12 FARTHEST NORTH 



of the Austro- Hungarian expedition under Weyprecht 

 and Payer (1S72-74) was to seek for the Northeast 

 Passage ; but at its first meetins^ with the ice it was 

 set fast off the north point of Novaya Zemlya, drifted 

 northward, and discovered Franz Josef Land, whence 

 Payer endeavored to push forward to the north with 

 sledges, reaching 82° 5' north latitude on an island, 

 which he named Crown- Prince Rudolfs Land. To the 

 north of this he thought he could see an extensive 

 tract of land, lying in about 83° north latitude, which he 

 called Petermann's Land. Franz Josef Land was after- 

 wards twice visited by the English traveller Leigh Smith 

 in 1880 and 1881-82; and it is here that the English 

 Jackson-Harmsworth expedition is at present established. 



The plan of the Danish expedition under Hovgaard 

 was to push forward to the North Pole from Cape 

 Chelyuskin along the east coast of an extensive tract 

 of land which Hovgaard thought must lie to the east 

 of Franz Josef Land. He got set fast in the ice, how- 

 ever, in the Kara Sea, and remained the winter there, 

 returning liome the following year. 



Only a few attempts have been made through Bering 

 Strait. The first was Cook's, in 1776; the last the 

 Jeannettc expedition (1879-81), under De Long, a 

 lieutenant in the American navy. Scarcely anywhere 

 have polar travellers been so hopelessly blocked by ice in 

 comparatively low latitudes. The last-named expedition, 

 however, had a most important bearing upon my own. 



