lxxxiv GENERAL SUMMARY OF SCIENTIFIC AND 



open water was met with. Cape Nassau, on Nova Zembla, 

 was seen three days afterward ; and sailing along the coast 

 of that island they reached Vardo on the 30th of September, 

 meeting at Hammerfest the English schooner Diana, which 

 was about starting out in search of them. 



As incidentally connected with the subject of arctic ex- 

 ploration for the year, we may refer to the Dundee whaling 

 fleet in Baffin's Bay. The operations of these vessels, about 

 ten in number, were very successful, each one bringing home 

 on an average one hundred and thirty tons of the oil. One 

 of these, however, the Arctic, under command of Captain 

 Adams, was wrecked on her voyage. This fact has peculiar 

 interest to Americans, as it was to this vessel that a portion 

 of the Polaris crew were transferred after their rescue by 

 the Mavenscraig, and brought to Dundee. She had previ- 

 ously made eight remunerative voyages, and had paid the 

 cost of her construction manv times over. She was crushed 

 by the ice near Cape Garry, and became a total loss, having 

 first taken fire, and then gone down stern foremost. Captain 

 Adams and his fifty-four men, although exposed to severe 

 hardships, were rescued and brought safely home on the 

 other vessels of the fleet. 



The safe return of the Tegethoff party has apparently 

 stimulated the Austrian government to new efforts, and it is 

 announced that there will probably be two expeditions sent 

 out from that country during the coming season ; one to 

 make a renewed effort to penetrate the North between Spitz- 

 bergen and Greenland, and the other to move either by way 

 of Smith's Sound or through Behrinofs Strait. 



We have already referred to the proposed action of the 

 British government, and it is much to be desired that the 

 United States may not be behindhand in the generous ri- 

 valry for the satisfactory solution of the various problems 

 in regard to the arctic land. It has been suo-o-ested, if 

 the Smith's Sound route be sufficiently provided for by the 

 European parties, that an expedition be fitted out at some 

 point on our west coast to proceed as early as June, by steam- 

 er, to the North. Such a vessel as the Coast Survey steamer 

 Sassier could, it is thought, be readily adapted for this pur- 

 pose. A special encouragement to such a suggestion is to 

 be found in the fact that the seas north of Behring's Strait 



