204 THE VOYAGE OF THE VEGA. [chap. 



winterings — the first in 79° 53', that is to say, nearer the Pole 

 than any other has wintered in the old world, the second in 

 the neighbourhood of the Asiatic Pole of cold — I have seen that 

 the sea does not fi'eeze completely, even in the immediate 

 neighbourhood of land. From this I draw the conclusion that 

 the sea scarcely anywhere permanently ^ freezes over where it is 

 of any considerable depth, and far from land. If this be the 

 case, there is nothing unreasonable in the old accounts, and 

 what has happened once we may expect to happen another time. 



However this may be, it is certain that the ignominious 

 result of Wood's \oja,ge exerted so great a deterring influence 

 from all new undertakings in the same direction, that nearly 

 two hundred years elapsed before an expedition was again sent 

 out with the distinctly declared intention, which was afterwards 

 disavowed, of achieving a north-east passage. This was the 

 famous Austrian expedition of Payer and Weyprecht in 

 1872-74, which failed indeed in penetrating far to the east- 

 ward, but which in any case formed an epoch in the history of 

 Arctic exploration by the discovery of Franz- Josef's Land 

 and by many valuable researches on the natural conditions 

 of the Polar lands. Considered as a North-east voyage, this 

 expedition was the immediate predecessor of that of the Vega. 

 It is so well known through numerous works recently published, 

 and above all by Payer's spirited narrative, that I need not go 

 into further detail regarding it. 



But if the North-east voyages proper thus almost entirely 

 ceased during the long interval between Wood's and Payer's 

 voyages, a large number of other journeys for the purpose of 

 research and hunting were instead carried out during this 

 period, through which we obtained tlie first knowledge founded 



^ That tliin sheets of ice are formed in clear and cahu weather, even in 

 the open sea and over great depths, was observed several times during the 

 expedition of 1868. But when we consider that salt water has no 

 maximum of density situated above the freezing-point, that ice is a bad 

 conductor of heat, and that the clear, newly-formed ice is soon covered by 

 a layer of snow which hinders radiation, it appears to me to be improbable 

 that the ice-covering at deep, open places can become so thick that it is 

 not broken up even by a moderate storm. Even the shallow harbour at 

 Mussel Bay first froze permanently in the beginning of February, and in 

 the end of January the swell in the harbour was so heavy, that all the 

 three vessels of the Swedish Expedition were in danger of being wrecked 

 — in consequence of the tremendous sea in SO'^ N.L.in the end of January ! 

 The sea must then have been open very far to the north-west. On the 

 west coast of Spitzbergen the sea in winter is seldom completely frozen 

 within sight of land. Even at Barents' winter haven on the north-east 

 coast of Novaya Zemlya, the sea during the coldest season of the year was 

 often free of ice, and Hudson's statement, "that it is not surprising that 

 the navigator falls in with so much ice in the North Atlantic, when there 

 >ire so many sounds and bays on Spitzbergen," shows that even he did not 

 believe in any ice being formed in the open sea. 



