IN SEARCH OF THE EIRA. 149 



frequent, so that caution was necessary to avoid run- 

 ning into the pack again. On the afternoon of Sun- 

 day, July 16th, we were twenty miles west of Cape 

 Britwin, in Nova Zemla; and the weather still re- 

 maining thick, we lay to under steam waiting for a 

 chance to make the land. It seemed inclined to 

 clear off in the evening, when we just caught a 

 glimpse of a band of snow on the land, but the mists 

 then closed in again. On the afternoon of the next 

 day it became rather clearer, and we steamed towards 

 Moder Bay, and were able to make out the land 

 vaguely, and presently saw a schooner standing out, 

 which proved to be the Dutch surveying schooner 

 "\Villem Barents, with which Ave communicated by 

 boat. This schooner had also been trying to get to 

 an anchorage, and had stood in to 17 fathoms, which 

 must have been close to the land ; but not being able 

 to make out any signs of it, was now going north to 

 Matotchkin Sharr to try to get through into the Kara 

 Sea. They were three weeks out from Vardo in 

 Norway, whence they had tried to reach Bear Island, 

 but had been prevented by close pack-ice ; they then 

 tried to get round the south point of Nova Zemla, 

 and were again stopped .by the ice, being at one time 

 actually beset, and having to cut their way out with 

 considerable labour. The "Willem Barents is sent 

 annually to these seas by a Dutch scientific society, 

 for the purpose of taking deep-sea temperatures and 

 making general scientific observations, with a view to 



