in the extreme North. 91 



fat of the whales, and to render the life of the crews more 

 comfortable. Now-a-days, indeed, the whale has almost dis- 

 appeared from these seas, and it is necessary to go in search 

 of it to Behring's Straits or to the south polar seas. Never- 

 theless the coast is always tolerably animated in the summer, 

 and in July and August must furnish a residence as agreeable 

 as the high valleys of our Alps. Our naturalists found the 

 place so much to their liking, that they assert the time is not 

 far distant when hotels will be built in Spitzbergen for the 

 summer season, and invalids will be sent to that island as 

 they are now sent to the alpine valleys. 



The natural history of this great fiord was investigated 

 from all points of view. While the physicist of the expedition, 

 M. Lernstrom, carried on the preparations commenced for the 

 determination of a degree of the meridian, and set on foot 

 meteorological observations, the zoologists and botanists (MM. 

 Malmgren, F. A. Smitt, T. M. Fries, Berggren, Holmgren, 

 and Nystrom) busied themselves with collecting the plants 

 and animals of the land. They sounded the bottom of the 

 ocean at a great many points, and brought up from depths 

 varying between 3000 and 15000 feet a great number of very 

 small but very curious forms of animals. The geologists 

 (MM. Nordenskiold and NauckoiF) were not the least active : 

 they set to work particularly to discover and collect fossils ; 

 and they were assisted in their work by M. Malmgren. In 

 this last-mentioned department it was the mountains of the 

 Ice fiord and of King's Bay that furnished the richest harvest. 

 At Cape Starastschin, the western point of the Ice fiord, they 

 discovered, in a black schist, a very curious flora, and at the 

 head of the gulf large bones of extinct animals resembling the 

 crocodile. 



Leaving most of the naturalists settled upon terra jirma^ 

 M. Nordenskiold and the captain sailed westward in the ship, 

 to seek for Greenland. They reached the boundary of the ice 

 under the meridian of Greenwich, and at 80° 20' N. lat. ; but 

 being soon convinced that the edge of the ice inclined rapidly 

 towards the south, they turned eastward, trying to advance as 

 far as possible towards the north. They arrived at 81° 10' 

 N. lat. ; but there the narrow channel into which they had 

 ventured came to an end. Northwards, as far as the eye 

 could see, there was nothing but boundless ice. On the 30th 

 of August the vessel returned to King's Bay. It afterwards 

 made an excursion towards the Seven Islands, at the north of 

 Spitzbergen ; they were found to be completely surrounded by 

 ice, and it was impossible to advance further towards the east. 

 The explorers then turned towards Hinlop's Strait and the 



