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81 



THE AUSTRIAN ARCTIC EXPEDITION"- 



IN addition to the points referred to in our article of 

 last week, there are several others touched on in Lieut. 

 Payer's work, which, in view of some of the results of 

 our own expedition, it may not be unprofitable to dwell 

 upon. Indeed a comparison between the observations 

 and deductions of so keen and accomplished an observer 

 as Payer and those of Capt. Nares's party, when these 

 have been fully published, might, we think, lead to a dis- 

 tinct advance of our knowledge of the Arctic basin. And 

 here we may be allowed to say that when so experienced 

 and cautious an Arctic explorer as Payer expresses a 

 decided conviction, as we understand he has done, that 

 Capt. Nares acted in the only way possible under the cir- 

 cumstances, and no expedition could have been better 

 conducted, surely it is a strong proof that our expedition 

 was essentially successful. 



The translator in his Preliminary Notice refers to the ice- 

 experiences of the Austrian expedition as compared with 

 those of the English expedition, and finds in many points a 

 striking similarity between them. We have already referred 

 to the tedious journey of the Tes^etthojff party over the piled- 

 up ice after they abandoned the ship, when they were able 

 to make only nine miles in two months, suggesting in- 

 evitably the now well-known and ever-memorable experi- 

 ences of Capt. Markham and his party. To all appearance 

 this retreat of the Austrians was over a part of the same 

 field which held the Tegetthoff'va. its grip, and which those 

 on board saw in the very process of changing from a level 

 floe to mountains of "ice, as Payer calls them. It seems 

 to be inferred by som^ that the ice of such enormous 

 thickness met with by Markham was the result of the 

 freezing of layer on layer through a long succession of 

 years, since the last glacial epoch as it has been put — 

 only of course a violent figure of speech. This notion 

 we believe to be open to question. 



" The thickness which ice acquires in the course of a 

 winter," Payer says, in his instructive chapter on " The 

 Frozen Ocean," "when its formation is not disturbed, is 

 about eight feet. In the Gulf of Boothia, Sir John Ross 

 found the greatest thickness about the end of May ; it 

 was then 10 feet on the sea and 11 feet on the lakes. 

 In his winter harbour in Melville Island Parry met with 

 ice 7 or 7^ feet thick ; and Wrangel gives the thickness 

 of a floe on the Siberian coast, which had been formed 

 in the course of a winter, at 9^ feet. According to the 

 observations of Hayes the ice measured 9 feet 2 inches in 

 thickness in Port Foulke. He estimates it, however, by 

 implication, far higher in Smith's Sound : ' I have never 

 seen,' he says, 'an ice-table formed by direct freezing 

 which exceeded the depth of eighteen feet.' The rate at 

 which ice is formed decreases as the thickness of the floe 

 increases, and it cea?es to be formed as soon as the floe 

 becomes a non-conductor of the temperature of the air by 

 ithe increase of its mass, or when the driving of the ice- 

 tables one over the other, or the enormous and constantly 

 accumulating covering of snow places limits to the pene- 

 tration of the cold. While therefore the thickness which 

 ice in free formation attains is comparatively small, fields 

 of ice from 30 to 40 feet high are met with in the Arctic 

 Seas ; but these are the result of the forcing of ice-tables 

 one over the other by pressure, and are cesignatcd by 

 the name of 'old ice,' which differs ' from young ice by its 

 greater density, and has a still greater affinity with the 

 ice of the glacier when it exhibits coloured veins." 



It seems evident, then, that the palaeocrystic ice, like 

 the ice in which the Tegetthojff^ was beset, is not the result 

 of direct freezing of layer on layer, but to a great extent 

 the result of pressure, by which a wide field may be 

 broken up, and the pieces so piled over each other as to 



I " New Lands within the Arctic Circle. Narrative of the Discoveries of 

 the Austrian Ship Tegetthoff in the Years 1872-1874." By Julius Payer, one 

 of the Commanders of the Expedition. Maps and numerous Illustrations. 

 Two roU. (London : Macmillan and Co., 1876L) Continued from p. 65. 



form impassable mountains and valleys. How this is 

 accomplished may be learned from the impressive descrip- 

 tion of Lieut. Payer : — 



"A dreadful day was the 13th of October — a Sunday ; 

 it was decisive of the fate of the expedition. ... In the 

 morning of that day, as we sat at breakf ist, our floe burst 

 across immediately under the ship. Rushing on deck, 

 we discovered that we were surrounded and squeezed by 

 the ice ; the after part of the ship was already nipped and 

 pressed, and the rudder, which was the first to encounter 

 its assault, shook and groaned ; but as its great weight 

 did not admit of its being shipped, we were content to 

 lash it firmly. We next sprang on the ice, the tossing 

 tremulous motion of which literally filled the air with 

 noises as of shrieks and howls, and we quickly got on 

 board all the materials which were lying on the floe, and 

 bound the fissures of the ice hastily together by ice- 

 anchors and cables, fiUir g them up with snow, in the 

 hope that frost would complete our work, though we felt 

 that a single heave might shatter our labours. But, just 

 as in the risings of a people, the wave of revolt spreads 

 on every side, so now the ice uprose against us. Moun- 

 tains threateningly reared themselves from out the level 

 fields of ice and the low groan which issued from its 

 depths grew into a deep rumbling sound, and at last rose 

 into a furious howl as of myriads of voices. Noise and 

 confusion reigned supreme, and step by step destruction 

 drew nigh in the crashing together of the fields of ice. 

 Our floe was now crushed, and its blocks piled up into 

 mountains, drove hither and thither. Here they towered 

 fathoms high above the ship, and forced the protecting 

 timbers of m.assive oak, as if in mockery of their purpose, 

 against the hull of the vessel ; there masses of ice fell 

 down as into an abyss under the ship, to be engulfed in 

 the rushing waters, so that the quantity of ice beneath 

 the ship was continually increased, and at last it began 

 to raise her quite above the level of the sea." 



It can easily be imagined that were ice which had been 

 subjected to such a process to get jammed permanently 

 into any position, it would become a formidable barrier to 

 all passage over or beyond it. But the question arises — 

 Does such mountainous ice never break up ? Are these 

 areas in the Arctic basin eternally covered with such ice, 

 or is there a perpetual movement going on all over the 

 Polar region ? That the pateocrystic ice is not a fixture 

 in the position in which our expedition found it we 

 endeavoured to show in a previous article ; if the 

 observations of Hall and his party are to be trusted, 

 and we believe they are perfectly reliable, the southern 

 latitude of the formidable barrier must change con- 

 siderably. That there is an open Polar Sea we do 

 not think there is the least ground for believing. So far 

 as we have seen, its only serious advocate is Dr. Hayes, 

 one of its surviving " discoverers," and it is not to be at 

 all wondered at that he should cling fondly to his pet 

 theory. It is to be regretted that he did not wait for 

 Capt. Nares's report, ere he rushed to an attack of the 

 conduct and results of the English expedition ; he might 

 then have spoken more coolly and courteously. At Cape 

 Fligely Lieut. Payer came upon a large stretch of open 

 water which one less well-informed and with less of a 

 scientific training might at once have eagerly taken for 

 the border of an " open Polar Sea," Not so Lieut. Payer, 

 who has no faith in such a dream ; he took his open water 

 for what it undoubtedly was seen to be on careful inspec- 

 tion, a polynia, or water-hole. Here is his opinion on the 

 question. After referring to the experiences of previous 

 explorers he says : — 



" Those propitious ice-years amount, therefore, to no- 

 thing more than a greater recession of the outer ice-barrier 

 —trifling when compared with the mighty whole— or to an 

 increased navigability of certain coast waters, or to a local 

 loosening of the inner polar ice-net. In reality the whole 

 Arctic Sea, with its countless ice-fields and floes, and its 



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