THE INTERNATIONAL STATIONS 273 



been of very little practical use owing to the necessarily 

 light equipment. Instead, therefore, of a number of 

 isolated attempts at irregular intervals, Weyprecht 

 suggested that the better way would be to attack the 

 subject systematically by a group of expeditions at 

 permanent stations working together long enough at 

 the same time for their observations to be dealt with as 

 part of a general scheme ; and the suggestion was 

 approved although he did not live long enough to see 

 the stations occupied. 



Three International Polar Conferences were held, in 

 1879 and the two following years, at Hamburg, Berne, 

 and St. Petersburg, at the last of which it was arranged 

 that the stations should be fourteen in number, two in 

 the south and twelve in the north, these ^twelve being 

 (1) The Austrian at Jan Mayen ; (2) the Danish at 

 Godthaab ; (3) the Finnish at Sodankyla in Uleaborg ; 



(4) the German at Kingua in Cumberland Sound ; 



(5) the British at Fort Rae on the northern arm of the 

 Great Slave Lake ; (6) the Dutch at Dickson Harbour 

 at the mouth of the Yenesei ; (7) the Norwegian at 

 Bosekop at the head of Alten Fiord ; (8) the Russian at 

 Little Karmakul Bay in Novaya Zemlya ; (9) the second 

 Russian on Sagastyr Island in the Lena Delta ; (10) the 

 Swedish at Mossel Bay in Spitsbergen; (11) the 

 American at Point Barrow under Lieutenant P. H. 

 Ray, who met with marked success and brought his 

 men all home in safety ; and (12) the second American 

 at Lady Franklin Bay, the winter quarters of H.M.S. 

 Discovwy, which Greely renamed Fort Conger. 



In direct opposition to the guiding idea of the 

 scheme, Greely 's work was complicated by having 



