GEOGEAPHIOAL EXPLOEATIONS AND DISCOVERIES IN 1869. 



289 



boundary receded westward to about 12 west 

 from Greenwich, but in latitude 73 15' he was 

 again forced eastward by it. Eunning north, 

 he succeeded in reaching, in June, latitude 79, 

 very near the meridian of Greenwich, and hav- 

 ing taken what observations he could, and 

 finding no prospect of attaining a higher lati- 

 tude, the physicist of the expedition, Dr. Dorst, 

 reluctantly turned his face homeward, finding 

 the open-water channel comparatively free from 

 ice, at about 17 30' west longitude, after the 

 17th of August. 



M. Eosenthal's other screw-steamer, the 

 Albert, a vessel of 700 tons, and 420 horse- 

 power, was commanded by Captain Hashagen, 

 and provisioned for fifteen months. Its crew 

 numbered fifty-four persons, including a scien- 

 tific corps under Dr. Emil Bessels, an eminent 

 Heidelberg professor. This steamer sailed 

 from Bremerhaven, May 23d, having for its 

 destination the north of Spitzbergen, Gillis- 

 land, the sea between Spitzbergen and Nova 

 Zembla, and the attainment of as high a lati- 

 tude as possible. It returned to Bremerhaven 

 on the 22d of September, being absent but 

 four months. Like their predecessors, they 

 found the ice-border stretching eastward all 

 through the summer months ; but on the 20th 

 of June attained to latitude 80 14' north, in 

 longitude 9 52' east from Greenwich, north- 

 west of the Island of West Spitzbergen. All 

 their efforts to pass the northern shore of the 

 island or the northeast land proved unavail- 

 ing ; and though they ran southward as far as 

 70 30' south of South Cape, and then re- 

 turned in July northward, they were unable 

 to go above 80 5' north latitude, and, finding 

 all advance in that direction blocked, again 

 turned southward, and, passing below the Spitz- 

 bergen Islands, ran east along the ice-border, 

 past Hope Island toward Cape Nassau, the 

 northernmost point of Nova Zembla. This is 

 in latitude 76 50' and longitude 56 east of 

 Greenwich. After taking careful observations 

 in the vicinity of the cape, and securing what 

 seals and other furs they could, they left the 

 Siberian Sea on the 22d of August. 



Another expedition, the result of private 

 enterprise, was that of J. Lament, Esq., M. P. 

 for Buteshire, who fitted up his own steam- 

 yacht at an expense of between $40,000 and 

 $50,000 for an exploring expedition in the 

 region north of Nova Zembla, and sailed from 

 the Caledonian Canal the last of April, 1869, 

 reaching Tromso, Norway, about May 1st. His 

 yacht was of 250 tons' burden, rigged as a 

 three-masted schooner, strong and moderately 

 fast. Mr. Lament, and his surgeon as well as 

 five or six of his crew, had had large experi- 

 ence in Arctic exploration. He returned to 

 Dundee on the 6th of October, having reached 

 Nova Zembla the last of May, and, like all the 

 other explorers, having been prevented from 

 attaining a very high latitude by the unusual 

 accumulation of thick, heavy ice. He did suc- 

 ceed, however, in going to the 80th parallel, 

 VOL. ix. 19. A 



which is higher than any other explorer had 

 gone in the longitude of Nova Zembla. He 

 had been more successful in his pursuit of furs 

 and oil than most of the others, bringing homo 

 a cargo which would go far toward paying ex- 

 penses. 



Another exploring enterprise, known as the 

 Palliser expedition, the leader being an English 

 gentleman, Captain Palliser, who had spent 

 three months on Spitzbergen, in hunting, in 

 1868, sailed from Vadso, Norway, in June, 

 with a Norwegian commander and crew, in- 

 tending to pass northward along Gillis-land, 

 between Spitzbergen and Nova Zembla. No 

 news has been received from this expedition. 

 It must have encountered the same difficulties 

 with the ice as the others. 



Aside from this long list of exploring expe- 

 ditions, there were two others belonging to the 

 year, and sent out by a nation which has done 

 much for geographical science. One was that 

 of the Eussian merchant, Sidoroff, who, having 

 obtained from his Government a twenty years' 

 monopoly of the trade of the Obi and Yenisei 

 Eivers, proposed to mingle science and trade, 

 and sailed from Stockholm in a large screw- 

 steamer on the 17th of June, with a Norwegian 

 crew, for the mouth of the Obi, taking with 

 him a small scientific corps. He had arrived 

 at his destination in September, and was busily 

 exploring the lower portions of that river, or 

 rather, its estuary. Mr. Sidoroff has no special 

 ambition to reach the North Pole, but he may 

 do good service to geographical science by the 

 investigation of the almost unknown rivers 

 which discharge their waters into the Polar 

 Sea. 



A land expedition for the exploration of the 

 northeastern portion of Siberia and its coasts 

 bordering on the tolar Sea, the land of the 

 Tchuktches, a branch of the Esquimaux race, 

 has been for some years in progress under the 

 direction of Baron Maidel and the patronage 

 of the Eussian Geographical Society. The 

 baron commenced his labors in 1866, and has 

 been prosecuting them steadily ever since. His 

 party wintered at Nijne Kolymsk Fort, latitude 

 69, longitude 159 east from Greenwich, in 

 1868-'69, and during the spring, summer, and 

 autumn of 1869 were engaged in exploring the 

 valleys of the Anyui and Anadyr Eivers, and 

 the coast eastward to Behring's Straits. For 

 the spring of 1870 they were preparing to 

 move westward and explore the valley of the 

 Lazeya and the mountains adjacent, making 

 their headquarters at the fort of Sredne Ko- 

 lymsk, latitude 68* north and longitude about 

 east 153 of Greenwich, and terminating their 

 explorations in August, 1870. 



Mr. Eobert Brown, an English naturalist, who 

 was one of a party of explorers in Greenland and 

 northwestern America, in 1866-1868, has fur- 

 nished to the Zoological Society of London sev- 

 eral papers on the fauna of Greenland. He 

 enumerates 30 species of mammals which he had 

 found there. Of these 2 16 belonged to the whale 



