THE NEW YEAR, i8g6 459 



lie, we had passed about 7° of longitude — that our obser- 

 vations proved conclusively. But if we were now in the 

 longitude of Cape Fligely these islands must lie on a 

 meridian so far east that it would fall between Kino- 

 Oscars Land and Crown Prince Rudolf Land ; and yet 

 we had been much farther east and had seen nothins: 

 of these lands. How was this to be explained } And, 

 furthermore, the land we saw had disappeared to the 

 southward ; and we saw no indication of islands farther 

 east. No, we could not have been near any known land ; 

 we must be upon some island lying farther west, in the 

 strait between Franz Josef Land and Spitzbergen ; and 

 we could not but think of the hitherto so enigmatic 

 Gillies Land. But this, too, seemed difficult to explain ; 

 for it was hard to understand how, in this comparatively 

 narrow strait, such an extensive mass of land as this 

 could find room without coming so near the Northeast 

 Land of .Spitzbergen that it could easily be seen from it. 

 No other conclusion, however seemed at all plausible. 

 We had long ago given up the idea that our watches 

 could be even approximately right ; for in that case, as 

 already mentioned, we must have come right across Payer's 

 Wilczek Land and Dove Glacier without having noticed 

 them. This theory was consequently excluded. There 

 were other things, too, that greatly puzzled me. If we 

 were on a new land, near Spitzbergen, why were the 

 rosy gulls never seen there, while we had found them in 

 flocks here to the north } And then there was the great 



