72 FRANZ JOSEF LAND 



In the middle of July the fissures which had been 

 opening out around them became wider and longer, 

 progress reaching some four miles a day ; then the 

 north wind blew and the icefield commenced to drift 

 to the south, to drift again north-east when the wind 

 changed. Backwards and forwards, amid every variety 

 of weather, including heavy rain, the pack ice moved 

 until it changed to drift ice, and, on the 15th of August, 

 the much -tried company got afloat at last in open 

 water and laid their course for Novaya Zemlya, where 

 they fell in with two Russian schooners off Cape 

 Britwin. 



The next to visit Franz Josef Land was Leigh Smith, 

 whom we met with in the Spitsbergen seas. Building 

 the Eira especially for Arctic service, he started in 

 1880, the year she was launched, on a cruise to Green- 

 land and thence eastwards, which took him to the west 

 and north-west of the ground gone over by the Aus- 

 trians. He surveyed the whole coast from 42 east to 

 the most westerly point seen by Payer, and sorted it 

 out into several islands, but found no trace of the 

 Tegetthqff, for where she had been left was open water. 

 Encouraged by the success of his visit, in which the 

 observations and collections were unusually good, he 

 returned in the Eira the following year to meet with 

 much more unfavourable ice conditions. Finding it 

 impossible to get westward of Barents Hook the Eira 

 was, on the 15th of August, made fast to the land floe 

 off Cape Flora, and six days afterwards she was nipped 

 and stove by the ice and slowly sank in eleven fathoms 

 of water. As she settled down the steam winch was 

 set to work, and by its means half a dozen casks of 



