A new interest was given to polar research by the establishment of the international circumpolar stations in 1883. The idea was mooted first by Weyprecht, and eventually twelve expeditions of various nationalities were sent out to erect observatories at different points within the polar circle, so that simultaneous and continuous observations might be taken. A great deal of valuable work was done. An American expedition, led by Lieutenant A. W. Greely (1881–4), to Grinnell Land almost perished from starvation.
Greenland was crossed for the first time by Fridtjof Nansen in 1888. In 1886, and again from 1892 to 1895, Robert E. Peary, an American civil engineer, made several brilliant journeys in Greenland, and extended the knowledge of the country more than two degrees to the north. It was Nansen and Peary who were destined to draw the veil from the great polar area itself, towards which so many fruitless journeys were made. From 1817 onwards many voyages were undertaken with the object of reaching the pole--as by Parry, Scoresby, Markham, and Jackson from England, Nordenskiöld from Sweden, and Koldewey from Germany. These explorers mostly started from Spitsbergen; but Nansen worked on an original plan--that of utilizing the drift of ice, which had been proved to take place right across the polar sea, to carry his ship with it. The plan was so far successful that the _Fram_ passed from the New Siberian islands right over to Spitsbergen in three years, without, however, reaching a higher latitude than 85° 55´ N. Nansen, with Lieutenant Johansen, made a dash northwards from this point, reaching 86° 5´ N., the “farthest north” attained up to that date; he met with Frederick Jackson’s expedition in Franz Josef Land, and returned safely to Norway. This brilliant journey led to no discovery of land in the polar basin, which proved to consist of a sea of great depth, increasing towards the pole. The Duke of Abruzzi’s expedition in 1899 reached 86° 34´ N.