RECENT POLAR EXPLORATIONS. 323 



means the commonly-received belief was corrected, wliicli represented 

 as narrow and of little dej)th this basin, into whicli, by two neighbor- 

 ing estuaries, are poured the congealed masses of the Obi and Yenisei, 

 as if it were the great ice-house of the north-pole. 



The most important event of the year 1869, in the order of facts, 

 was the second German expedition, which departed in June from 

 Bremerhaven. This expedition, fitted out at great expense through 

 the zeal of numerous committees, was composed of two ships, the 

 screw-steamer Germania, seasoned already by a preceding exploration, 

 and the sailing escort Hansa. Captain Koldewey, tlie commander- 

 in-chief, was assisted by the Austrian Lieutenant Julius Payer, and 

 several scientists. The instruction given to the voyagers, by the Cen- 

 tral Committee of Bremen, marked out for them the eastern coast of 

 Greenland as the principal base of operations, and the object to be 

 accomplished was to study it scientifically, and to examine it in all its 

 details. These labors completed, Mr. Koldewey and his companions 

 would, if circumstances were favorable, direct their course as far as 

 possible toward the pole ; but, in any event, the extreme date of re- 

 turn was fixed upon the first of November of the following year. The 

 two sliips kept company, through good and evil fortune, as far as the 

 seventy-fourth degree of latitude ; there, a fatal error, a signal of the 

 Germania incorrectly interpreted on board the sailing-vessel, sepa- 

 rated the two ships forever. The Hansa, not having at command the 

 resources of steam, was soon invested by the ice, about forty miles 

 from the coast, and, after having, in this j)Osition, drifted considerably 

 to the south, broke to pieces under the pressure of the ice-blocks that 

 surrounded her. The crew sought safety upon an immense piece of 

 floating ice, where they built of coal a Avinter hut that was destroyed 

 in its turn. This new species of raft, which was at first seven miles 

 in circumference, broke up or gradually melted during a perilous and 

 capricious drift of six months, a part of the time in the darkness of a 

 polar night, until at last the hour came when the unfortunate sailors 

 measured only with anxiety the surface of their fragile domain. Hap- 

 pily, the current had carried them insensibly to more hospitable lati- 

 tudes, and, as they had saved their boats, they seized the first occasion 

 to Set them afloat. Finally, by force of sail, towing, and transship- 

 ment, they reached Friedrichsthal, a missionary station situated at 

 the southern point of Greenland, then Lichtenau, and Julianshaab, 

 where they found a steamer that landed them at Copenhagen on the 

 first of September. 



The Germania, more favored, had meantime the glory of accom- 

 plishing to the letter the very precise instructions of the committee of 

 Bremen. The history of the voyage, filling four large volumes, de- 

 serves the closest attention, and will remain, until new discoveries are 

 made, the indispensable manual of the navigator in the eastern part 

 of Greenland. The difficulty of gaining access to these coasts, situ- 



