GEOGKAPHICAL PEOGRESS AND DISCOVERY. 



325 



was reported to have been of unprecedented 

 intensity, and was said to have been unusually 

 severe also at different points in Siberia. 



The system of international polar stations for 

 scientific observations, which has at last been 

 inaugurated, was the outcome of the Austrian 

 Arctic expedition, and was first proposed by 

 the late Lieutenant Karl Weyprecht, of the 

 Tegethoff. The plan was elaborated and the 

 way prepared for its realization at the Inter- 

 national Polar Conferences at Rome in 1878, 

 at Hamburg in 1879, and at Berne in 1880. 

 At the second of these conferences the repre- 

 sentatives of Russia promised that their gov- 

 ernment would establish two stations, one at 

 the mouth of the Lena and one on New Sibe- 

 ria Island ; Norway agreed to maintain one at 

 North Cape; Sweden one on Spitzbergen ; 

 Holland one at the mouth of the Gulf of Obi ; 

 Austria one on Nova Zembla ; and Denmark 

 one at Upernavik. The United States was ex- 

 pected to establish one at Point Barrow, and 

 perhaps another at some point in the North 

 American Archipelago ; and Germany was so- 

 licited to establish a station on Jan Mayen. 

 In 1880 Congress made an appropriation for 

 the establishment of a polar colony, which was 

 carried into effect in 1881. Lieutenant A. VV. 

 Greely, of the United Sates Army, was placed 

 in command of the expedition. The place se- 

 lected for the station was on Lady Franklin 

 Bay, at the point where the Nares expedition 

 had discovered a bed of coal. They were di- 

 rected to build houses and observatories, and 

 to remain until the summer of 1883. A sledge- 

 party was to visit the elevated land near Cape 

 Joseph Henry. Lieutenant Greely was quali- 

 fied for conducting the meteorological obser- 

 vations by twelve years' experience in the Sig- 

 nal Service. Lieutenants Frederick F. Kis- 

 lingbury and James B. Lockwood, his assist- 

 ants, are army officers used to frontier service 

 and privations. There were fifteen men se- 

 lected from different regiments of the army 

 and five subordinate officers of the Signal 

 Corps. It was intended to send a vessel with 

 supplies to the permanent colony in 1882 and 

 1833. The methods of taking and recording 

 meteorological, tidal, magnetic, pendulum, and 

 other observations, were settled upon at the 

 Hamburg Conference. The collection of spec- 

 imens of minerals, animals, and plants is to be 

 pursued with particular attention. The expe- 

 dition before ascending Smith Sound stopped 

 at various places to obtain Esquimau hunters, 

 dogs, Arctic clothing, and all the necessaries 

 for extended sledge-journeys. The party were 

 instructed to supplement their proper tasks 

 with sledging-excursions in search of traces of 

 the Jeannette, on the chance of her having 

 been driven upon the Parry Islands or into 

 their neighborhood. The party were con- 

 veyed up Smith Sound and landed at Lady 

 Franklin Bay, August llth. Dr. Pavy joined 

 them at Disco. 



Another international polar station has been 



established by the Government at Point Bar- 

 row, in Alaska. This expedition, commanded 

 by Lieutenant P. H. Ray, will remain out until 

 the summer of 1884. Lieutenant Ray has for 

 his assistants Dr. G. S. Oldmixon as surgeon ; 

 A. C. Dark, of the Coast Survey, as astron- 

 omer and observer of magnetic phenomena ; 

 Captain E. P. Herendeen as interpreter and 

 commissary officer ; and Sergeants J. Cassidy, 

 J. Murdoch, and M. Smith, of the Signal Ser- 

 vice Corps. The expedition sailed from San 

 Francisco, July 18th, in the schooner Golden 

 Fleece. The party will make natural history 

 collections, and survey the neighboring coun- 

 try, in addition to the meteorological, mag- 

 netic, and other investigations into the phys- 

 ical conditions of the frigid zone, in which the 

 regulations adopted at the Hamburg Confer- 

 ence will be followed. 



The third polar conference met at St. Peters- 

 burg, August 1, 1881. Assurances were given 

 of the establishment of the following observ- 

 ing-stations : one at Upernavik, on the part of 

 Denmark ; one at Bosskopen, in Finmark, by 

 Norway ; one on the Island of Jan Mayen, by 

 the Government of Austro-Hungary, to be di- 

 rected by Lieutenant Wohlgemuth, of the Aus- 

 trian Navy ; one, under the direction of Pilot 

 Jurgens, at the mouth of the Lena, and an- 

 other in Nova Zembla, by the Russian Gov- 

 ernment ; one on Mossel Bay, in Spitzbergen, 

 by Sweden, placed in charge of Captain Malm- 

 berg ; and the two United States stations on 

 Lady Franklin Bay and at Point Barrow. Be- 

 sides the above, a station will probably be es- 

 tablished by England at some point in British 

 North America, and one by France at Cape 

 Horn. 



Leigh Smith sailed in his yacht, the Eira, in 

 the early summer, bound for Franz- Josef Land, 

 where he purposed continuing his explorations. 

 On the 8th of July the Eira was seen off the 

 west coast of Nova Zembla steering north, 

 from which date up to the end of the year 

 nothing further was heard from her, although 

 her master had made no provision for wintering 

 in the north. Leigh Smith has won the name 

 of a courageous Arctic voyager. His most 

 useful contribution to geographical knowledge 

 was the tracing of a long strip of the unknown 

 coast-line of Franz- Josef Land. The Eira is a 

 steam-yacht of 3liO tons burden which he had 

 built expressly for Arctic cruising. He was ac- 

 companied on his present voyage by Dr. Neale, 

 surgeon, and a crew of twenty-three men. All 

 of Leigh Smith's five or six expeditions into 

 the Arctic regions have been conducted en- 

 tirely at his own expense. His exploration of 

 110 miles of new coast-line in Franz-Josef 

 Land was the most important discovery re- 

 cently achieved by private enterprise alone. 



The conclusion reached by W. H. Dall, of 

 the United States Coast Survey, in his long and 

 careful investigation on board the Yukon of 

 the hydrographic conditions of Behring Strait, 

 is that the current flowing in from the Pacific 



