PROMOTION OF ARCTIC AND ANTARCTIC DISCOVERY. 325 



tific work, and to make imj)ortant discoveries. Of that we may be 

 quite confident; and I am glad to think that Nansen concurs in the 

 maxim of our council, that the priucii)al aim of Arctic voyages should 

 be to explore the unknown regions, and not merely to reach the Pole. 

 Lieutenant Weyprecht writes even more strongly. "The key to many 

 secrets of nature," he says, "the search for which has now been carried 

 on for centuries, is certainly to be sought for near the poles. But as 

 long as polar expeditions are looked upon merely as a sort of interna- 

 tional steeplechase, and their main object is to exceed by a few miles 

 the latitude reached by a predecessor, those mysteries will remain 

 unsolved." 



The scene of Weyprecht's scientific observations, and of Payer's 

 interesting and ably conducted sledge Journey, was Franz Josef Land, 

 which is certainly the most i^romising starting point for further discov- 

 ery. This land, discovered by the Austrian expedition in 1872, consists 

 of an archipelago, the southern shores of which are as far north as 80°, 

 while the most northern land seen is in 83°. It will be remembered 

 that Franz Josef Land consists, besides smaller islands, of two masses 

 of land of sufficient extent to bear discharging glaciers sending forth 

 flat-topped icebergs, which apparently drift northward. Between these 

 two masses, called Zichy and Wilczek lands, is the channel named 

 Austria Sound, which was explored for a considerable distance by 

 Payer in the months of March and April, by means of sledges drawn 

 by men, assisted by three dogs. All the low islands, as well as the 

 main masses of laud, were found to be covered by glacial caps. The 

 remarkable fact connected with this journey is that from Payer's 

 farthest point in 82° 5' north a water sky made its appearance in the 

 north, the temperature rose, and the rocks were covered with thou- 

 sands of auks and guillemots. From a height Payer looked down 

 on a dark sheet of open water dotted with icebergs. On April 12 the 

 thermometer was at 54° F. These phenomena so early in the year are 

 most exceptional, aiul point to an abnormal condition of things, the 

 causes of which it would be of the utmost importance to discover. 

 Possibly they betoken the navigability of the Polar Sea in this direc- 

 tion at certain seasons, although it is true that Payer's open water 

 was only a "polynia," and was surrounded by old ice. In 1880 Mr. 

 Leigh Smith, in the Eira, reached the southern shore of Franz Josef 

 Land, and succeeded in rounding the western headland, whence the 

 land trended in a northwesterly direction. 



Judging from the birds and oi>en water in 82° north as early as the 

 month of April, and from the success of Mr. Leigh Smith's voyage in 

 1880, it was considered by all who were capable, from their Arctic experi- 

 ence, of forming a judgment that the proper way to explore the north- 

 ern part of the Franz Josef Archipelago would be by dispatching a 

 well-equipped vessel along the western coast. It was the maxim of 

 the Baffin Bay whalers to " stick to the land floe," and to this Sherard 



