte suggested that, to a large extent, the death of the expedition was due to impaired brain activity among the team members. With the constant and prolonged stress of long-term stays in the Arctic, even minor exposure to low levels of lead could have a serious impact on people's ability to make good decisions. Of course, this was not the only reason for the death of the sailors. A deadly combination of several factors likely played a role here.

The unexpected discovery of abnormally high levels of lead in bone tissue raised another question: what could have been the source of the poisoning? Suspicions immediately fell on the relatively new technology of storing food in tin cans, which were abundant in Franklin's supplies.

This has its own sad irony. In those days, Franklin's expedition had no equal in its equipment. She had at her disposal all the achievements of progress that science and industry could provide at that time. And one of them led to the death of the expedition. No one could have known that a time bomb was already ticking in the canned goods stored in the holds of the ships, which not only deprived Franklin of his triumph, but also claimed the lives of 129 daredevils. When the team members lost hope for the successful completion of the expedition, the doctors of Erebus and Terror were powerless to help them. At that time, they didn’t even realize that canned food sealed with lead could be harmful to health.

However, the problem was that the skeletal remains alone could not provide sufficient evidence to draw far-reaching conclusions. Although lead levels were unusually high, it is impossible to determine from the bones whether this is the result of relatively recent exposure or whether the toxin had accumulated over a lifetime. To prove his theory, Beachy obtained permission to exhume three sailors who were buried during their first wintering. He hoped that the same extreme cold that contributed to the death of the Franklin expedition would now help them uncover its secret. And I was not mistaken - the bodies looked as if they had been buried yesterday.

“Despite the universal desire for knowledge, our hearts cannot help but shudder with sorrow at the thought of the sacrifices Franklin and his men had to make in the name of science. There is something terrible, inexorable and inhuman in these studies, for which one must pay such a high price... And when we hear about the martyrs of science who suffered in the Arctic ice or in the sands of the desert, we begin to think about science itself... which, guided by abstract and impersonal principles, with good intentions and in the name of high goals, is scattered with strangers human lives“- these thoughts, expressed even before McClintock’s terrible discoveries, could be a response to Beatty’s discoveries. But such conclusions are based only on the errors of science and technology, denying their successes.

Franklin was followed by others. They also used the achievements of progress, and they managed not only to pass the Northwest Passage, but also to conquer the last, most inaccessible section of the Earth.

The world around us is full of mysteries, to unravel which people have more than once left their homes and gone on dangerous journeys. However, not all expeditions were destined to end successfully. Many of them were lost from sight, and for many years their fate remained a mystery. And the reasons for the disappearance of others still cause a lot of controversy and remain unknown.

Journey to the Pole aeronauts led by Salomon Andre - one of the most risky undertakings in human history. Three Swedish scientists, Salomon Andre, Nils Strindberg and Knut Fraenkel, set out to achieve North Pole on hot air balloon. The organizers of the expedition believed that by trying to do this by sea and ice, travelers were exposing themselves to enormous risks, which would exclude travel by air. However, a specially designed balloon under the proud name “Eagle” did not bring them luck. Failed mechanisms turned it into an uncontrollable object, left to the will of the wind. Having landed on the ice, the travelers unsuccessfully tried to get to the mainland and finally decided to spend the winter in the ice. Needing food, they hunted seals and walruses. They had a tent, a primus stove and matches... but they all died under very mysterious circumstances. Among the many versions of their death, the most plausible are death from cold in their sleep, trichinosis and carbon monoxide poisoning. The bodies of members of the missing expedition were discovered in 1930.

Kara expedition Vladimir Rusanov - a state commission, the purpose of which was the exploration of coal reserves in Spitsbergen. Obtaining correct data was important to secure Russia’s right to use natural resources. Geologist Vladimir Rusanov was appointed head of the expedition. In 1912, the team went on a hike on the ship “Hercules”. According to a previously developed plan, Rusanov's expedition was supposed to go to the Pacific Ocean from the Atlantic, following the Northern Sea Route. However, the team disappeared without a trace. Neither the ship nor any of its 11 crew members have been discovered to date. Traces of the expedition were discovered in the Kara Sea area: a fireplace, a fragment of a manuscript and a pillar with the name of the ship and the date 1913 carved on it. In addition, the belongings of the expedition members were found on the island of Popova-Chukhchina. The bodies of the expedition members themselves or definitive information about their fate were never found.

Franklin's Arctic Expedition- an event whose leadership was entrusted to an experienced researcher who experienced the hardships of three Arctic campaigns. John Franklin's goal this time was to explore the Northwest Passage. But his expedition disappeared. The ships Erebus and Terror were last seen in 1845 in the Baffin Sea area. They were waiting suitable conditions to cross Lancaster Channel. Moored to the ice, they were met by the whaling ship's captain, Robert Martin. Since then, no one has seen them, and only 150 years later it was possible to find out what happened to the expedition. Its participants became victims of ice that buried the ships. Trying to get to the Canadian coast, they all died along the way.

Expeditions lost in search Golden City of Paititi in the Amazon - something that never ceases to terrify local residents and give rise to rumors among visitors. It is here, in the depths of the Amazonian Selva, that according to legend the legendary Golden City is located. There were three expeditions that set out to discover it. And they all disappeared into the depths of the jungle. No traces of them could be found. In 1925, the expedition of the British topographer and military man Percy Harrison Forseth disappeared here. In 1972, a Franco-British team led by Bob Nichols. And finally, in 1997, the expedition of Lars Hawkshall, a Norwegian anthropologist, perished in the territory of wild forests. All of them could have become victims of predators, a harsh climate, or, according to legend, guarding the secret of the Indians from the Huachipairi tribe.

The missing group of Dyatlov- a modern legend that still haunts inquisitive minds. Why did a group of tourists from the Ural Polytechnic Institute die in 1959? There is still no answer. Traces of radiation on their clothes, the eerie details of their escape from a tent cut from the inside, the bare feet of the participants in the hike and their strange dying poses - all this gives rise to a lot of assumptions. The strange frame left on the tourists’ cameras also haunts the researchers. One of the most plausible versions says that the expedition members became victims of military trials that they should not and could not have known about. Another version says that they became victims of aliens. And some argue that tourists could become victims of strange rituals of local northern tribes. Foreign intelligence officers were even blamed for the death of the Dyatlov group. But nothing could be proven 100%.

The Lost Expedition of St. Anne- a mystery covered in darkness. It all started as the desire of the 20-year-old daughter of hydrographer Zhdanko to ride a schooner. And it ended with the ship frozen in the ice. After a quarrel with captain Brusilov, navigator Valeryan Albanov and part of the crew left the ship. Only two reached the mainland. What happened to Brusilov’s ship is unknown.

La Perouse's missing ships- one of the most famous tragedies that occurred at sea and in the ocean. "Boussol" and "Astrolabe" - these were the names of the ships on which Jean La Perouse carried out the assignment of King Louis XVI to explore all those lands that Captain Cook could not discover. For some time, the carefully planned trip around the world went well. The travelers even visited Russia. But since January 1778 there has been no news of them. The remains of the crew members' belongings were found on Vanikoro Island. Presumably the ships or one of them hit the reefs. The details of how the Europeans ended their lives are unknown. Some even suggest that, due to the tragic events French Revolution, they could well have stayed to live on the island among the local population.

129 dead in the polar desert: the mystery of the death of the Franklin expedition

They were last seen in August 1845. Two British ships with the eerie names Erebus (“Gloom”) and Terror (“Horror”) with 129 sailors on board were waiting in the Baffin Sea near the coast of Greenland for suitable weather to sail further into the uncharted waters of the Canadian Arctic archipelago. Equipped with the latest science and technology of the time, the expedition led by Sir John Franklin was supposed to put an end to the search for the treasured Northwest Passage, but disappeared in the merciless polar ice, and the mystery of her death has haunted generations of adventurers ever since. Only in 2014, Canadian scientists discovered the sunken Erebus, and more recently, on September 3, after 170 years of searching, the Terror was found. The tragedy of Franklin's missing expedition - in the review of Onliner.by.

The discovery of America, despite the monumentality of this event for the history of mankind, did not remove from the agenda another task that was extremely urgent at that time - finding a new route to India. The phenomenal riches of the new part of the world had not yet become known to Europeans, and both Americas were still perceived as an annoying obstacle blocking the path to Asia. In 1522, Ferdinand Magellan's expedition completed the first circumnavigation of the world, bypassing the South American continent. The issue of the so-called Northwest Passage, a promising sea route along the northern coast, remained on the agenda. North America.

The first attempt to discover it was made by the British back in 1497, but ultimately the search lasted for four centuries. The best navigators of their time tried to cope with the task - from Henry Hudson to James Cook. But on the way, the heroes were faced with the impassable ice of the Arctic, the intricate labyrinth of straits and bays of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago and extreme weather, which left little chance of success, but regularly took the highest price for their conquest - human lives.

Possible options for the Northwest Passage

Research in the Canadian Arctic intensified in the 19th century, and, despite all the objective difficulties, by the middle of the century the size white spot on geographical maps North America was reduced to a minimum area less than the territory of modern Belarus. It seemed to the British Admiralty that all that remained was to take the last but decisive step, a hundred miles long, and it was entrusted to John Franklin, an experienced, albeit rather elderly 59-year-old polar explorer who had already completed three large-scale Arctic expeditions.

John Franklin

There were no problems with financing. For the voyage, the British Royal Navy provided two ships that had already been on Arctic (and Antarctic) voyages. Almost one hundred tons of food (flour, biscuits, corned beef, canned vegetables and meat) were loaded onto the Erebus, which became the flagship, and the Terror. They didn’t forget about the remedy against scurvy, this scourge of all seafarers: four tons lemon juice should have helped deal with it. The hulls of sailboats for navigation in difficult ice conditions were strengthened metal sheets, on them as additional power plants mounted removed from locomotives steam engines. Heating system and a water distillation system completed the ships' advanced technical equipment at that time. Everything was ready for a multi-year journey, the goal of which was the long-awaited Northwest Passage.

Franklin's expedition set sail on May 19, 1845. Having made a stop in Greenland's Disko Bay, where five guilty sailors left the Erebus and the Terror (thus saving their lives), the ships with 129 people on board set off further into the depths of the Northern Arctic Ocean. In August the whalers last time They were seen in the Baffin Sea, after which traces of the sailboats and their inhabitants were lost for almost a decade.

The Admiralty sounded the alarm only two years later. On the one hand, it was clear that the conquest of the Northwest Passage would require a winter (and, most likely, more than one), on the other, the lack of any news began to be alarming. In 1848, an expedition of the authoritative polar explorer James Ross, who himself sailed on the Erebus and the Terror, set out in search of Franklin and his squad. This event ended in complete failure, but Ross gained many followers, which was greatly facilitated by the reward of £20 thousand announced by the British government - a significant amount at that time.

In August 1850, five years after Franklin's ships were last seen, some trace of them was finally discovered. On the small island of Beechey off Devon, the largest uninhabited island on the planet, the team of Captain Horace Austin discovered traces of wintering, and nearby - three graves of sailors from Franklin's crew.

In the lifeless rocky landscape of an island forgotten by God and people, fireman John Torrington, sailor John Hartnell and Marine private William Brain, who died in January - April 1846, found their last refuge. It became clear that they were victims of the expedition’s first winter, which the Erebus and the Terror, trapped by ice, spent near Beachy Island.

In 1854, while exploring the Boothia Peninsula, explorer John Ray's party collected a number of stories from local Inuit. The Aborigines unanimously claimed that they saw a group of several dozen “white people” who died of starvation at the mouth of the large local river Buck. Moreover, the aliens, judging by the evidence of the Eskimos, ate the corpses of their comrades before dying. The alleged cannibalism among the crew of the Erebus and the Terror deeply outraged their colleagues back in Britain and Franklin's widow. The public completely rejected the insinuations that suggested that a Royal Navy sailor could stoop to eating his own kind.

In addition to oral evidence, Ray also collected material evidence of the death of the expedition, buying cutlery from the Erebus that they found from the Inuit. This was enough for Franklin and company to be declared dead, and their search officially ended. Nevertheless, the story of those doomed in the polar desert did not end there.

Four years later, another search party, financed this time personally by Franklin’s widow, made the long-awaited discovery while exploring the large King William Island, located between the Boothia Peninsula and the mouth of the Buck River. Among polar expeditions, especially when something went wrong, it was customary, just in case, to leave messages for potential rescuers under special stone pyramids - houris. It was just such a document that was discovered on King William, and its contents shed light on the fate of the travelers.

The message, in fact, was two notes written at different times. The first was written after the second winter:

"May 28, 1847. Her Majesty's ships Erebus and Terror spent the winter in the ice at 70°5′ N. w. and 98°23′W. The winter of 1846-1847 was spent near Beachy Island at 74°43′28″ N. w. and 91°39′15″ W. etc., having previously ascended the Wellington Channel to 77° north latitude and returned along west side Cornwallis Islands. The expedition is commanded by Sir John Franklin. Everything is fine. A party of two officers and six sailors left the ship on Monday, May 24, 1847."

After reading this text, several questions remained. Firstly, it is obvious that the situation was difficult to characterize as “everything is in order.” Among the crew members there were already the first victims, and as many as eight people managed to abandon their ships and comrades, heading towards death. In addition, the authors of the message, for some unknown reason, got confused about the dates. Wintering off Beachy Island happened a year earlier. In the summer of 1846, the freed ships drifted among the islands of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago, eventually descending south to King William Island, where they spent the winter of 1846-1847, and in the spring they described their adventures in the above document.

A second note was written a year later in the margins of the first:

"April 25, 1848. Her Majesty's ships "Erebus" and "Terror" were abandoned on April 22, 5 leagues north-north-west of this place, having been covered with ice since September 12, 1846. Officers and a crew of 105 men under the command of Captain F. R. M. Crozier camped here, at 69 ° 37′42″ N. w. and 98°41′ W. d.

Sir John Franklin died on June 11, 1847, the total losses of the expedition to date are 9 officers and 15 sailors.

James FitzJames, Captain of Her Majesty's Ship Erebus, F. R. M. Crozier, Captain and Chief Officer. Tomorrow we’ll go to the fishing river Bak.”

In this text the correct chronology is restored. So, King William's Erebus and Terror ended up spending two whole winters: the summer of 1847 turned out to be too short and cold, the ice around the ships never had time to melt. By the spring of 1848, 24 of the 129 crew members had died, including the head of the expedition, John Franklin. The surviving sailors, feeling powerless in front of the polar semi-desert that surrounded them and finding themselves under the threat of hunger and imminent death, went on a desperate adventure. They decided to try to get to Mainland. The closest Hudson's Bay Company base at Fort Resolution was 2,210 kilometers to the south.

The doomed polar explorers built improvised sleighs from boats, which they were forced to drag themselves. Exhausted by three winters, suffering from illness, extreme weather, and hunger, they dragged these sleighs with their last strength, periodically losing their comrades. One of the boats was found in 1854. In addition to two skeletons, they found books, soap, sewing supplies, sailor gloves, guns and knives, two rolls of sheet lead, boots and silk scarves - things both necessary and absolutely unnecessary on the expedition undertaken.

The skeletal remains of sailors were periodically found over the next decades. Apparently, most of the crew of the Erebus died on King William. The survivors managed to reach the desired mouth of the Buck River, where the Eskimos saw them. Most likely, at this stage they ran out of provisions, which led to cannibalism: traces of it were recorded on human bones discovered later.

In the mid-1980s, Canadian scientists decided to exhume the bodies of three sailors who died on Beachy Island during their first winter in 1846. First, the grave of John Torrington was opened, and photographs of his mummy, perfectly preserved for 140 years in permafrost, spread throughout the world. A post-mortem examination of the remains showed that the unfortunate fireman, who died on January 1, 1846, suffered from exhaustion and pneumonia. In addition, elevated levels of lead were found in his tissues. Immediately, theories arose that the cause of death of Torrington (and with him the rest of Franklin's team) could be lead poisoning. Tin cans, found at their sites, were sealed hastily, using lead solder that came into direct contact with the food. High content there was lead in fresh water, which was provided by distillation systems installed on ships.

Lead poisoning by itself could not kill the sailors. However, it appears to have significantly weakened the immunity of the crew members, after which they became easy victims of weather, hunger, scurvy and other diseases. Torrington and his companion William Brain, whose bodies survive to this day, died of pneumonia. The third of those buried on Beechey Island, sailor Hartnell, died of tuberculosis. Most likely, a similar fate awaited the rest of their colleagues.