42 NEW LAND. 



There were numbers of bearded seals on the ice. Never had 

 we seen them lying so close together as they were that day. 

 Apparently they were asleep, but it was only dog-sleep ; every 

 now and then they looked up and moved a little, but it would not 

 have taken much to arouse their attention. 



We did not wish to leave this place before we had taken 

 observations for longitude and latitude, and therefore lay-to till 

 a little past noon on August 11. Baumann and Isachsen went 

 ashore, determined their position, and measured some angles 

 between the different points and headlands. 



Simmons and Schei made a short excursion to a narrow tongue 

 of land between the fjord-arms ' Sandspollen ' and 'Eidsbotn.'* 

 This strip of land was very barren, and had extremely little to 

 offer in the way of vegetation ; but both found things of interest. 

 The country was of no height to speak of either south or west. 

 Large stretches of sand extended for long distances. Directly 

 after dinner we steamed out again. 



The pack to the south of us had by this time begun to move 

 somewhat more to the north, and in places the channel between 

 it and the land was rather narrow. Outside some of the sands, 

 which ran out for a great distance, we just floated and no more, as 

 far as I could make out ; but farther east we had a better land- 

 channel. On the east side of Cape Vera were a number of 

 grounded hummocks and small bergs. Very large they were not, 

 but they touched the bottom for a distance of half a mile to a mile 

 from land. On nearing Cape Vera we entered a violent cross- 

 current, with the result that we as good as made no way at all. 



The aforesaid headland is very high and steep ; beneath its 

 cliffs a narrow strip of shore, perhaps a hundred yards in width, 

 extends towards the sea. The country was free of snow ; and 

 great numbers of fulmars were sitting on their nests high up in 

 the rocks. 



But what was that lying up on land close under the steep 



* Some readers will know, though others may not, that the above are common 

 terminations in Norwegian place-names, a pol being a small bay or rounded creek ; 

 eid, indifferently an isthmus, or a low neck of land extending from shore to shore 

 through otherwise mountainous country, as, for instance, between two fjords ; while 

 botn is best described as a cirque. 



