March, iSgy. CORRESPONDENCE. 215 



discovery, we turn to the map only to recognise in the ' newly-found cape ' our old 

 friend Cape Lofley." This is a statement, I submit, absolutely unwarranted by the 

 facts. The map made by Jackson and Armitage clearly accounts for the cape which 

 Mr. Benjamin Leigh Smith saw in 1880 beyond C. Ludlow, and called C. Lofley; 

 and it also accounts for the land which Mr. Smith saw in 1881 and laid down as 

 connecting them. Jackson and his colleagues travelled close under the coast the 

 whole way ; they ascended, for the first time, nearly all the capes and elevations on 

 the route, and made observations and took bearings from them. And then, on 

 rounding C. Lofley — which was unmistakeable — they opened up, for the first time, a 

 third cape, and this cape is C. Mary Harmsworth. You say that Jackson has 

 removed Mr. Smith's C. Lofley to "an insignificant point," and that C. Mary 

 Harmsworth is Mr. Smith's C. Lofley. My reply to this is that there is no insignifi- 

 cant point on that line of coast which could possibly be mistaken for a cape, and 

 that C. Lofley and the intermediate stages were all and successively identified before 

 reaching C. Mary Harmsworth. 



(4.) Then you give what you call " another instance of the Jackson-Harms- 

 worthian method of treating the names of their predecessors " ; and state that Jackson 

 has re-named Payer's Markham Sound as the British Channel — adding that Mr. B. L. 

 Smith "accepted the name and mapped the south-western end of the sound." My 

 reply is that Mr. Smith acted rightly in accepting the name, because we now know 

 that he never entered Markham Sound or mapped its south-western end. Jackson, 

 however, has discovered in the British Channel a wide sound — another and more 

 important " Austria Sound "-^to the west of Markham Sound, and to the west, even, 

 of Payer's Zichy Land. A knowledge of Payer's map might have saved Jackson's 

 nameless critic from this error. For in Payer's map Markham Sound washes the 

 north of McClintock Island, and this is precisely what Markham Sound still does in 

 Jackson's map. Payer's south-west prolongation of the Sound was guess-work : 

 Jackson's actual survey cuts that prolongation short with a chain of islands. And 

 so little is the British Channel identical with Markham Sound that it is nowhere 

 near McClintock Island, but far away to the west of the Sound, and even west of 

 Payer's Zichy Land. 



(5.) Again, you write : " Mr. Jackson's detailed map of the southern coast of 

 Alexandra Land will doubtless be of great value when this part of the world is 

 divided into building lots." If this is the opinion of Natural Science on the im- 

 portance of accurate and detailed mapping, I may pass on, merely quoting the opinion 

 expressed by Sir Clements Markham (whose name, by the way. Natural Scienxe 

 misspells) on the same point : — " Such a survey will be a most useful and valuable 

 contribution to geography — its value, indeed, can hardly be exaggerated." 



(6.) In citing one of my quotations from Mr. Jackson's letter, you print it thus : 

 " At his [Nansen's] winter hut, he believed himself near C. Lofley, and that the land 

 to the westward, which we had discovered (!), was Spitzbergen." What, may I ask, 

 is the object of this interpolated (!) ? The land Nansen saw to the westward was 

 the land marked 21, Island 10, and Island 11 on Jackson's map. Your note of 

 exclamation would seem to express doubt or affect surprise at Jackson having 

 discovered this land. It is, however, perfectly certain that he was the first to 

 discover (in 1895) that and all the adjacent land, including the island on which 

 Nansen subsequently wintered. This is beyond all doubt, and your insertion of the 

 note of exclamation is merely offensive. 



(7.) You appear unable to understand the generous feelings expressed by Jackson 

 for Nansen, and his request that Nansen should name the island and locality where 

 he wintered you describe as his "gracious permission to re-name an already named 

 island "—Karl Alexander Land. Here, again, you are wrong, and, as you appear to 

 base your opinion on the map in the Geographical Journal, December, i8g6, I may 

 inform you that I requested the Society's cartographer to insert Payer's map in 

 lighter colours, in its proper place to the east of Jackson's field of work, and without 

 attempting to correct, at the points of contact, the obvious discrepancies. Inference 

 from the areas in contact is consequently useless, unless guided by knowledge ; and 

 Karl Alexander Land is 7iot identical with the island on which Nansen wintered. 

 Jackson knew this and Nansen knew this, as the former proved by asking Nansen to 



