534 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 



tian's Land * and had no information other than what is recorded, 

 King Christian's Land should have appeared on the chart merely 

 with its north coast dotted in, somewhat as Osbcrn had dotted in 

 the south coast of Findlay Land. There would then have inter- 

 vened between the north coast of Isachsen's discovery and the 

 south coast of Osbom's a blank area of more than seventy miles. 

 But our Admiralty chart, presumably copied from the map pub- 

 lished with Sverdrup's "New Land," showed the coast detail and 

 topographic shading as indicated in the photograph (see page 532) . 

 This we took to mean that the land had been carefully examined, 

 which led to the reasonable assumption that King Christian's 

 Land of Isachsen must be taken as one with Findlay Land of 

 Osborn. 



We had no doubt that this was all correct, especially as Mac- 

 Millan's record said he was returning from "Findlay Land (King 

 Christian Island)." 



It seemed probable that the point on which MacMillan had 

 erected his cairn was what Isachsen intended for Cape Nathorst. 

 We could see land to the west and southwest, but according to 

 the chart it ought to extend farther than we could see and we as- 

 sumed that it was low and below the horizon because of distance. 



While at the cairn we found another bear skeleton, and on leav- 

 ing discovered a third. Evidently MacMillan had had great luck 

 with bears. The leg bones of all the skeletons were missing. 



On leaving MacMillan's cairn, or Isachsen's Cape Nathorst, 

 we were compelled to go some distance east before we could cross 

 a lead that ran either towards Amund Ringnes Island or North 

 Cornwall. We might have tried to travel southwest so as to strike 

 King Christian's Island (according to the map) at the nearest 

 point. But the direction of various leads that were difficult to 

 cross made our course more southerly, so that for the first ten or 

 twelve miles our average course was somewhere between southwest 

 and south from Cape Nathorst. The weather was thick most of 

 the time but by the map we were headed just right, for what we 

 wanted to do was to pick up the coastline where the detail put 

 down by Isachsen meets the hypothetical dotted line connecting 

 King Christian's Land with Findlay Land. But when on the third 

 day the leads invited, we traveled in a direction between west and 

 southwest a distance of thirteen miles. Now we began to be puzzled, 



* Since the above was written I have learned through a letter from Captain 

 Isachsen that he did not visit King Christian's Island, but merely saw it 

 from afar — from Ellef Ringnes Island. 



