REGENT POLAR EXPLORATIONS. 331 



ice of the fiords. A strait, terminated by another land, laj' open be- 

 fore the eyes of the travelers, whose prolongation, inflected to the east, 

 could be followed even beyond the latitude of 83. They named it 

 Petermann's Land. What is, then, this new world that remains pro- 

 visionally the ultima Thule of navigators ? It is not, certainly, accord- 

 ing to the report of Mr. Payer, a mass of insignificant islands; it is 

 an entire regional system with a development comparable to the archi- 

 l^elago of Spitzbergen. Could it be the Land of Gillis, so much sought 

 for in these later times ? 



The explorers, on returning from this long excursion, having had 

 the good fortune to find their ship immovable in the same place, set 

 out very soon for a third tour in a western direction. When fourteen 

 miles fi'om the Tegethofi*, they made the ascent of a high mountain, 

 from tlie top of which they could trace the general configuration of 

 the country ; the most elevated summit was 5,000 feet high. Finally, 

 the moment came for thinking of a return home. On the 20th of 

 May, 1874, they put themselves en route^ but they were obliged to 

 abandon the ship. All the members of the expedition were safe and 

 sound, the mechanician alone having died. During ninety days, by 

 the aid of sledges and boats, sometimes on the ice, sometimes on the 

 open sea, the glorious Austrian pioneers wandered in these unknown 

 regions, following always the direction of the compass to the south. 

 In the beginning, the winds thwarted their progress to such a degree 

 that after two whole months they were only eight marine miles distant 

 from the ship. Their provisions also were nearly exhausted, when, on 

 the 18th of August, they reached Nova Zembla. Six days after they 

 embarked on the Russian steamer Nicholas, which carried them to 

 Warsoe. 



If the vicissitudes endured by this memorable expedition, the of- 

 ficial report of which has not yet reached us, give the measure of the 

 difiiculties experienced in following in these regions a jDreconcerted 

 plan, they show also that with coolness and constancy the resistance 

 of polar chaos may be overcome. A day will come, doubtless, when 

 the conditions of arctic life will be in some measure familiar to us, and 

 the navigator will face less timidly its sombre horrors. Already he 

 has succeeded in discovering his way through good and bad fortune 

 into the variable windings of the great labyrinth ; he has sounded the 

 depths, studied the currents and counter-currents ; he knows at what 

 season such a channel is obstructed or free, and what routes the ice- 

 fields driven to the south follow in their regular migrations. The 

 principal features of this exceptional geography are, then, partially 

 established ; the essential point is, that the succession of polar voyages 

 shall be no more interrupted. Too long have arctic explorations been 

 made in a desultory and capricious fashion ; audacity and courage 

 have been lavishly used, but consecutive acti'on has been wanting. 

 Experiments, in order to acquire their full scientific value, must be 



