1 66 PLEASANT WAYS IN SCIENCE. 



the ice-field was driven hither and thither by the winds, 

 until they found themselves, on the last day of August, 1873, 

 only 6' or about seven miles south of the 8oth parallel of lati- 

 tude. Only fourteen miles from them, on the north, they saw 

 "a mass of mountainous land, with numerous glaciers." They 

 could not reach it until the end of October, however, and then 

 they had to house themselves in preparation for the long 

 winter night This land they called Francis Joseph Land. 

 It lies north of Novaia Zemlia, and on the Polar side of the 

 8oth parallel of latitude. The winter was stormy and bitterly 

 cold, the thermometer descending on one occasion to 72 

 below zero very nearly as low as during the greatest cold 

 experienced by Nares's party. In February, 1874, "the 

 sun having reappeared, Lieutenant Payer began to prepare 

 sledge excursions to ascertain the configuration of the land. 

 ... In the second excursion the voyagers entered Austria 

 Sound, which bounds Francis Joseph Island on the east and 

 north, and found themselves, after emerging from it, in the 

 midst of a large basin, surrounded by several large islands 

 The extreme northern point reached by the expedition wa r 

 a cape on one of these islands, which they named Prince 

 Rodolph's Land, calling the point Cape Fligely. It lies 

 a little beyond the 8ist parallel They saw land further 

 north beyond the 83rd degree of latitude, and named it 

 Petermann's Land. The archipelago thus discovered is 

 comparable in extent to that of which Spitzbergen is the 

 chief island." The voyagers were compelled now to return, 

 as the firm ice did not extend further north. They had 

 a long, difficult, and dangerous journey southwards some- 

 times on open water, in small boats, sometimes on ice, with 

 sledges impeded part of the time by contrary winds, and 

 with starvation staring them in the face during the last 

 fortnight of their journey. Fortunately, they reached Novaia 

 Zemlia before their provisions quite failed them, and were 

 thence conveyed to Wardhoe by a Russian trading ship. 



We have now only to consider the attempts which have 

 been made to approach the North Pole by the American 



