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Peanuts
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Peanuts
Genetics, Processing, and Utilization
AOCS Monograph Series on Oilseeds

Editors
H. Thomas Stalker
Crop Science Department
North Carolina State University
Raleigh, NC, USA

Richard F. Wilson
The Peanut Foundation
Oilseeds & Bioscience Consulting
Raleigh, NC, USA

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Copyright © 2016 AOCS Press. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Published in cooperation with The American Oil Chemists’ Society www.aocs.org

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This book and the individual contributions contained in it are protected under copyright by the
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Notices
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broaden our understanding, changes in research methods, professional practices, or medical treatment
may become necessary.

Practitioners and researchers may always rely on their own experience and knowledge in evaluating
and using any information, methods, compounds, or experiments described herein. In using such
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To the fullest extent of the law, neither the Publisher nor the authors, contributors, or editors, assume
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The editors are grateful to the American Peanut Research & Education Society and AOCS for
their joint presentation of Peanuts: Genetics, Processing and Utilization. The continued work of
these societies to foster research development and practical translation of technology will catalyze
advances in peanut production that provide an effective strategic option in the quest for sustainable
global food security.

APRES
PURPOSE
The purpose of this Society is to instruct and educate the public on the properties, production,
and use of the peanut through the organization and promotion of public discussion groups,
forums, lectures, and other programs or presentations to the interested public and to promote
scientific research on the properties, production, and use of the peanut by providing, forums,
treatises, magazines, and other forms of educational material for the publication of scientific
information and research papers on the peanut and the dissemination of such information to
the interested public.

HISTORY
The need for a national peanut research organization was recognized in 1957 and the Peanut
Improvement Working Group (PIWG) was organized. The original membership consisted of
­representatives from USDA, Land Grant Universities, and the peanut industry. This small group
evolved into an organization representing the diverse interests of the peanut industry and in 1968 the
PIWG was dissolved and the American Peanut Research and Education Association was founded.
In 1979, the organization’s name was changed to the American Peanut Research and Education
Society (APRES). APRES now has more than 500 individual, sustaining, organizational, student,
and institutional (library) members.

GOALS
The goal of APRES is to provide consumers with wholesome peanuts and peanut products at
reasonable prices. To achieve this goal, a comprehensive and effective research and educational
program designed to improve the inherent qualities of peanuts is essential. Research emphasis must
include the continual development of improved varieties, production, harvesting, curing, storing and
processing methodology, which promotes peanut quality. Educational emphasis must include the
development of an informational program, which transmits current developments to research and
extension personnel at state Universities, in USDA, in private industry and to all other interested
people who produce, sell or consume peanuts and/or peanut products.

Specific Goals:

• To exchange information on current research and extension programs at the annual meeting;
• To participate in cooperative program planning among research, extension, and industry ­personnel;
• To periodically review research and extension programs, with appropriate ­recommendations for
revision and redirection;
• To transmit published information to an international audience via APRES publications

APRES
2360 Rainwater Road
UGA/NESPAL Building
Tifton, GA 31793
Phone: (229) 329-2949
Website: www.apresinc.com
Journal website: www.peanutscience.com
This page intentionally left blank

     
Contents

List of Contributors xiii

Prefacexvii

1. Origin and Early History of the Peanut

Ray O. Hammons, Danielle Herman and H. Thomas Stalker
Overview 1
Discussion 1
Chronological History 1
Archaeological Evidence 13
Geographical Origin 14
Linguistic Affinities 17
Industrial Developments 18
Economic Developments 20
Acknowledgments 22
References 22

2. Biology, Speciation, and Utilization of Peanut Species

H. Thomas Stalker, Shyamalrau P. Tallury, Guillermo R. Seijo
and Soraya C. Leal-Bertioli
Overview 27
Discussion 28
Vegetative Growth 28
Reproductive Growth 29
Evolution of Arachis32
Maintenance of Genetic Resources 45
Desirable Traits in Arachis Species for Crop Improvement 48
Interspecific Hybridization 49
Introgressing Genes from Arachis Species to A. hypogaea50
Conclusions 56
References 56

3. Global Resources of Genetic Diversity in Peanut

Noelle A. Barkley, Hari D. Upadhyaya, Boshou Liao
and C. Corley Holbrook
Overview 67
Discussion 68
Origin of the Genus Arachis68
Germplasm Collections and Preservation 69
vii
viii Contents

Challenges with Ex Situ Genebanks 77

Germplasm Characterization and Evaluation 80
Core Collections 89
Mini Core Collections 91
Trait Discovery by Mining Core or Mini Core Collections 92
Germplasm Enhancement and Utilization 96
Germplasm Utilization and Impact of Germplasm 99
Conclusions 100
Acknowledgments 101
References 101

4. Recent Advances in Peanut Breeding and Genetics

C. Corley Holbrook, Mark D. Burow, Charles Y. Chen, Manish K. Pandey,
Linfeng Liu, Jennifer C. Chagoya, Ye Chu and Peggy Ozias-Akins
Overview 111
Discussion 111
Development and Use of Genetic Markers 111
Aflatoxin Contamination 114
Breeding for Tolerance to Drought Stress 116
High Oleic Peanut 126
Use of Wild Species 127
Genetic Enhancement of Peanut in India 128
Genetic Enhancement of Peanut in China 130
Conclusions 134
References 134

5. The Peanut Genome: The History of the Consortium

and the Structure of the Genome of Cultivated Peanut
and Its Diploid Ancestors
David J. Bertioli, Soraya C. Leal-Bertioli and H. Thomas Stalker
Introduction 147
Discussion 148
Brief History of Peanut Genomics 148
Cultivated Peanut and Its Wild Relatives 150
Conclusions 156
References 157

6. Annotation of Trait Loci on Integrated Genetic Maps

of Arachis Species
Baozhu Guo, Pawan Khera, Hui Wang, Ze Peng, Harikishan Sudini,
Xingjun Wang, Moses Osiru, Jing Chen, Vincent Vadez, Mei Yuan,
Chuan T. Wang, Xinyou Zhang, Farid Waliyar, Jianping Wang and
Rajeev K. Varshney
Introduction 163
Genetic Marker Development 164
SSR Development in Arachis165
 Contents ix

SNP Development in Arachis166

Genetic Linkage Maps for Diploid and Tetraploid
Peanuts 167
Genetic Maps with Early Generation Markers 167
Genetic Maps with SSR Markers 171
Genetic Maps with SNP Markers 172
Consensus Maps 173
Trait Mapping Using Family-Based Mapping
Populations 173
Biotic Stress 174
Abiotic Tolerance 181
Oil and Nutritional Quality 181
Agronomic Traits 182
Morphological Traits 183
Trait Mapping Using Germplasm Sets 183
Advanced-Backcross QTL Mapping 184
High Resolution Genetic and Trait Mapping 185
MAGIC185
NAM186
Emerging Trait Mapping Strategies 187
MutMap188
QTL-seq188
Genetic Mapping, QTLs, and Molecular Breeding
in China 189
Issues and Traits, Genetics, and Genomics in West and Central
Africa (WCA) 192
Challenges and Opportunities for Peanut Production
in WCA 192
Breeding and Genetics in WCA 193
Peanut Improvement for Drought Adaptation in WCA 194
Conclusions 196
References 196

7. Application of Genomic, Transcriptomic, and

Metabolomic Technologies in Arachis Species
Ye Chu, Josh Clevenger, Ran Hovav, Jianping Wang,
Brian Scheffler, Scott A. Jackson and Peggy Ozias-Akins
Overview 209
Discussion 210
Breeding Strategies in the Genomics Era 210
Gene Discovery 211
Functional Characterization of Identified Genes 218
Marker Types and Adoption in Breeding 220
Metabolomics228
Conclusions 230
Acknowledgments 231
References 231
x Contents

8. PeanutBase and Other Bioinformatic Resources for Peanut

Sudhansu Dash, Ethalinda K.S. Cannon, Scott R. Kalberer,
Andrew D. Farmer and Steven B. Cannon
Overview 241
Discussion 241
The Genomes of Peanut and Several Close Relatives 241
Objectives of PeanutBase 242
Site Architecture and Technology 243
Maps, Markers, and QTLs 244
Data Collection and Standardization to Enable Integration
across Studies and Species 244
Accessing and Using the Genome Assemblies and Genes 246
Peanut Gene Models 246
Gene Expression Data 249
Breeder Support 249
Conclusions 250
Acknowledgments 251
References 251

9. Overview of the Peanut Industry Supply Chain

Patrick Archer
Overview 253
Discussion 254
Industry Background and History 254
The American Peanut Council 255
Peanut Growing Areas in the United States 257
Peanut Market Types 257
Impact of US Legislation on Peanut Production 258
US Peanut Industry Supply Chain 260
Conclusions 265
References 265

10. An Overview of World Peanut Markets

Stanley M. Fletcher and Zhaolin Shi
Overview 267
World Peanut Production 267
Production by Regions and Major Countries 267
Area Harvested and Yield 272
World Peanut Utilization 277
Utilization by Regions 277
Utilization by Major Countries 281
World Trade in Peanuts 281
The United States Trade in Market Share 285
Conclusions 285
References 287
 Contents xi

11. Peanut Composition, Flavor and Nutrition

Jack P. Davis and Lisa L. Dean
Overview 289
Discussion 290
Composition290
Microstructure314
Flavor and Nutritional Quality 316
Roasting316
Nutritional Considerations 330
Conclusions 332
References 332

12. Mycotoxins and Product Safety

Gary A. Payne
Overview 347
Discussion 348
Toxicity and Health Concerns of Aflatoxin Exposure 348
Ecology and Pathogencity of Aspergillus flavus and Aspergillus
parasiticus349
Control Strategies 353
Future Concerns and Trends 355
Conclusions 356
References 357

13. New Therapeutic Strategies for Peanut-Related Allergy

Michael H. Land and A. Wesley Burks
Overview 363
Discussion 364
Understanding Food Allergy 364
A History and Epidemiology of Food Allergy 365
The Management of Food Allergy 366
Understanding Medical Studies for the Nonmedical Reader 367
Subcutaneous Immunotherapy 368
Oral Immunotherapy for Food Allergy 369
Future Approaches 374
Conclusions 375
References 376

14. Raw Peanut Processing

Darlene Cowart, Shane Powell, Mason Locke, Rhonda Starling
and John Takash
Overview 381
Discussion 381
The Modern Peanut Shelling Industry 381
Farmer Stock Procurement and Storage 383
xii Contents

In-Shell Peanuts 387

Food Safety and Quality in the Shelling Industry 388
Global Food Safety Initiative Certification 392
Statistical Process Control 393
Analytical Testing 394
Safe Shelled Stock Storage and Transportation 395
Transportation for Food Safety and Quality of Raw Peanuts 397
Trends in Food Safety and Quality for the Peanut Shelling Industry 398
Conclusions 400
References 402

15. Processing and Food Uses of Peanut Oil and Protein

Gary R. List
Overview 405
Discussion 406
Composition and Properties of Peanut Oil 406
Grading Standards for Peanuts 410
Trading Rules and Analysis of Peanuts and Peanut Products 411
Factors Involved in Peanut Oil Quality 412
Peanut Oil Consumption Patterns in Edible Products 419
Peanut Proteins: Flours, Grits, Concentrates, and Isolates 422
Conclusions 424
References 424

16. Manufacturing Foods with Peanut Ingredients

Mark Kline
Overview 429
Food Trends with Peanut Ingredients 430
Consumer Expectations and How Advancements in Peanut
Research Can Help Food Processors Fulfill Consumer Needs 432
Conclusions 442
References 442

17. The Role of Peanuts in Global Food Security

Howard Valentine
Overview 447
Discussion 447
Current Situation 447
The Impact of Research on Protein Availability 454
Plumpy’Nut459
Conclusions 460
References 460

Index463
List of Contributors

Patrick Archer American Peanut Council, Alexandria, VA, USA

Noelle A. Barkley USDA ARS Plant Genetic Resources Conservation Unit (PGRCU),
Griffin, GA, USA
David J. Bertioli University of Brasília, Institute of Biological Sciences, Brasília,
Brazil; Center for Applied Genetic Technologies, University of Georgia, Athens,
GA, USA
A. Wesley Burks Department of Pediatrics, University of North Carolina School of
Medicine, Chapel Hill, NC, USA
Mark D. Burow Texas A&M AgriLife Research, and Department of Plant and Soil
Science, Texas Tech University, Lubbock, TX, USA
Ethalinda K.S. Cannon Department of Computer Science, Iowa State University,
Ames, IA, USA
Steven B. Cannon USDA-ARS Corn Insects and Crop Genetics Research Unit, Crop
Genome Informatics Lab, Iowa State University, Ames, IA, USA
Jennifer C. Chagoya Texas A&M AgriLife Research, and Department of Plant and
Soil Science, Texas Tech University, Lubbock, TX, USA
Charles Y. Chen Department of Crop, Soil and Environmental Sciences, Auburn
University, Auburn, AL, USA
Jing Chen Shandong Peanut Research Institute, Qingdao, China
Ye Chu Horticulture Department, University of Georgia Tifton Campus, Tifton, GA,
USA; Institute of Plant Breeding, Genetics & Genomics, University of Georgia,
Tifton, GA, USA
Josh Clevenger Institute of Plant Breeding, Genetics & Genomics, University of Georgia,
Tifton, GA, USA
Darlene Cowart Birdsong Peanuts, Suffolk, VA, USA
Sudhansu Dash National Center for Genome Resources, Santa Fe, NM, USA
Jack P. Davis JLA International, Albany, GA, USA, a subsidiary of IEH Laboratories,
Lake Forest Park, WA, USA; Department of Food, Bioprocessing & Nutrition
Sciences, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, USA
Lisa L. Dean United States Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service,
Market Quality & Handling Research Unit, Raleigh, NC, USA
Andrew D. Farmer National Center for Genome Resources, Santa Fe, NM, USA

xiii
xiv List of Contributors

Stanley M. Fletcher National Center for Peanut Competitiveness, University of

Georgia, Griffin, GA, USA
Baozhu Guo Crop Protection and Management Research Unit, USDA-ARS, Tifton,
GA, USA
Ray O. Hammons USDA, ARS, Coastal Plain Station, University of Georgia, Tifton,
GA, USA
Danielle Herman Department of Crop Science, North Carolina State University,
Raleigh, NC, USA
C. Corley Holbrook Crop Genetics and Breeding Research Unit, USDA-ARS, Tifton,
GA, USA
Ran Hovav Plant Sciences, Agronomy and Natural Resources, Bet-Dagan, Israel
Scott A. Jackson Center for Applied Genetic Technologies, University of Georgia,
Athens, GA, USA
Scott R. Kalberer USDA-ARS Corn Insects and Crop Genetics Research Unit, Crop
Genome Informatics Lab, Iowa State University, Ames, IA, USA
Pawan Khera Crop Protection and Management Research Unit, USDA-ARS, Tifton,
GA, USA; International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics
(ICRISAT), Patancheru, India; Department of Plant Pathology, The University of
Georgia, Tifton, GA, USA
Mark Kline The Hershey Company, Hershey, PA, USA
Michael H. Land Southern California Permanente Medical Group, San Diego,
CA, USA
Soraya C. Leal-Bertioli Center for Applied Genetic Technologies, University of
Georgia, Athens, GA, USA; Embrapa Genetic Resources and Biotechnology,
Brasília, Brazil
Boshou Liao Oil Crops Research Institute of Chinese Academy of Agricultural
Sciences (OCRI-CAAS), Wuhan, Hubei, China
Gary R. List G.R. List Consulting, Washington, IL, USA
Linfeng Liu Department of Agronomy, Agricultural University of Hebei, Baoding, China
Mason Locke Golden Peanut Company, Alpharetta, GA, USA
Moses Osiru International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics
(ICRISAT), Bamako, Mali
Peggy Ozias-Akins Horticulture Department, University of Georgia Tifton Campus,
Tifton, GA, USA; Institute of Plant Breeding, Genetics & Genomics, University of
Georgia, Tifton, GA, USA
Manish K. Pandey International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics
(ICRISAT), Hyderabad, India
Gary A. Payne Department of Plant Pathology, North Carolina State University,
Raleigh, NC, USA
Ze Peng Department of Agronomy, The University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA
 List of Contributors xv

Shane Powell Birdsong Peanuts, Suffolk, VA, USA

Brian Scheffler USDA ARS JWDSRC, Stoneville, MS, USA
Guillermo R. Seijo Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales y Agrimensura,
Universidad Nacional del Nordeste, Corrientes, Argentina
Zhaolin Shi National Center for Peanut Competitiveness, University of Georgia,
Griffin, GA, USA
H. Thomas Stalker Department of Crop Science, North Carolina State University,
Raleigh, NC, USA
Rhonda Starling Golden Peanut Company, Alpharetta, GA, USA
Harikishan Sudini International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics
(ICRISAT), Patancheru, India
John Takash McCleskey Mills, Smithville, GA, USA
Shyamalrau P. Tallury Pee Dee Research and Education Center, Clemson University,
Florence, SC, USA
Hari D. Upadhyaya International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics
(ICRISAT), Hyderabad, Telangana, India; Department of Agronomy, Kansas State
University, Manhattan, KS, USA; UWA Institute of Agriculture, University of
Western Australia, Crawley, WA, Australia
Vincent Vadez International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics
(ICRISAT), Patancheru, India
Howard Valentine The Peanut Foundation, Alexandria, VA, USA
Rajeev K. Varshney International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics
(ICRISAT), Patancheru, India
Farid Waliyar International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics
(ICRISAT), Patancheru, India; International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-
Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), Bamako, Mali
Chuan T. Wang Shandong Peanut Research Institute, Qingdao, China
Hui Wang Crop Protection and Management Research Unit, USDA-ARS, Tifton,
GA, USA; Department of Plant Pathology, The University of Georgia, Tifton,
GA, USA; Shandong Peanut Research Institute, Qingdao, China
Jianping Wang Department of Agronomy, The University of Florida, Gainesville,
FL, USA
Xingjun Wang Shandong Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Biotechnology Research
Center, Jinan, China
Richard F. Wilson The Peanut Foundation, Oilseeds & Bioscience Consulting, Raleigh,
NC, USA
Mei Yuan Shandong Peanut Research Institute, Qingdao, China
Xinyou Zhang Henan Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Industrial Crops Research
Institute, Zhengzhou, China
This page intentionally left blank

     
Preface

Peanuts: Genetics, Processing, and Utilization presents innovations in crop

productivity, processing, and food manufacturing technologies that enhance the
contribution of peanuts to global food security. The writings of an elite cadre of
authors cover three central themes:
l Modern breeding methods and genetically diverse resources for development

of agronomic varieties in the US, China, India, and West Central Africa.
l Enhanced crop protection and quality through application of information and

genetic tools derived from analysis of the peanut genome sequence.

l  State-of-the-art processing and manufacture of safe, nutritious, and flavorful
food products in market environments driven by consumer perception, legisla-
tion, and governmental policy.
Cultivated peanut (Arachis hypogaea) ranks third in world oilseed supply,
on par with sunflower and cottonseed. Peanut products provide a dominant
portion of nutrients for human dietary needs in China, India, and countries of
South Saharan Africa (SSA). However, the ability to compete with other crops
for arable land and intrinsic crop value (a function of yielding ability, produc-
tion cost, and product quality) poses a significant challenge to expansion of
global peanut supply. Symptoms of this economic situation are defined by
several observations:
l Total harvested area for world peanut production has not changed significantly

over the past decade, averaging 23.3 ± 1.1 Mha.

l India and SSA account for 40% of global peanut supply, but productivity per

hectare is only one-fourth of the yields achieved in China, South America,

and the US. United Nations reports anticipate a 60% decline in per capita
consumption of oilseed peanuts in SSA by 2050 due to insufficient in-country
peanut production.
l  The US competes with South America for majority share of global peanut
export markets; systematic expansion of export markets is needed to help sus-
tain global food security.
l  Processors and food manufacturers must take diligent precautions to protect
product quality against contamination by pathogenic organisms that may
compromise the health safety of peanut-based foods.
Members of the American Peanut Council (which represents the US peanut
value chain), the International Crops Research Institute for the Semiarid ­Tropics
(ICRISAT), the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), Agricul-
tural Research Service (ARS), Empresa Brasileira de Pesquisa Agropecuária

xvii
xviii Preface

(the Brazilian Corporation of Agricultural Research), and four Chinese institu-

tions (Shandong Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Henan Academy of Agri-
cultural Sciences, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (CAAS), and
Guangdong Academy of Agricultural Sciences) initiated a process in 2006 to
formally address these and other relevant problems with the collaborative incep-
tion of the International Peanut Genome Initiative (IPGI). Detailed Information
on IPGI activities, including the Peanut Genome Consortium and the Peanut
Genome Project, may be accessed at http://www.peanutbioscience.com.
Peanuts: Genetics, Processing, and Utilization features highlights of
accomplishments and progress toward strategic IPGI research goals in the areas
of germplasm resources, genome structure and gene function, crop improve-
ment, and product quality and safety.
l  Germplasm resources: USDA ARS, ICRISAT, and CAAS curate separate
peanut germplasm collections that provide geneticists access to sources
of resistance genes for about 60 devastating diseases/pests that attach
peanuts. Substantial research efforts are being made to transfer desirable
genetic traits from wild to cultivated peanuts. Resistant cultivars are needed
to reduce need for multiple applications of fungicides and other protec-
tive treatments, which are the primary reason for the high cost of peanut
production. Diplomatic efforts are underway to expand these germplasm
collections with accessions of seven new wild species found in South
America by Argentine scientists.
l  Genome sequence: In 2014, IPGI made the official public release of the
first chromosome scale sequences of two wild (diploid) species that contrib-
uted equally to the formation of the cultivated (tetraploid) peanut genome.
Researchers may access these A genome and B genome sequences, databases,
and interactive online computational analysis tools at www.PeanutBase.org/.
l  Genome structure and gene function: Analysis of the diploid progenitor
genomes revealed:
l only 1–3% of the genome space contains genes.

l  gene markers in a wild genome also appear in the counterpart cultivated

genome.
l KASP, QTL-seq, and CRISPR/Cas9 genome editing technologies help dis-

cover gene function and develop gene-specific markers for plant breeding.
l Crop improvement: Disease resistance genes in cultivated peanuts are sourced

from wild diploid species through interspecific hybridization. However,

several generations of breeding and selection are needed to eliminate
accompanying genes which cause “yield drag”. Two new breeding strategies
are proposed as remedies for this problem:
l  MARS (marker-assisted recurrent selection) to track gene and nongene
segments bred into interspecific hybrids.
l MAGIC (multiparent advance generation intercrossing) to meld desirable

traits from multiple parents into a single uniform population of breeding

lines.
 Preface xix

l Product quality and safety: Consumer perception of peanuts as a dietary ingre-

dient has accelerated industry efforts and governmental regulations to ensure
that precautions are taken throughout the peanut value chain to protect the
quality of peanut-based foods and snacks. These actions are evidenced and
administered in part by:
l Strict adherence to Hazard Analysis and Critical Point and Global Food
Safety Initiative requirements for handling, storage, and shelling of raw
peanuts.
l Cooperative efforts between governments to facilitate trade of high-
quality peanuts and peanut products free of contamination by pathogenic
organisms.
l Market transition to high-oleic peanut cultivars to improve sensory proper-

ties, shelf-life, and nutritional value of foods manufactured with peanut

ingredients.
l Improved concepts of food allergy and new therapies that specifically treat

peanut allergy.
Taken together information presented in this volume helps broaden aware-
ness of how genetic, production, processing, and marketing technologies are
deployed to ensure an abundant supply of high-quality peanuts that augments
global food security and meets increased consumer demand for healthful food
products.

Richard F. Wilson
Oilseeds & Biosciences Consulting, Raleigh, NC, USA
This page intentionally left blank

     
Chapter 1

Origin and Early History

of the Peanut
Ray O. Hammons1, Danielle Herman2, H. Thomas Stalker2
1USDA, ARS, Coastal Plain Station, University of Georgia, Tifton, GA, USA; 2Department of Crop
Science, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, USA

OVERVIEW
The peanut, Arachis hypogaea L., is a native South American legume.
Macrofossil and starch grain data show peanuts moved into the Zaña Valley in
Northern Peru 8500 years ago, presumably from the eastern side of the Andes
Mountains, although the hulls found there do not have similar characteristics to
modern domestic peanuts (Dillehay, 2007). At the time of the discovery of the
American and European expansion into the New World, this cultivated species
was known and grown widely throughout the tropical and subtropical areas of
this hemisphere. The early Spanish and Portuguese explorers found the Indians
cultivating the peanut in several of the West Indian Islands, in Mexico, on the
northeast and east coasts of Brazil, in all the warm land of the Rio de la Plata
basin (Argentina, Paraguay, Bolivia, extreme southwest Brazil), and extensively
in Peru. From these regions the peanut was disseminated to Europe, to both
coasts of Africa, to Asia, and to the Pacific Islands. Eventually, peanut traveled
to the colonial seaboard of the present southeastern United States (US), but the
time and place of its introduction was not documented.

DISCUSSION
Chronological History
Table 1 documents the descriptions and illustrations of the peanut found in
the chronicles and natural histories of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries
(Hammons, 1973). No effort is made to discuss the extensive literature of the
eighteenth century.
Before the Spanish colonization, the Incas cultivated the peanut throughout
the coastal regions of Peru. In his history of the Incas, Garcilaso de la Vega
(1609) describes the peanut as another vegetable which is raised under the
Peanuts. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/B978-1-63067-038-2.00001-0
Copyright © 2016 AOCS Press. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. 1
2 Peanuts

TABLE 1 The Peanut in Early Post-Colombian Historical Records:

A Chronology for the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries
(After Hammons, 1973)

Publication
Time Location Author Date

Pre-Conquest New Spain Las Casas 1875

1502–1547 Peru Garcilaso de la Vega 1609

1513–1524 Hispaniola de Oviedo y Valdes 1527, 1535

1534–1554 La Plata basin de Léry 1578

1555–1560 Mexico Sahagún 1829

1558–1566 Peru Monardes 1569, 1574

Pre1569a Bahia, Brazil Soares de Souza 1825

1570–1587 Peru de Acosta 1588–89

1571 Mexico Hernández 1605, 1651, 1790

1571–1577 Brazil, Peru Clusius 1605

a West Indies Bauhini, C. 1623
a Brazil de Laer 1625, 1630
a Americas Parkinson 1640

1637–1644 Pernambuco Marcgrave 1648, 1658

a Brazil, Peru Bauhino, J. 1650

Pre1653 New Spain Cobo 1653

Pre1654 French Antilles Duterre 1654

a Americas Jonstonus 1662
a Americas Ray 1686

1687–1689 Jamaica, Barbados Sloane 1696, 1707

a Americas Plukenet 1691

1693 Guadeloupe Plumier 1693, 1703

1697 Guadeloupe Labat 1724

The material is arranged to emphasize the geographical distribution of the peanut in the New World
as the time of exploration of the chroniclers rather than in the publication date which sometimes
was many decades beyond the actual event.
aIndicates European compiler describing and illustrating material collected by others in New World.
 Origin and Early History of the Peanut Chapter | 1 3

ground, called ynchic by the Indians. He reports that the Spanish introduced
the name mani from the Antilles to designate the peanut they found growing in
Peru.
Bartonlomé Las Casas, who sailed in 1502 to Hispaniola (now Haiti Domin-
ican Republic), was a missionary throughout the Spanish lands from 1510 to
1547. Although Las Casas may have been the first European to encounter the
peanut, his “Apologetic History,” begun in around 1527, was not published until
1875. Concerning the peanut he wrote (Las Casas, 1909): “They had another
fruit which was sown and grew beneath the soil; which were not roots but
resembled the meat of the filbert nut … These had thin shells in which they
grew and … (they) were dried in the manner of the sweet pea or chick pea at
the time they are ready for harvest. They are called mani.” (Tr: M. Latham and
R. Hammons).
The first written notice of the peanut appears to be by Captain Gonzalo
Fernández de Oviedo y Valdés, who came to Santo Domingo in 1513 and
later became governor of Hispaniola and royal historiographer of the Indies.
In 1525 he sent Charles V his Sumario Historia, printed in Toledo two years
later (Oviedo, 1527), and in 1535 began publishing his Historia General de las
Indias.
Oviedo first published the common Amerindian name mani for the peanut;
the name is still used in Cuba and Spanish South America. In Chapter V, he
writes (Oviedo, 1535) “Concerning the mani, which is another fruit and ordi-
nary food which the Indians have on Hispaniola and other islands of the Indies:
Another fruit which the Indians have on Hispaniola is called mani. They sow it
and harvest it. It is a very common crop in their gardens and fields. It is about
the size of a pine nut with the shell. They consider it a healthy food … Its con-
sumption among the Indians is very common. It is abundant on this and other
islands.” (Tr: M. Latham and R. Hammons).
A later edition published in 1851 states that the mani is “sown and grows
underground, which upon pulling by the branches it is uprooted and on the run-
ners there are found such fruit located inside pods as in chickpeas, … which are
very tasty when eaten raw or roasted.” (Tr: M. Latham and R. Hammons). This
statement does not appear in the earlier edition (Oviedo, 1527).
Although South America is the unquestioned place of original cultivation,
it is significant that this earliest publication documents the wide distribution
of this important crop plant that had occurred before the discovery of America.
Ulrich Schmidt, historian of the Spanish conquests of the Rio de la Plata
basin, 1534 to 1555, frequently mentions the peanut (manduiss, mandubi) as
an important plant in these warm lands. A German mercenary, Schmidt (1567)
encountered the peanut as early as 1542 when his expedition up the Paraguay
from Asunción met Surucusis Indians who had “maize and mandioca and also
other roots, such as mandi (peanut) which resembles filberts.” (Tr: M. Latham
and R. Hammons).
4 Peanuts

The peanut was described unmistakably be Jean de Léry, a Calvinist mis-

sionary with the Huguenot colony founded in 1555 on an island in Rio de
Janeiro bay (de Léry, 1578): “The savages also have fruits called manobi. They
grow in the soil like truffles connected one to the other by fine filaments. The
pod has a seed the size of hazelnut and a similar taste; it is gray brown and the
hull is the hardness of a pea. Although I have eaten this fruit many times, I can-
not say whether the plant has leaves or seeds …” (Tr: T.B. Stewart).
The first purposeful introduction of the peanut into Europe went unrecorded.
Useful and exotic American plants were commonly collected and introduced
into Europe from the time of Columbus’ first voyage. Therefore, it is probable
that the peanut was carried to Europe early in the sixteenth century. However,
the earliest recorded introduction appears to be that reported in 1574 by Nicolas
Monardes, a Seville physician. Monardes (1574) also failed to associate the fruit
with a plant. His description follows:
Thei sent me from Peru, a fruite very good, that groweth under the yearth, and very
faire to beholde, and of a very good taste in eathyng, this fruit hath no roote, nor
doeth produce any plante, nor plante doeth produce it … It is of the greatenesse
of half a finger rounde … it is of a baie coullour: It hath within it a little cernell
… the rinde of it is taunie, and somewhat white, parted into two partes … It is a
fruite of good savour and taste, and eatyng of it, it seemeth that you eate Nuttes.

This fruit groweth under the yearth, in the coaste of the River Maronnon, and it is
not in any other parte of all the Indias. It is to bee eaten greene and drie, and the
beste wai is to toste it … It is a fruite in greate reputation, as well as emongest
the Indians as the Spaniardes, and with greate reason, for I have eaten of theim,
whiche thei have brought me, and thei have a good taste …

Around this time, the Portuguese naturalist Gabriel Soares de Souza, who
lived in Brazil from 1570 to 1587, gave the first detailed description of the plant,
its cultivation, and artificial curing by smoke drying (Soares, 1587):
Chapter 47: In which is stated the nature of the amendois and their use.
We have to pay special attention to the peanut because it is known only in Brasil,
which sprout under ground, where they are planted by hand, a hand’s breadth
apart, the leaves are similar to those of the Spanish beans and have runners along
the ground. Each plant produces a big plate of these peanuts, which grow on
the ends of the roots and are the size of acorns, and has a hull similar thickness
and hardness, but it is white and curled and has inside each shell three and four
peanuts, which have the appearance of pinõn nuts, with the hulls but thicker.
They have a brownish skin from which they are easily removed as with the pinõn
nuts, the inner part of which is white. Eaten raw, they have the same taste as
raw chickpeas, but they are usually eaten roasted and cooked in the shell like
chestnuts and are very tasty, and toasted outside of the shell they are better …
These peanuts are planted in a loose humid soil the preparation of which has not
 Origin and Early History of the Peanut Chapter | 1 5

involved and male human being; only the female Indian and half breed females
plant them; and the husbands know nothing about these labors, if the husbands
or their male slaves were to plant them they would not sprout. The females also
harvest them; and as is the custom, the same ones that planted them; and to last
all year they are cured in smoke and kept there until the new crop.

Portuguese women make all the sweet things from this fruit which are made from
almonds, and which are cut and covered with a sugar mixture as confections …
February is the right time to plant peanuts, and they are not to be beneath the
ground any longer than May, which is time to harvest the crop, which females do
with a much celebration.
Tr: T.B. Stewart.

After Cortés conquered Mexico, many reports of the natural resources of the
land were sent to Spain. Few of these documents are available for study, and the
early distribution and use of the peanut in Mexico are not yet clear.
During 1558 to 1566, Friar Bernardino de Sahagún compiled an encyclo-
pedia in Nahautl of the Aztecs but it was not published until 1829. Sahagún
(1820–1830) mentioned the folk-medicine use of tlalcacuatl (Nahautl for pea-
nut). He did not, however, list peanuts among the principal food plants of cen-
tral Mexico. It is not recognized among the record of tribute that Montezuma
extracted from tribes the Aztecs conquered.
The peanut apparently was not of great importance in early Mexico. It may
actually have been introduced from the West Indies by the Spaniards as implied
by Hernandez (1604). If this was so, Krapovickas (1968) suggests that the intro-
duction was probably of the hypogaea type grown in the Antilles. The com-
pound name tlacacuatl, or earth cacao, has been cited as evidence of its late
arrival in Mexico. Recent archeological evidence, cited subsequently, clearly
shows an antiquity of cultivation in Mexico, but the absence of any other spe-
cies of Arachis is substantive evidence that the cultivated peanut is not native to
Mexico, nor was it domesticated there.
In discussion of food plants used in South America, Jośe de Acosta (1588)
notes “In those countries they have divers sortes … I remember … mani, and an
infinite number of other kinds.”
The peanut did not go unnoticed. Early in the seventeenth century descrip-
tions and illustrations appeared regularly in the European literature, and the
plant soon became known in botanical gardens. Many early naturalists were
compilers, annotators, illustrators, copiers, and editors who systematized the
observations of others and rarely saw the plants whose descriptions and figures
they put into their folios. Among those describing and illustrating the peanut
during the seventeenth century were Clusius (1605), Bauhini (1623), de Laet
(1625), Parkinson (1640), Bauhino (1650), Jonstonus (1662), Ray (1686), and
Plukenet (1691). In sharp contrast are the works of Marcgrave (1648),
Marcgrave (1658), Cobo (1653), and the French priests Dutertre (1654), Labat
(1742), Plumier (1693), and Plumier (1703) whose descriptions and figures
6 Peanuts

were made in most cases from living material observed and collected in nature.
Sloane 1696, Sloane 1707–1725 qualifies as a collector but he also had access
to vast collections made by others. This fits him more properly in the former group.
Monardes’ book, revised in 1574, was published in English in 1577 and
in several other languages by the early 1600s. Clusius printed Latin editions
in 1579 and 1605. In the latter work, Clusius (1605) cited Monardes’ and de
Léry’s descriptions of the peanut and suggested that they were probably of the
same fruit. Because neither of these writers actually saw the peanut plant, and
de Léry and Monardes observed fruits of distinctly different botanical varieties,
the question of proper identity, once raised by Clusius, was to preoccupy natural
historians for centuries.
Clusius seems to be the first to draw the peanut seed. His illustration
(Clusius, 1605), reproduced as Figure 1(A), shows the seed with a net-veined testa
and a pronounced hilum. In describing this figure, Clusius says “the kernel has
merely been removed from its shell, a strong covering, distinguished by its dark
thin membrane and many veins, and cleaving firmly to the kernel; the substance
itself is firm, shining white, as if the flesh of the Indian nut is baked, endowed
indeed with no oder, but filled with a pleasing taste.” (Tr: B.W. Smith).
Gaspard Bauhin (1623) lists mani and mandues among the “root” crops for
the West Indies and other areas of Hispanic America, but peanut does not appear
in his listing of Thomas Hariot’s “root” crops from Virginia.
The first figure of the peanut fruit beaked pods of a Brazilian cultigen with
two or three seed cavities (see Figure 1(B)) appears to be that of Laet (1625),
naturalist, editor and a managing director of the Dutch West India Company. His
ship captains brought many plant collections from the New World. De Laet’s
1625 description follows de Léry’s (1578) text. In the second Dutch edition,
de Laet (1630) published the illustrations of peanut fruits reproduced as
Figure 1(B). (This figure also appears in the enlarged Latin edition of 1633 and
in the French edition of 1640, with a slightly revised description).
Parkinson (1640), a London apothecary and director of the Royal Gardens at
Hampton Court, described the peanut as:
Arachus γπoΓEIΣ Americanus, the underground cicheling of America or Indian
Earth-nuts … are very likely to grow from such like plants as are formerly
described, not onely by the name but by the sight and taste of the thing it selfe,
for wee have not yet seene the face thereof above the ground, yet the fruit or
Pease-cods (as I may so call it) is farre larger, whose huske is thick and somewhat
long, round at both ends, or a little hooked at the lower end, of a sullen whitish
colour on the outside, striped, and as it were wrinkled, bunching out into two
parts, where the two nuts … lie joyning close one unto another, being somewhat
long, with the roundnesse firme and solide, and of a darke reddish colour on the
outside, and white within tasting sweet like a Nut, but more oily … and the last
groweth in most places of America, as well to the South, as West parts thereof,
both on the maine and Ilands.
 Origin and Early History of the Peanut Chapter | 1 7

FIGURE 1 Earliest illustrations of peanut seed and fruit. (A) Peanut seed (Clusius, 1605);
(B) Beaked pods of a Brazilian peanut with two or three seeds each (after de Laet, 1625). Reprinted
with permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University.

The Dutch wrested the northeastern part of the Brazilian coast between Natal
and Porto Colvo from the Spanish in 1630. Count Johann Moriz (Maurice)
of Nassau-Siegen, Governor-General of these possessions from 1636 to 1644,
instituted a scientific exploration of the environs of Pernambuco (or Recife)
where he resided. This exploration was made by his personal physician, Willem
Piso, and the German naturalist George Marcgrave of Liebstad, a close friend of
8 Peanuts

Maurice’s, from 1638 to 1644. Their notes and figures were published, in part,
under the editorship of de Laet who was literary executor after Marcgrave’s
untimely death in 1644.
Their “Natural History of Brazil” is composed of Piso’s four books
De Medicina Brasiliensi and Marcgrave’s eight books Historiae Rerum Natura-
lium Brasiliae. Marcgrave (1648, 1658) called the peanut by its Brazilian Indian
name mundubi and showed the fruits growing on the roots, an error perpetu-
ated well into the twentieth century (see Smith, 1950). Marcgrave’s illustration,
reproduced in Figure 2, shows two-seeded fruits, quadrifoliate leaves, with leaf-
lets opposite. Flowers appear in the axillary position.
The text of Marcgrave’s (1648) description follows:
Vol. I, p. 37, Mundubi—A Brazilian herb rising to a foot or two feet in height,
stem quadrangular or striate, from green becoming reddish, and hairy. From
different directions branchlets are sprouted forth, at first as if enclosing the
stem and accompanied by narrow, accuminate leaflets; soon they have a node
and are extended three or four digits in length; in a row; four leaves on any
branchlet, two always opposite each other, a little more than two digits long,
a digit and half broad, a pleasing green above, like trefoil, becoming a little
whitened below, finished with almost parallel, conspicuous nerves and fine
veinlets, covered also with scattered hairs. Near the origin of the branchlets
which bear the leaves, a pedicel appears about a digit and half long, attenuated
bearing a little yellow flower, reddish along the edges, consisting of two petals
in the manner of vetch or trefoil. The root of this (plant) by no means long,
attenuated, intricate, filamentous, from which pods are grown from somewhat
whitish to grey, of the form of the smallest cucurbits, oblong, fragile, of the size
of a balsam fruit: any one contains also two kernels, covered with a rich dark
red skin, the flesh within white, oleaginous, tasting of pistachio nuts, which are
recommended baked and are served during dessert … The whole fruit being
shaken, the seeds rattle within.

Compared Monardes cap. LX Anchic of Peru, the same is called Mani in Spanish,
as reported lib. X, cap. 2 of the description of America.
Tr: B.W. Smith.

There is apparently no reference to the peanut in Piso’s section of the 1648

publication. Ten years later he issued a second edition under the title De Indiae
Utriusque re Naturali et Medica. The first part of this folio, Historiae Naturalis
et Medicai Indiae Occidentalis, consists of Marcgrave’s “Natural History of
Brazil” and Piso’s “Medicinal Plants” interwoven to form five books. Marcgrave’s
description of the peanut reappears in the book IV, cap. 64, page 256 (Marcgrave,
1658). The illustration in the 1658 edition (reproduced in Figure 2(B)) not
only shows the plant branch and the two pods from the 1648 publication, but
also adds the two pods from de Laet (1625), together with a three-segmented
opened pod.
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on the mainland, near Littleton Island. The figures proved to be
Eskimos; and through the agency of Eskimo Joe, who was on board
the Tigress, it was soon ascertained that Captain Buddington had
deserted the Polaris on the day after her separation from the floe;
that he and his companions had erected a house on the mainland,
and wintered therein; had fitted it up with sleeping-berths for fourteen
men, the full number, and furnished it with stove, table, chairs, and
other articles removed from the abandoned ship; that during the
winter the party had built and equipped a couple of sailing-boats; and
that “about the time when the ducks begin to hatch” they had
departed for the south.
 SAVED!
The Eskimo chief, or leader, added that Captain Buddington had
made him a present of the Polaris; but that the gift proved of no
effect, for in a violent gale she broke loose from the ice, drifted out
into the channel, and foundered.
Further search brought the crew of the Tigress to the winter-
camp of the Polaris crew. It was situated in lat. 78° 23’ N., and long.
73° 46’ W. Some manuscripts were found there, with the log-book,
the medical stores, and remains of instruments; and these, with
whatever else that seemed of intrinsic value, having been removed
on board the Tigress, the expedition bore away to the southward,
and on the 16th of October reached St. John’s, Newfoundland,
where they received the welcome intelligence of the rescue of the
Polaris party under the circumstances we shall now relate.
We return to the eventful night of the 15th of October 1872.
During the tremendous gale that then raged along the Arctic coast,
the bow-hawser of the Polaris snapped like a “pack-thread,” the
anchors slipped, and the ship drifted away into the darkness. The
wind forced her in a north-easterly direction; and next morning those
on board found her “a little north of Littleton Island, in Smith Sound,
having been exactly abreast of Sutherland Island during a portion of
the night.”
As she was leaking rapidly the pumps were set to work; and the
fires with much difficulty being lighted, the ship was got to obey her
helm. It was then found that the following officers and men remained
on board:—Captain Buddington; Mr. Chester, chief mate; William
Merton, second mate; Emil Schuman, chief engineer; Odell,
assistant-engineer; Campbell and Booth, firemen; Coffin, carpenter;
Sieman, Hobby, Hays, and Manch, seamen; Dr. Emil Bessel,
meteorologist; and Mr. Bryan, astronomer and chaplain.
A look-out was kept, it is said, for the nineteen who were missing,
but no signs of them being discovered, Captain Buddington came to
the comfortable conclusion that they had saved themselves in the
boats. Doubting the feasibility of carrying the Polaris to the
southward, he determined to abandon her, and winter on shore. With
this view she was run in as near land as possible, and finally
grounded in Kane’s Life-boat Cove, lat. 78° 23’ 30″ N., and long. 73°
21’ W. Here, on the 17th of October, Captain Buddington prepared to
establish a winter-camp; and the next few days were occupied in
removing from the stranded vessel all the food and fuel, and such
articles as could conduce to the comfort and sustenance of the party
through the ensuing winter.
With spars, bulk-heads, and canvas brought from the Polaris a
commodious house was erected, measuring twenty-two feet in
length, and fourteen feet in width. It was thoroughly water-tight;
warmed inside by a stove; and banked outside with masses of
compact snow. In the interior the sides were lined with fourteen
sleeping-berths. A table and chairs and lamps added to the general
comfort; so that our explorers were prepared to brave a Polar winter
under more favourable conditions than those experienced by most
Arctic navigators.
In the course of a few days a party of native Eskimos, with five
sledges, made their appearance, and their friendly labours were
found of no little value. They considered themselves amply repaid by
a few presents of knives, needles, and the like, and after a short stay
returned to their settlement at Etah. However, others soon took their
place; and eventually two or three families built their igloes in the
neighbourhood of the American camp. The Eskimo women made
themselves very useful by making and repairing clothing, and
rendering other feminine courtesies; while the men, when game
became plentiful, supplied the little settlement with a welcome
abundance of fresh meat. Nor was this the only advantage derived
from the presence of the Eskimos; on the contrary, it had an
excellent effect on the morale of the men, who did not feel that utter
isolation, that sense of being cut off from human companionship, and
separated from the rest of the world, which is one of the severest
trials of wintering in the Arctic regions. The heavy pressure of the
long, dark Polar night was wonderfully lightened by the kindly
attentions and mirthful society of the Eskimos.
It is probable that some of the Polaris crew never spent a happier
winter. There was no want of food, no suffering from cold; their
quarters were warm, cheerful, and well-lighted. Time did not hang
heavily on their hands; for when the house-work was done, when the
fires were replenished, the lamps trimmed, and the day’s provisions
cooked, they amused themselves with reading or writing, or played
at chess, draughts, and cards. It is true they had no communication
with the world without, and no intelligence could reach them from
friends or kinsmen; but, surgit amari aliquid—in the cup of human
happiness a bitter drop is always found!
 When the worst of the winter was past, they began, under the
direction of the carpenter, to construct a couple of boats, with the
view of returning homeward as soon as the ice broke up. Each was
twenty-five feet long, square fore and aft, and five feet beam;
capable, that is, of carrying seven men, with provisions for about two
months, in which time they might reasonably calculate on reaching
the civilized settlements. It was the end of May before the condition
of the ice enabled them to set out. Then they broke up their camp,
rewarded their Eskimo friends, carried on board stores and
provisions; and, finally, early on the morning of the 1st of June they
bade farewell to their winter-home, and sailed out into the waters of
Smith Sound.
Their voyage was unmarked by any disastrous incident, and
presents a strange contrast to the dangerous experiences of Tyson
and his companions. Wherever they landed, they obtained an
abundant supply of aquatic birds, seal, and other game. They were
all in good health, well-fed, well-clothed. Their boats were sound and
strong. The winter had long passed away, and the glorious summer
sun poured its full radiance on the calm surface of the Arctic sea.
Sailing pleasantly along, they touched at Hakluyt Island, and
subsequently landed on the west shore of Northumberland Island.
The pack-ice detained them there until the 10th. They then entered a
water-way toward Cape Parry, but were subsequently forced back by
the ice to the place whence they had started. On the 12th the
channel was clearer. They set sail again; crossed the southern part
of Murchison Sound; doubled Cape Parry; and halted for rest and
refreshment on Blackwood Point, near Fitz Clarence Rock. Thence
they made, in due succession, for Wolstenholme Island, and Cape
York,—names which recall the adventures of the earlier explorers.
Their course now assumed a more difficult character, as they had
come face to face with the ice of Melville Bay,—that great expanse of
Arctic waters which is surrounded by glacier-loaded shores, and has
always been a favourite “whaling-ground.” Here they encountered
some difficulty with the “pack;” the “leads,” or water-ways, curiously
intersecting one another, and striking far into the ice, and so closing
up that it was often necessary to haul their boats across a kind of
promontory, or tongue, from one lead to another. Their troubles,
however, were of brief duration. On the twentieth day after leaving
Life-boat Cove, they sighted a steamer, beset in the ice, at a
distance of thirty or thirty-five miles from Cape York. She could not
come to them, it was true, but they could go to her; and this they
prepared to do. They had not traversed half the distance, however,
before they met a body of eighteen men from the ship; for they too
had been seen, and recognized as white men, and relief immediately
despatched. The friendly vessel proved to be the Ravenscraig of
Dundee, Captain Allen, lying in lat. 75° 38’ N., and long. 65° 35’ W.
It was now found, according to the narrative of the expedition,
that the relief did not come much too soon, for the boats had been
considerably injured by contact with the rough hummocky ice. And
the fatigue of hauling them over such a surface may be inferred from
the fact that it took the Polaris crew, with their eighteen relief-men
from the Ravenscraig, six hours to reach the latter vessel. The
difficulty was increased by a deep slushy snow, which lay thick upon
the ice, and which was not only heavy and disagreeable to the
wayfarer, but exceedingly dangerous, as more than one found by
sinking into the pitfalls it treacherously concealed.
But they reached the Ravenscraig at midnight, and received a
hearty welcome from Captain Allen, who was able also to
communicate the grateful intelligence that their comrades, the little
company sent adrift on the ice-raft, were all in safety.
It has been well said that the Polaris expedition proved curiously
prolific of startling and exciting incidents. From the time when
Captain Bartlett of the Tigress rescued the “exhausted waifs” of the
ice-floe, until the last scene in this romantic drama was enacted, the
public mind had been kept in a condition of continual expectancy by
the progress of events connected with the story of these Arctic
explorers. The lamentable death of Captain Hall,—the long voyage
on the ice-floe through the gloom of the Polar night,—the return of
the nineteen castaways after so many hairbreadth escapes and
wonderful adventures,—the departure of the Tigress,—the discovery
of Buddington’s winter-camp,—and now the rescue of him and his
crew by the Dundee whaler, formed a series of surprising and
exciting events, which, if not of epical interest, would certainly seem
to furnish matter for a poet’s song. Even the early annals of Arctic
exploration, with their narratives of the achievements and sufferings
of Hudson, Davis, Barentz, present no incidents of a more
remarkable character. As men dwelt upon them, they came to
acknowledge that the “age of romance” was not ended yet.
On the 18th of September 1873, the Arctic whaling-steamer
arrived at Dundee with eleven of the Polaris survivors, who had been
transferred to her from the Ravenscraig, as the latter was not
homeward bound. Three others reached America in the Intrepid; and
thus the expedition of the Polaris terminated without any loss of life,
if we except the unfortunate death of her enthusiastic commander,
Captain Hall.
It added nothing, it is true, to our geographical knowledge of the
Arctic World; and yet it was not without some useful results. The
Polaris, at all events, approached nearer to the North Pole than any
one of her predecessors; and men of science were thenceforth
justified in asserting that the hope of complete success was no
longer chimerical. The distance to the pole from the point reached by
the Polaris was comparatively so trivial, as to afford good reason for
believing that it would not long baffle human resolution and
enterprise. Then, again, it was established as a fact beyond doubt
that Europeans could securely winter in a latitude of 81° 38’; that a
ship well built and well equipped might push northward as far as 82°
16’; and that no insuperable obstacles to its further advance could
then be detected. It was also shown that the temperature, even in
lat. 82°, was not of a nature to overcome the energy and enthusiasm
of men accustomed to life and adventure in the Arctic World. These
data, so conclusively established by experience, constituted a
source of great encouragement to future navigators, and permit the
conclusion that the Polaris expedition, with all its disasters and
mismanagement, helped forward the great work of discovering the
North Pole.
“We now know,” says Mr. Markham, “that the American vessel
commanded by Captain Hall passed up the strait, in one working
season, for a direct distance of two hundred and fifty miles, without a
check of any kind, reaching lat. 82° 16’ N.; and that at her furthest
point the sea was still navigable, with a water-sky to the northward.”
The Polaris, however, was nothing better than a river-steamer of
small power, ill adapted for encountering the perils of Arctic
navigation,—with a crew, all told, of thirty men, women, and children,
including eight Eskimos. If she could accomplish such a voyage
without difficulty, and could attain so high a latitude, it was
reasonable to anticipate that a properly equipped English expedition,
under equally favourable circumstances, would do, not only as
much, but much more, and carry the British flag into the waters of
the circumpolar sea, if such existed. With this view, the Admiralty
fitted out the Alert and the Discovery, under Captains Nares and
Stephenson. Every precaution that science could suggest was
adopted to ensure the completeness of their equipment; and the two
ships, accompanied as far as Disco by H.M.S. Valorous as a tender,
left England on the 29th May 1875.

The British Expedition, consisting of the Alert and the Discovery,

did not succeed in all it was intended to accomplish; and yet it can
hardly be spoken of as a failure. It did not reach that conventional
point of geographers, the North Pole, but it penetrated within four
hundred miles of it; and it ascertained the exact nature of the
obstacles which render access impossible, except under conditions
not at present in existence. We agree with a thoughtful writer in the
Spectator that this was a most important service rendered both to
Science and the State. We now know that by the Smith Sound route
a ship may attain to within 450 miles of the Pole; and that,
afterwards, a journey about as long as from London to Edinburgh
must be undertaken, in a rigorous climate, with the thermometer 50°
below zero, over ice packed up into hillocks and hummocks which
render sledge-travelling almost impracticable, or practicable only by
hewing out a path with the pickaxe at the rate of a mile and a half a
day. And further: the work would have to be begun and completed in
four months, or, from lack of light and warmth, it could not be done at
all. These are serious difficulties, and whether it is worth while for
men to encounter them, where the gain would be problematical, we
need not here inquire. Before any attempt can be made, some
provision must be discovered for protecting those who make it
against the excessive cold, and for a surer and swifter mode of
conveyance than the sledge affords. The journalist to whom we have
referred speculates that science may furnish future expeditions with
undreamt-of resources,—with portable light and heat, for instance,
from the newly-discovered mines at Disco; preventives against
scurvy; electric lights; supplies of dynamite for blowing up the ice;
and a traction-engine to traverse the road thus constructed; but, in
the meantime, these appliances are not at our command. We must
be content with the measure of success achieved by Captain Nares
and his gallant followers.
And these well deserve the gratitude of all who think the fame
and honour of a nation are precious possessions. They have shown
clearly that the “race” has not degenerated; that Englishmen can do
and suffer now as they did and suffered in the old time. They
displayed a courage and a fortitude of truly heroic proportions. And
the experiences of Arctic voyaging are always of a nature to require
the highest courage and the sternest fortitude. The long Arctic night
is in itself as severe a test of true manhood as can well be devised.
The miner works under conditions for less laborious than those to
which the Arctic explorer submits, for he enjoys an alternation of light
and darkness; his underground toil lasts but for a few hours at a
time. Yet we know that it tries a man’s manly qualities sorely! What,
then, must it be to keep brave and cheerful and true throughout a
prolonged night of one hundred and forty-two days—that apparently
endless darkness, almost the darkness of a sunless world?
We know, too, that continuous work, without relaxation, for month
after month, will break down the nerves and shatter the intellect of
the strongest. Yet we read that the men of the Alert toiled like slaves,
on one occasion, for seventy-two days, in cold so extreme that the
reader can form no conception of its severity, and with the dread
constantly hanging over them of that terrible and most depressing
disease, scurvy. Owing to their inability to procure any fresh game,
as most former expeditions had done, each of the extended sledge-
parties, when at their farthest distance from any help, was attacked
by it. The return-journeys were, therefore, a prolonged homeward
struggle of men who grew weaker at every step, the available force
to draw the sledge continually decreasing, and the weight to be
dragged as steadily increasing, as, one after another, the men
stricken down had to be carried by their enfeebled comrades.
It has been well said that in such exploits as these there is a
sustained heroism which we cannot fully appreciate, because we
cannot fully realize the terrible character of the sacrifices involved.
But it is comparatively easy for us to understand, and therefore to
admire, the courage of Lieutenant Parr, when he started alone on a
journey of thirty-five miles, with no other guide for his adventurous
steps than the fresh track of a wandering wolf over the ice and snow,
in order to carry help and comfort to his failing comrades. It is easy
to understand, and therefore to admire, the devotion of Mr. Egerton
and Lieutenant Rawson, when, at the imminent risk of their own
lives, they nursed Petersen, the interpreter, while travelling from the
Alert to the Discovery, with the temperature 40° below zero.
Petersen, who had accompanied them with the dog-sledge, fell ill;
and with a noble unselfishness they succeeded in retaining heat in
the poor fellow’s body by alternately lying one at a time alongside of
him, while the other by exercise was recovering his own vital
warmth. We can also acknowledge and admire the constancy of
Captain Nares, who, in that horrible climate, lived thirty-six days in
the “crow’s-nest,” while his ship laboured among the grinding,
shivering, crushing ice, until exhaustion overcame him. And we can
acknowledge and admire the bravery and faithfulness of the men of
the sledge-parties who, for days and weeks, drew the sledges and
their comrades, with gloom above and around them, ice and snow
everywhere bounding the prospect, and in a temperature which
seemed to freeze the blood and benumb the heart.
What a tale, says a writer in the Times, what a tale of unrequited
suffering it is! Surely not “unrequited;” for those who suffered,
suffered at the call of duty, and have been rewarded by the approval
of their countrymen, and by the consciousness of having done
something great, of not having lived in vain. “How lightly do all talk of
glory; how little do they know what it means! The little army had to
cut its way through the ice-barriers, dragging heavily-laden sledges,
and going to and fro, the whole force being often required for each
sledge, content to make a mile and a quarter a day, in pursuit of an
object still four hundred miles off, through increasing difficulties, and
with barely five months, or one hundred and fifty days, wherein to go
and return. The labour is a dreadful reality; the scheme itself a
nightmare, the phantasy of a disordered brain. Even the smaller and
subsidiary expedition for planting a depôt last autumn cost three
amputations. The cold was beyond all former experience for intensity
and length, and the physical effect of a long winter spent in the ships
under such conditions is particularized as one reason why the men
were less able to endure cold, labour, and the want of proper food.
Every one of the expeditions, whatever the direction, came back in
the saddest plight,—some dragging the rest, and in one case only
reaching the ship through the heroism of an officer pushing on many
miles alone to announce his returning comrades, and to procure the
aid by which alone they were saved from destruction. These are
episodes, but they are the matter which redeems the story and
makes its truest value. They tell us what Englishmen will do on
occasions beyond our feeble home apprehensions, when once they
have accepted a call, and are in duty bound.”

At the time we write no elaborate record of the expedition has

been published, and the materials of the following sketch are
collected therefore from various narratives which have appeared in
the daily journals. We shall begin by endeavouring to place before
the reader, with the assistance of Mr. Clements R. Markham, a rapid
summary of what the expedition accomplished. And then we shall
describe its more interesting incidents.
 The object of Captain Nares and his followers was to discover
and explore as considerable a portion of the unknown area in the
Polar Regions as was possible with reference to the means at their
disposal, and to the positions the vessels succeeded in reaching as
starting-points. The theories about open Polar basins and navigable
waters which once obtained have long been discarded by practical
Arctic geographers. A coast-line, however, is needful as a means of
progress to “the threshold of work;” and it is needful, too, in order to
secure the desired results of Arctic discovery in the various
departments of scientific inquiry.
The expedition, then, in the first place, had to force its way
through the ice-encumbered channel which connects Baffin Bay with
the Polar Ocean; a channel which successively bears the names of
Smith Sound, Kane Basin, Kennedy Channel, Hall Basin, and
Robeson Strait. Smith Sound opens out of Baffin Bay between
Capes Alexander and Isabella. The Alert and the Discovery passed
these famous headlands and entered the Sound on July 29, 1875;
and from that date until September 1, when the Alert crossed the
Threshold of the Unknown Region, they fought one continuous battle
with the ice. The Polaris, it is true, had made a rapid passage on the
occasion of its memorable voyage; but the circumstances were
exceptional. Generally the Sound is blocked up by heavy floes, with
winding waters caused by the action of wind and tide. With great
difficulty our two ships forced the barrier; but their success was due
in no small measure to the skill and vigilance of Captain Nares, who
allowed himself no rest until they were out of danger. At length, after
many hairbreadth escapes, and many laborious nights and days,
and much energy and devotion on the part of the officers, and equal
courage and industry on the part of the men, the expedition reached
the north shore of Lady Franklin Inlet, and found a safe, commodious
harbour in lat. 81° 44’ N. Here the Discovery took up her winter
quarters, as had previously been arranged; and the Alert, after a
brief interval of repose, continued her northward progress.
This she was enabled to do through the opportune opening up of
a water-lane between the shore and the ice. Bravely she dashed
ahead, rounded Cape Union, so named by the men of the Polaris
expedition, and entered the open Polar Ocean. Then, in lat. 82° 20’
N., the white ensign was hoisted on board a British man-of-war in a
latitude further north than the ship of any nation had reached before.
Soon afterwards the solid masses of the Polar pack-ice began to
close around the adventurous vessel; and on the 3rd of September
1875, the Alert was fast fixed in her winter quarters, on the ice-bound
shore of the inhospitable Polar Sea in lat. 82° 27’ N.
This, says Mr. Markham,[11] was the first grand success; and it
assured the eventual completion of the work. For, owing to the
admirable seamanship of Captain Nares, and to the zeal and
devotion of the officers and crew, the Alert had been carried across
the Threshold, and was within the Unknown Region. A point of
departure was thus obtained, which rendered certain the
achievement of complete success; inasmuch as in whatever
direction the sledge-parties travelled, valuable discoveries could not
fail to be the result.
The autumnal excursions, during which depôts of provisions were
established for use in the work of the coming spring, were not
performed without a very considerable amount of suffering.
Lieutenant May and two seamen were so severely frost-bitten, that,
to save their lives, amputation was found necessary.
As will be seen from the latitude given, the ships wintered further
north than any ships had ever previously wintered. The cold
exceeded anything previously registered, and darkness extended
over a dreary period. The winter, however, was not spent idly:
observatories were erected, and a mass of valuable scientific data
industriously accumulated.
“But the crowning glories of this ever-memorable campaign
were,” as Mr. Markham exclaims, “achieved during the spring.” Three
main sledge-expeditions were organized: one, under Commander
Markham and Lieutenant Parr, instructed to keep due north, as far as
possible, into the newly-discovered Polar Ocean; another, under
Lieutenant Aldrich, to explore the American coast, westward; and the
third, under Lieutenant Beaumont of the Discovery, to survey the
north coast of Greenland, facing eastward. Each party consisted of
two sledges; and the six, with their gallant crews, set out on the 3rd
of April 1876, determined to vindicate and maintain the reputation of
British seamen. They separated at Cape Joseph Henry; and before
they again met, this was what they achieved:—
Commander Markham and Lieutenant Parr pushed northward as
far as lat. 83° 20’ 26″ N.; being the most northerly point which any
explorers have attained. They may therefore be fairly and justly
regarded as “the Champions” of Arctic Discovery, until some
successors, more fortunate than they, shall surpass their glorious
feat.
Lieutenant Aldrich struck westward; rounded Cape Colombia in
lat. 83° 7’ N.; and explored 220 miles of the American coast-line,
previously not laid down on any map.
Lieutenant Beaumont crossed Robeson Strait, and surveyed the
northern coast of Greenland for about seventy miles.
“In order,” it is said, “that these three main parties might do their
work successfully, every soul in the two ships was actively
employed. The depôt and relieving parties did most arduous work,
and the officers vied with each other in promoting the objects of the
expedition, while the most perfect harmony and unanimity prevailed.
Captain Feilden and Mr. Hart were especially active in making
natural history collections; and Lieutenants Giffard, Archer, Rawson,
Egerton, and Conybeare did admirable work in exploring and
keeping open communications.” When the sledge-parties returned to
the ships, Captain Nares found that they had suffered terribly; but he
also found that their success had been complete. They had solved a
geographical problem; no open sea surrounded the Pole, as so
many sanguine spirits had anticipated. The way northward was over
a waste of ice—of ice broken up into hummocks and ponderous
masses. And with the appliances they possessed further progress
was impossible; the expedition had reached its ne plus ultra.
The work was done, and Captain Nares perceived that nothing
more could be gained, while valuable lives might be lost by
remaining longer in the Polar Ocean. He decided upon returning to
England, with the following rich results to show as the reward of an
heroic enterprise:—
First, the expedition had discovered a great Polar Ocean, a
knowledge of which cannot fail to prove of exceeding value to the
hydrographer. Next, the shores of this ocean had been explored
along fifty degrees of longitude, and important collections formed of
specimens of the Arctic fauna, flora, and geology. The channel
connecting the Polar Ocean with Smith Sound had also been
carefully surveyed, and an accurate delineation effected of either
shore. Geological discoveries of high value had also been made; as,
for example, that of the former existence of an evergreen forest in
lat. 82° 44’ N.,—a fact significant of vast climatic changes. And,
lastly, interesting observations in meteorology, magnetism, tidal and
electric phenomena, and spectrum analysis had been carefully
recorded. The expedition of 1875–76 must, therefore, in view of
these results, be classed among the most successful which ever
adventured into Arctic waters; though it failed, like its predecessors,
to gain the North Pole.

The Alert and the Discovery left the shores of England in May
1875. After a voyage of five weeks’ duration they arrived at Lievely,
the port of Disco Island, on the west coast of Greenland. This small
settlement numbers about ninety-six inhabitants, Danes and
Eskimos,—generally speaking, a mixed race. The Danish Inspector
of North Greenland resides here, and he received the expedition with
a salute from three brass cannon planted in front of his house. There
is a well-conducted school, attended by about sixteen children; and a
small church, where the schoolmaster reads the Lutheran service on
Sundays,—the priest coming over from Upernavik occasionally, to
perform marriages, christenings, and other religious services.
The Alert having taken on board thirty Eskimo dogs and a driver,
the expedition left Disco at one o’clock on July 16th, and next
morning reached Kiltenbunto, about thirty miles further north.
 Kiltenbunto is a little island in the Strait of Weigattet, between
Disco and the mainland. Here the Discovery took on board thirty
dogs; and shooting-parties from both ships made a descent on a
“loomery,” or “bird-bazaar,” frequented by guillemots, kittiwakes, and
other ocean-birds. Two or three days later the expedition arrived at a
settlement named Proven, where it was joined by the Eskimo dog-
driver, Hans Christian, the attendant of Kane, Hayes, and Hall, in
their several expeditions. At Proven the adventurers received and
answered their last letters from “home.”
Striking northward through Baffin Bay, they reached Cape York
on the 25th of July, and met with a company of the misnamed Arctic
Highlanders, who traversed the ice-floes in their dog-sledges, and
soon fraternized with the seamen. A narwhal having been
harpooned, a quantity of the skin and blubber was given to these
Eskimos. Mr. Hodson, the chaplain of the Discovery, describes them
as exceedingly greedy and barbarous, eating whatever fell in their
way, but living chiefly upon seals. They were not so far advanced in
civilization as to be able to construct kayacks, and apparently they
had never before seen Europeans. They wore trousers of bear-skin,
and an upper garment of seal-skin.
Proceeding northward by Dr. Kane’s Crimson Cliffs, they soon
reached that brave explorer’s celebrated winter quarters, Port
Foulke, and took advantage of a day’s delay to visit the Brother John
Glacier. They found Dr. Kane’s journal, but no relics; shot a reindeer,
and a large number of birds.
Between Melville Bay and the entrance to Smith Sound no ice
was met with; but on the 30th of July the “pack” was sighted, off
Cape Sabine, in lat. 78° 41´ N. Here, at Port Payer, the ships were
fast held by the ice for several days. An attempt to proceed further
northward was made to the west of the islands in Hayes Sound; but
the water-way not leading in the right direction, the ships returned.
On the 6th of August they made a fresh start, and thenceforward
maintained an uninterrupted struggle with the ice. The Alert led the
way, with Captain Nares in her “crow’s-nest,” anxiously looking out
for practicable channels. At Cape Frazer the huge solid mass again
delayed them. Then they succeeded in crossing Kennedy Channel to
the east side, and taking shelter in Petermann Fiord—so named
after the great German geographer. After a few days they again
pushed northward; and on the 25th of August, after many narrow
escapes from being crushed in the ice, a well-sheltered harbour
received them, on the west side of Hall Basin, north of Lady Franklin
Sound, in lat. 81° 44´ N. This was at once selected as the winter
quarters of the Discovery. Her sister-ship, continuing her course,
rounded the north-east point of Grant Land; but instead of falling in
with a continuous coast-line, stretching one hundred miles further
towards the north, as all had anticipated, found herself on the border
of what was evidently a very extensive sea, with impenetrable ice on
every side. As no harbour could be found, the ship was secured as
far north as possible, inside a kind of embankment of grounded ice
close to the land. There she passed the winter; and during the
eleven months of her detention no navigable water-way, through
which she could move further to the north, presented itself.
Far from meeting with the “great Polar Sea” dreamed of by Kane
and Hayes, our adventurers discovered that the ice-barrier before
them was unusually thick and solid. It looked as if composed of
floating icebergs which had gradually been jammed and welded
together. Henceforth it will be known on our maps as the
Palæocrystic Sea, or Sea of Ancient Ice; and a stranded mass of ice
disrupted from an ice-floe is to be termed a floeberg.
Ordinary ice does not exceed ten feet in thickness; but in the
Polar Sea, generation after generation, layer has been
superimposed on layer, until the whole mass measures from eighty
feet to one hundred and twenty feet; it floats with its surface nowhere
less than fifteen feet above the water-line. It was this wonderful
thickness which prevented the Alert from driving ashore. Owing to its
great depth of flotation, sixty feet to one hundred feet, the mass
grounded on coming into shallow water, and formed a breakwater
within which the ship was comparatively secure. “When two pieces
of ordinary ice are driven one against the other, and the edges
broken up, the crushed pieces are raised by the pressure into a high,
long, wall-like hedge of ice. When two of the ancient floes of the
Polar Sea meet, the intermediate lighter broken-up ice which may
happen to be floating about between them alone suffers; it is
pressed up between the two closing masses to a great height,
producing a chaotic wilderness of angular blocks of all shapes and
sizes, varying in height up to fifty feet above water, and frequently
covering an area upwards of a mile in diameter.”

We must now return to the Discovery. As soon as she had taken

up her winter quarters, her crew began to unload her, landing the
boats, stores, and spare spars, and otherwise preparing for the
winter. The first day ashore they shot a herd of eleven musk-oxen. A
few days afterwards the sea was frozen all round the ship, so that
they could freely move to and fro about the ice. A week later they
saw a large number of musk-oxen, and shot about forty—thus laying
in a considerable supply of provisions.
Their winter port, which was surrounded by snow-clad hills, about
two thousand feet high, they christened Discovery Harbour.
As soon as the sea was completely frozen over, the sledging-
parties were organized and duly despatched; but as the autumn was
rapidly passing, very little could be done in this direction. The usual
preparations on the part of Arctic explorers were then made for
“hybernating.” Houses were built; also a magnetic observatory and a
theatre of ice—recalling the glittering edifice constructed by
Catherine II. of Russia on the Neva, and celebrated by Cowper in the
well-known lines,—
“No forest fell
When thou wouldst build, no quarry sent its stores
To enrich thy walls; but thou didst hew the floods,
And make thy marble of the glassy wave.”

A smithy was erected on the 11th of November, being the first the
Arctic ice had ever borne. Its roof was made of coal-bags, cemented
with ice. The ship’s stoker reigned supreme in it as blacksmith; and
when we consider the accessories,—the ice, the snow, the darkness,
—we must admit that his blazing forge must have made a curious
picture. The chaplain tells us, humorously, that the smith adorned the
interior wall with a good many holes, as each time that his iron
wanted cooling he simply thrust it into the ice!
As for the theatre, which, as we know, has always been a
favourite source of amusement with Arctic explorers when winter-
bound, it was sixty feet long and twenty-seven feet broad; and, in
honour of the Princess of Wales, was named “The Alexandra.” Her
birthday was selected as the day of opening—December 1st; and
the opening piece was a popular farce—“My Turn Next.” As sailors
are generally adepts at dramatic personations, we may conceive that
the piece “went well,” and that the different actors received the
applause they merited. It is recorded that foremost among them was
the engineer, Mr. Miller, who appears to have been, emphatically, the
Polar Star. Several of the men sung songs; and recitations, old and
new, were occasionally introduced; the result of the whole being to
divert the minds and keep up the spirits of the ship’s company during
the long, long Arctic night.
The Fifth of November and its time-honoured associations were
not forgotten. A huge bonfire blazed on the ice; a “Guy Fawkes” was
manufactured and dressed in the most approved fashion; and the
silence of the frozen solitudes was broken by the sounds of a grand
display of fireworks and the cheering of the spectators.
A fine level promenade had been constructed on the ice, about a
mile in length, by sweeping away the snow; and this served as a
daily exercise ground. A skating-rink was also constructed. A free
hole in the ice, for the sake of better ventilation, was carefully kept
up. Whenever it closed, through a process of gradual congelation,
the ice-saws were set in motion to open it up again, or it was blasted
with gunpowder. The dogs lived on the ice-floe all the winter. It must
not be thought that the cold was uniform day after day. Probably it is
not the low temperature so much as the variable temperature that
makes an Arctic winter so very trying to the European. In a few hours
the change would be no less than 60°. The cold reached its height—
or depth—in winter, when the thermometer marked 70½° below zero;
the greatest cold ever experienced by any Polar expedition. It is
difficult for the human frame to bear up against this excess of rigour,
even with the help of good fires, good food, and good clothing. Not
only the physical but the mental faculties are debilitated and
depressed.
Our ice-bound seamen, however, managed to keep Christmas
merrily. Early on the day so dear to Christian memories “the waits”
went their usual rounds,—a sergeant of marines, the chief
boatswain’s mates, and three other volunteers,—singing Christmas
carols, and making “a special stay outside the captain’s cabin.” In the
forenoon prayers were said on the lower deck; after which the
captain and officers visited the men’s mess, tasting the Christmas
pudding, and examining the tasteful decorations which had been
improvised. Then the gifts which, in anticipation of the day, had been
sent out by kindly English hearts, were distributed by the captain,—
to each gift the name of the recipient having been previously
attached. This was an affecting scene; and hearty, though not
without a touch of pathos in them, were the cheers given as the
distribution took place; a distribution recalling so many “old familiar
faces,” and all the sweet associations and gentle thoughts of home!
Cheers were also raised for the captain and men of the far-away
Alert. Next, a choir was formed, and echo resounded with the strains
of “O the Roast Beef of Old England!” of which, no doubt, many of
the singers entertained a very affectionate remembrance. The men
dined at twelve and the officers at five, and the day seems in every
respect to have been most successful as a festival.
A few particulars of the “situation” may here be given in the
chaplain’s own words:—“We had brought fish, beef, and mutton from
England,” he says, “all of which we hung up on one of the masts,
and it was soon as hard as a brick, and perfectly preserved. We had
also brought some sheep from England with us, and they were killed
from time to time. When we arrived in Discovery Bay, as we called it,
six of them were alive; but on being landed they were worried by the
dogs, and had to be slaughtered. During the winter the men had to
fetch ice from a berg about half a mile distant from the ship, in order
to melt it for fresh water.”