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GEOGRAPHICAL EXPLORATIONS AND DISCOVERIES IN 1872. 



1872, four public expeditions and nine or ten 

 private ones were fitted out for the polar re- 

 gions ; while one American expedition (Hall's) 

 was still in the field, and an English expedi- 

 tion is preparing for the spring of 1873. The 

 four public or Government expeditions were : 

 the Austro-Hungarian, under the command of 

 Captain Weyprecht and Lieutenant Payer, 

 already favorably known for their previous 

 experience. This was accompanied by an 

 Italian steamship, sent out by the Italian Gov- 

 ernment its destination was the north coast 

 of Novaya Zemlya, and thence, if they found an 

 open sea northward, to the pole ; the Swedish 

 expedition, under the direction of Prof. Nor- 

 denskiold, who, for the sixth time, has pene- 

 trated the frozen regions of the North. He 

 has two ships, one of them, however, rather a 

 tender than an exploring-vessel. He carries a 

 house of seven rooms, ample stores, and forty 

 or fifty reindeer, with the necessary provender, 

 and their Lapp drivers ; and, making his winter 

 quarters at Mossy Bay, in one of the Seven 

 Islands, north of Spitzbergen, proposes in the 

 winter and spring of 1873 to attempt a sledge- 

 journey toward the pole, probably by way of 

 the recently rediscovered Gillis Land which 

 stretches an unknown distance in that direc- 

 tion. The Russian Government sent out two 

 expeditions : one from Archangel toward the 

 northern coast of Novaya Zemlya, and thence 

 northward as far as possible ; the other from 

 the Yenisei River, which it was to descend, 

 and, circumnavigating the Novaya Zemlya 

 islands, sail northward to Gillis Land and re- 

 turn to Archangel. 



Of Captain C. F. Hall, the leader of our 

 American expedition in search of the north- 

 pole, who sailed from New York in July, 1871, 

 we have very little information, and that lit- 

 tle not very satisfactory. Before the Polaris 

 reached Upernavik, on the Greenland coast, 

 there had been a disagreement between Cap- 

 tain Hall and a portion of the scientific staff, 

 which led to their leaving the expedition. 

 Captain Hall proceeded on his way, however, 

 and was heard from, at Tossac or Tussu-issac 

 Island, a short distance above Upernavik, being 

 the last Danish station on the coast, on the 

 24th of August, 1871, when he was just de- 

 parting for the northern regions, with very 

 high hopes of the future. Dr. Emil Bessels, a 

 German scientist, who remained with him, 

 wrote at the same time to Dr. Petermann, at 

 Gotha, saying that they had taken on board 

 Hans Heindriek, an Esquimaux, who had ac- 

 companied Kane and Hayes, but had deserted 

 the latter very shamefully. He seems to have 

 been one of the savages whom partial civiliza- 

 tion had spoiled. From this time, now about 

 nineteen months, we have had no certain in- 

 formation of Hall's expedition. The winter 

 of 1872-'73 has been one of such exceptional 

 severity in the arctic regions that serious 

 apprehensions have been entertained of the 

 fate of the Polaris. Meanwhile, although we 



have no definite intelligence of the success 

 or failure of the European government ex- 

 peditions, private explorers have made some 

 discoveries and attained to some successes 

 which have given new encouragement to 

 the advocates of polar expeditions by way 

 of Spitzbergen and Novaya Zemlya. In the 

 summer and autumn of 1871, a Norwegian 

 whaling-captain, Elling Carlsen, succeeded in 

 circumnavigating Novaya Zemlya and an- 

 chored in Ice-haven (N. lat. about 75 40', 

 E. long, about 68 10'), on the southern, or, 

 rather, southeastern shore of the easternmost 

 of the large islands composing Novaya Zera- 

 lya, on September 7, 1871. Here he discov- 

 ered a house built of ship's timbers, stand- 

 ing at the head of the bay, about 100 yards 

 from the water. It was 32 feet long by 20 

 broad, and proved to be the house erected by 

 the famous Dutch navigator Willem Barents, 

 who after two unsuccessful attempts to. reach 

 Cathay, or China, by a northeast passage, was 

 shipwrecked at this point on his third voyage, 

 and whose crew passed the winter of 1596-'97 

 in this house. Barents himself died in his 

 boat on June 19, 1596, but twelve of the sur- 

 vivors, after passing the winter in this place, 

 escaped and returned to Holland, and the sto- 

 ry of their hardships was recorded, and pub- 

 lished with rude woodcuts in Holland about 

 A. D. 1600. On landing and entering this 

 house, which had been for 275 years without 

 an inhabitant, Captain Carlsen found and 

 brought away numerous relics which fully 

 identified it as the home of Barents's crew. 

 These relics were purchased by the Govern- 

 ment of the Netherlands. 



A contribution to geographical science of 

 greater importance than this was made by 

 Captain Nils Jansen, a Norwegian whaling- 

 captain, who in a little twenty-six -ton vessel, 

 cruising to the east of Spitzbergen, in the sum- 

 mer of 1872, found the whole region free from 

 ice, and, running into one of the bays of King 

 Carl's Land, the situation of which has been so 

 frequently disputed and which was long con- 

 founded with Gillis or Gillies Land, went on 

 shore and ascended a mountain of consider- 

 able height, whence he saw the ocean lying to 

 the east and northeast as far as the eye could 

 reach, and entirely free from ice. Far to the 

 north-northwest was what seemed to be land, 

 supposed to be the real Gillies Land, the 

 shores of which no man has yet reached. 

 Captain Jansen anchored at first in lat. 79 8' 

 K, and long. 80 15' E. from Greenwich, and 

 subsequently sailed along the coast for two 

 days and a night, and only on the north coast 

 was there any ice. Some of his most impor- 

 tant discoveries relate to the flora and fauna 

 of these far northern lands; he saw birds, 

 seals, and large reindeer in abundance, but he 

 says nothing about whales. He also saw great 

 piles of driftwood along the shore, some of 

 them heaped twenty feet above high-water 

 mark ; a careful observation of this drift would 



