35 



fifteen years. The Auatrians also attempted it, and it was by them 

 (Weyprecht and Payer) that the meaning of the extraordinary fact 

 was first reasoned out. But when they attempted to take advantage 

 of it, the theory seemed to prove false : their ship, the " Tegetthoff," 

 was caught in the ice, and, fast held, was drifted wearily and help- 

 lessly to the till then unknown Franz Joseph Land, where, the 

 following summer, the ship was abandoned ; the party returning by 

 sledge and boat to Novaya Zemlya, when they were picked up 

 by some Eussian fishermen. All this was not very promising : 

 but more recent experiences have sho^^•n that the luck of the 

 "Tegetthoff" was exceptionally bad. In 1879, a small Dutch 

 sailing-vessel sighted Franz Joseph Land, and came back without 

 serious difficulty ; and again, this last year, Mr. Leigh Smith, a well- 

 known yachtsman, pushed to this land in a steam-yacht, the •■ Eira; " 

 examined the spot where the "Tegetthoff" was abandoned — all 

 trace of which had disappeared ; and coasting from there towards 

 the north and west, found that the land extended in that direction 

 to at least 43° e and 81" N. There seems no reasonable doubt that 

 this chain of islands extends to the Spitzbei-gen group on the west ; 

 how far to the north we do not know. But if the northern point 

 seen by Mr. Smith should be, as it appealed, the southern point of 

 land stretching away to the north, then, according to the received 

 canon of Arctic navigation, this land can be followed : it may be 

 difficult, but can scarcely be impossible. 



As to how far these islands extend to the east, we have no 

 knowledge ; but some years ago Professor Nordenskiold argued that 

 since the ice-fields of the Siberian Sea are driven backwards or 

 forwards by southerly or northerly winds, it would seem to be 

 probable that that sea is shut off from the Polar Sea by a chain of 

 islands, of which Wrangel Land and New Siberia may be part. 

 Whether this is so or not, we do not know ; any more than whether 

 on the west, the chain is continued to Greenland. If it is, it must 

 be in a very high latitude ; for, from Parry's farthest, in 82° 45' north 

 from Spitzbergen, no land was seen. Still, the late Sherard Osborn 

 used to argue that as nothing at all resembling the heavy ice found 

 by Mc Clure to the west of Banks Land, or since found by Nares to the 

 north of Robeson Channel, is found to the north of Iceland, in the sea 



