404 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



transporting of stores. On our way up we met with great numbers 

 of Snow Buntings. Behind the house the ground rises abruptly 

 to low Fjeld, averaging about 820 feet. The Swedish Meteoro- 

 logical Expedition had not intended to establish themselves here 

 (N. lat. 78° 28' 27", long. E. G. 15° 49' 30"), but at Mossel Bay 

 (about N. lat. 79° 50' and long. E. G. 10°), but, as has been already 

 recorded in various publications, the two gunboats under the com- 

 mand of Capt. Palander, which brought out the Expedition, were 

 prevented by the ice from rounding the N.W. point of Spitzbergen. 

 This house has a curious and melancholy history, which it would 

 take too long to narrate in detail, but is briefly as follows : — It was 

 built in 1872 by a company started in Goteborg for working the 

 coprolites which abound here. A very large quantity of materials 

 and stores were sent out, and a party of workmen (two of whom were 

 even accompanied by their wives). On setting to work, however, 

 they found it impossible to work the stone, in consequence of the 

 ground being so hard-frozen,* a fact which one would have thought 

 might have been ascertained in ten minutes, before they had gone 

 to the expense of bringing out all this material. The scheme was 

 abandoned, and the men returned home, leaving the house and 

 stores behind them. Four "fangst" vessels lay fast in the ice off 

 Grey Hook (on the north coast) that autumn, and seventeen men 

 belonging to them left in boats and made for Cap Thordsen, 

 knowing of the house and stores there, and not knowing that the 

 people had left. One of the vessels subsequently got away, and 

 brought home all the remaining men, with the exception of the 

 captain and cook of one of them, who chose to remain — but only 

 to die during the winter. Three relief expeditions were organized 

 for the rescue of these men, the second vessel to go being the 

 ' Isbjorn,' commanded by Kjeldsen, with Halvorsen, our harpooner 

 of the ' Cecilie,' under him. They failed, however, to penetrate 

 to Cap Thordsen, and nothing was known of the unfortunate men 

 until the following June, when the late Capt. Mack, of Tromso, 

 landed there, and found two men buried at some distance from 

 the house, fourteen lying dead just outside the door, and the last 

 survivor (a Sea-Lap) seated at the table indoors, but also long 

 since dead. Mack buried the fifteen bodies in one large grave 



* The present expedition found the ground frozen in August at ten 

 centimetres (less than four inches) below the surface. 



