Captain George Nares's British Arctic Expedition was sent out by the Admiralty in 1875 to seek a passage to the North Pole via Smith Sound. HMS Alert was a 17-gun Royal Navy wooden screw sloop launched in 1856, and HMS Discovery a Dundee-built wooden whaler, bought by the Admiralty in 1874 and converted for exploration with a barque rig and steam engine. The ships did not reach the Pole but explored the coasts of Greenland and Ellesmere Island; the Alert reached a record latitude of 82° North, and Markham's sledging party claimed a record Farthest North of 83° 20' 26"N. The expedition returned early to Portsmouth in November 1876, the poorly provisioned crews suffering badly from scurvy after overwintering in the ice.
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