328 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Arctic Ocean, Captain Hall, in company with Dr. Bessels, starting 

 from Newfoundland on the 29th of June, on the ship Polaris, shaped 

 his course toward Smith's Strait, discovered by Kane seventeen years 

 before, and at the end of August landed on Grinnell Land, in 80 

 north latitude. lie ascended afterward to Kennedy's Channel, and 

 penetrated into a narrow sound for about 100 leagues, where no 

 mariner had ever ventured before. This passage was called Robe- 

 son, in honor of the Secretary of the Navy of the United States. 

 Captain Hall advanced by this new route, that probably ended in the 

 famous central arctic basin, as far as latitude 82 16', touching the ex- 

 treme point on the 3d of September. There he perceived on the north 

 a vast extent of open water that he called Lincoln Sea, and farther 

 on another ocean, or a bay, on the west of which the outlines of a 

 coast were delineated ; this country was named Grant Laud. Every- 

 where a fauna appeared similar to that of Greenland ; herds of musk- 

 oxen, white hares, and other polar animals, were seen, and they even 

 thought that traces of human beings were perceptible. The crew 

 was eager to make an opening through the iceberg ; but the sailing- 

 master of the exjjedition. Captain Buddington, would not permit the 

 attempt, and the Polaris returned to winter in Robeson's Channel, in 

 latitude a little above 81. The death of Captain Hall, occurring in 

 the month of November, put an end to every new endeavor to make 

 any further advance on the northern coast ; the winter was passed in 

 inaction, and when the warm breath of the following summer had put 

 the waters in motion, and delivei*ed the Polaris from the fetters that 

 bound her, the travelers hastened to descend to the south. The return 

 was not entirely unimpeded. The ship underwent a terrible pressure ; 

 a part of the men, separated by chance from their companions, took 

 refuge on an ice-floe, where they remained miserably stranded for 240 

 days. This ice-field, like the one that bore the waifs of the Hansa, 

 was constantly drifting toward the south, and visibly shrinking, until, 

 on the 30th of April, the shipwrecked sailors were seen by a passing 

 steamer. As to the rest of the crew of the Polaris, obliged to aban- 

 don the leaky ship, they wintered on Littleton Island, whence they 

 set out once more, on the following summer, in two boats procured from 

 a Scotch whaler. 



All these eventful voyages, so curious and exciting, are surpassed by 

 the recent exploit of the steamer Tegethoff, whose almost fabulous ex- 

 perience was only knoAvn in Europe during the month of last September. 

 Lieutenants Payer and Weyprecht, immediately after their return from 

 the expedition of 1871, were detailed to prepare a new one. Nothing 

 was neglected to give a character of unusual grandeur to this exclu- 

 sively Austro-Hungarian enterprise. Two eminent friends of science, 

 the Counts Wilczek and Zichy, lent to it their material and moral aid; 

 the Royal Geographical Society, in February, 1872, advised the forma- 

 tion of a special committee, including among its members the most 



