200 Col. H. W. Friklen on a 



Porsangerfjord, and a visit to the island of Stove Tamso, with 

 its wealth and variety of bird-life^ only require a passing 

 notice, as Mr. H. J. Pearson and Mr. E. Bid well have lately 

 published in these pages their experiences in this part of 

 Arctic Norway*. 



At Vardo the little ' Saxon ' was filled up with fuel to her 

 utmost capacity, every available portion of her deck, as well, 

 being piled up with sacks of coal. Leaving Vardo on June 

 ]4th, the course was laid for Nameless Bay, in the north- 

 M'est of the south island of Novaya Zemlya. A careful 

 study of the voyages of Lamont, Leigh-Smithy Markham, 

 Gore-Booth, Nordenskjold, Payer, Wilczek, and others, 

 had led us to the conclusion that the most favourable line of 

 approach to Novaya Zemlya, at the comparatively early 

 season of the year we were attempting it, lay in this direc- 

 tion. We were in hopes that the heavy polar pack that 

 stretches in a curve from the south-east of Spitsbergen to 

 the western shores of Novaya Zemlya, might in June find its 

 southern limit about the latitude of Matyushin Schar, the 

 strait which divides the two islands of Novaya Zemlya. At 

 the same time the ice which forms during winter in the great 

 bight of Barents Sea — lying between Cape Kanin, Kolguev 

 Island, and Goose-land of Novaya Zemlya — might then 

 be disrupted and moving westward, and a comparatively 

 clear lead would probably be found about the parallels of 

 72° and 73° N., between the northern and southern packs. 

 This was the experience of Admiral Markham and Sir Henry 

 Gore-Booth in 1879, who, in the little sailing craft 'Isbjorn,^ 

 anchored in Nameless Bay on the 12th of June, without 

 encountering exceptional difficulties from ice. 



Two days after leaving Vardo, on the evening of June ] 6th, 

 we passed through a good deal of loose ice, and at midnight 

 were brought up by heavy pack, which extended north- 

 west, north, and east without a break, and no sign of a water- 

 cloud. Towards those points of the compass an ominous 

 yellow ice-blink hung over the vast ice-fields. We were 

 then in 72° N. lat. and 45° E. long., Goose-land, the nearest 

 * ' Ibis/ 1894, pp. 226-238. 



f 



