RECENT POLAR EXPLORATIONS. 329 



illustrious names of the Austrian aristocracy, and a considerable sum 

 of money was soon collected. The equipment of the mariners was 

 the object of careful solicitude ; they were so provided for that, with- 

 out dreading cold and snow, they might go away hundreds of miles 

 from the ship and be absent for months. The principal aim of the 

 expedition was to study the unknown regions of the Polar Sea north 

 of Siberia, and to see if it were possible to reach Behring Strait by 

 this route ; it was only as a secondary object, a kind of last resort, 

 that the expedition could direct its course toward extreme latitudes; 

 it was only permitted to venture in the direction of the pole if, in 

 the course of two winters and three summers, it did not succeed in 

 doubling the extreme promontory of Asia. The point of official de- 

 parture of the scientific excursion was the northern coast of Nova 

 Zembla. 



The TegethoiF, having on board twenty-four persons, set sail from 

 Tromsoe, Norway, on the 14th of July. Some days after a yacht 

 sailed from the same port with Count Wilczek on board, whose pur- 

 pose was to establish on an eastern point of the Arctic Ocean a depot 

 of coal and provisions for the TegethoiF. On the 21st of August, off 

 Cape Napan, between Nova Zembla and the mouth of the Petchora, 

 the yacht lost sight of the steamer. More than two years passed 

 before any news was received of the missing ship. Great was the 

 anxiety in Austria and in the whole civilized world ; heaven and earth 

 were moved to aid the navigators who had so strangely disappeared. 

 Count Wilczek had a quantity of small India-rubber balloons made, 

 which, supplied with dispatches, were distributed to the whalers sail- 

 ing for the northern seas, with directions to let them loose in the differ- 

 ent stations of these territories. The Geographical Society of London 

 gave an express mission to a ship bound for Spitzbergen, to inquire 

 everywhere for the Tegethoff. The Russian Minister of the Navy, 

 Mr. Siderof, instigated a public reunion for the purpose of sending a 

 salvage expedition upon the traces of the unfortunate steamer. 



Suddenly, on the 3d of last September, just at the epoch predicted 

 by Dr. Petermann, who had constantly maintained that news of the 

 explorers must not be expected before the autumn of 1874, a report 

 was spread abroad from Vienna that the lost sailors had just landed 

 in Europe. Some days after they made their entrance into the Aus- 

 trian capital, welcomed by enthusiastic cheers whose echoes are still 

 heard. The expedition, as often happens in these unconquerable polar 

 seas, was not able to follow the terms of the official instructions. The 

 Tegethoff, from the 21st of August, 1872, the same day when Count 

 Wilczek saw her for the last time, found herself irretrievably invested 

 by ice. In endeavoring to get free from this fatal imprisonment, the 

 crew and the ship remained the passive sport of chance; on the 13th 

 of October, the vessel received a thrust that lifted it up, and inflicted 

 upon it heavy bruises. Let any one judge how agitated and terrible 



