1897. SOME NEW BOOKS. 273 



placed Andree Id. Nansen has shown Rainer Id. to consist of two 

 islands ; to the smaller westerly portion he gives the name of Leigh 

 Smith, to which no exception can be taken, but he alters Andree Id. 

 to Karl Alexander Land. Payer was never actually on the land 

 which he named Karl Alexander, so that its position on his chart is 

 only approximate ; it appears as a large mass of land between 56° and 

 58° E. longitude, and 81° 20' and 81° 30' N. This position is occupied 

 on Nansen's map by an irregularly shaped island called Frederick 

 Jackson Id. ; this then should be called Karl Alexander Land, and 

 south, not north, of it should be Back's Inlet. Between Back's Inlet 

 and Todesco Fjord comes the island that bears Capes McClintock and 

 Fisher. South of Todesco Fjord, which now proves to be a sound, lies 

 the land with Richthofen Peak, C. Fiume, and C. Triest. Lastly, 

 south of an easterly extension from the great Markham Sound, comes 

 the group of islands which Payer, standing on their eastern edge and 

 looking across their flat tops, lumped together as " Mac-Clintock 

 Island ? " Thus, and thus only it seems to us can one attain harmony 

 between the pioneer work of Payer and the more detailed work of 

 Leigh Smith, Jackson, and Nansen. Why should not harmony be 

 attained ? Why " ignore " Payer ? 



Next, as to the name Zichy Land. Payer's map shows us, on 

 the east Wilczek Land, on the west Zichy Land, and between the 

 two an archipelago. Standing on the high ground (over 2500 feet) 

 on the east shore of McClintock Island, he looked westward over 

 a number of islands, of which the most important are now dis- 

 tinguished as Brady, Hooker and Fridtjof Nansen, and naturally was 

 unable to see the narrow sounds between them. But west of all 

 these he saw a long and broad sound, running N.E. and S.W., and 

 beyond it the distinct coast-line of a land mass. The sound he called 

 Markham Sound ; the land he called Zichy Land. Leigh Smith, who 

 followed, recognised this, and in his second map (Proc. R. Geog. Soc. 

 1883, facing p. 248), the name Zichy Land is assigned to the land due 

 north of Northbrook, Bruce, Mabel, and Bell Islands. The land 

 further west of this was called by him Alexandra Land. It is the 

 land that bears, among other things, the Gratton Glacier, to which 

 Payer and Leigh Smith applied the name Zichy Land. But on 

 Nansen's map that name is removed from that land and stretched 

 over the chain of islands to which Payer most certainly did not apply 

 it. Similarly, in accordance with Mr. Jackson's views, the name 

 Markham Sound is restricted to the small easterly portion of the 

 original sound. 



Now we do not stand alone in holding these opinions ; but even 

 supposing that we are ultimately shown to be wrong, surely it would 

 have been better that Messrs. Jackson, Nansen, and Co., should have 

 waited until their survey was completed before peppering the country 

 with new names, so that they might have instituted a more exact com- 

 parison of their own maps with those of Payer and Leigh Smith, 

 taking into their councils those eminent explorers, who are happily 

 still with us. This would have been better than " to ignore or 

 condemn " them unheard. 



Just a word as to the translation. On the whole it is admirable, 

 so good indeed that some credit might have been given by the pub- 

 lishers where credit was due. Some thanks, we have heard, is 

 owing to our learned Ibsen-translator, Mr. William Archer. None 

 the less there are a few slips ; it is strange to read (ii, 605) of "10 

 prismer, or 330 grammes, of gun-cotton," as though " prism " was the 

 Norwegian for 33 grammes, and not a common English word. Then 



