F. GEOGRAPHY. 117 



their showing a complete melting of the ice in the whole of 

 the Sea of Kara, and that the few floating cakes of winter ice 

 remaining in midsummer do not at all affect the navigabil- 

 ity, nor the successful pursuits of hunting and fishing. Sev- 

 eral maps accompanying the memoirs show the precise con- 

 dition of the temperature and other physical features of the 

 Kara Sea during the different months throughout the year. 

 17 C,Jove)nbe);1810, 105. 



EXPLORATION OP EASTERN ASIA. 



Yon Heuglin, the well-known explorer in Africa, has lately 

 been turning his attention to Arctic researches, and in the 

 summer of 1870, in company with Count Zeil, left Hamburg 

 on the 13th of June, and Tromso, in Norway, on the 3d of 

 July, for the purpose of examining the unknown region of 

 Eastern Spitzbergen. With a small boat of only thirty-one 

 tons, and manned by seven Norwegian sailors, they reached 

 the eastern coast of Spitzbergen, determined the position of 

 Gillis Land, and extended greatly our knowledge of the re- 

 gion from 77 to 79 north latitude. They passed through 

 the Walter Thymer Straits, which were at one time supposed 

 to be impassable, and made collections of various kinds, in- 

 cluding rocks and fossils, among which was a saurian eight- 

 een feet in length 17 (7, 1870, 306. 



RUSSIAN EXPLORATIONS. 



Preparations continue to be made on the part of the Rus- 

 sian government, assisted by its scientific men, for the great 

 polar expeditions of 1872 and 1873. Among the points to 

 which special attention is to be directed are, first, in the re- 

 gion to the west of Nova Zembla, the determination of the 

 cold and warm currents between the Murmanian coast and 

 Nova Zembla; second, to decide the southern limit of the 

 polar ice, and to take measurements of the deep seas; third, 

 to ascertain the extension of the Gulf Stream, and what be- 

 comes of it when it meets the polar ice; fourth, to learn es- 

 pecially the distribution of the Gulf Stream along the coast 

 of Nova Zembla; fifth, to fix accurately the extension of cer- 

 tain parts of the coast of Northwestern Nova Zembla. To 

 the east and northeast the points to be inquired into are, first, 

 the expansion of the Kara Sea, and all that portion of the sea 



