Nov. 26, 1 8 74 J 



NATURE 



fS 



was indefatigable in his investigations on all points of 

 scientific interest, and geographers and antiquaries will 

 be delighted with the latest information respecting the 

 remains of the first Norse colonists, the European disco- 

 verers of Greenland ; an illustration is given of what are 

 supposed to be the ruins of Erik Randa's house. 



It would be impossible, within the limits of a review, to 

 give any adequate idea of the work of the more fortunate 

 Gcnnaiiia. After sailing about among the ice till the 

 5th of August, she dropped anchor in a small bay on the 

 south of Sabine Island, in about 745° N., which was ulti- 

 mately to be her winter harbour. From here an attempt 

 was made to advance northwards, but the task was given 

 up as hopeless, after repeated attempts and the most 

 anxious observation and consultation, and the Cermania 



never got further north than 75 1°. The ship returned to 

 its first anchorage on the south side of Sabine Island, 

 where she remained from Sept. 13, 1S69, to July 22, 1870. 

 The position chosen was a well sheltered one, both on the 

 north and south, and although subjected to fearful storms 

 the stout little steamer bravely weathered the long winter, 

 and left Greenland with nothing wrong but a leaky boiler. 

 The officers and crew seern to have been as comfortable 

 as they could be on board a ship of the Ctrmania's 

 accommodation, and nearly the whole winter through 

 they were kept pretty regularly, supplied with fresh meat, 

 as the district around abounds with musk-oxen, reindeer, 

 hares, foxes, not to mention seals, fish, and leathered 

 fauna. An observatory was established on shoie, and a 

 valuable series of meteorolcj'ical and mafrntiic ul st-i v ,- 



Fig. 2. —Croup of Esquimaux. 



tions made, as \\ell as observations on the tides and 

 currents. Several sledge journeys were organised in 

 autumn, spring, and summer ; and notwithstanding the 

 great hardships from which those who went on these 

 journeys suflered, from insufficient sledges, want of 

 draught dogs, inadequate shelter, insufficient food, 

 and generally deficient equipment, as well as from 

 the wretched state of the ground, so unfavourable 

 to sledge travelling, a wonderful amount of scien- 

 tific work was accomplished between Cape Bismark on 

 the north, a little south of the 77th parallel, and the mag- 

 nificent inlet discovered by the expedition, which indents 

 the coast a little north of 73°, and which has been named 

 Kaiser Franz-Joseph's Fjord. Anyone who compares 

 the map of this stretch of coast which accompanies the 

 vc'ume with previous maps of Greenland will see at once 



that our geographical knowledge of the East Greenlai.d 

 coast has been largely added to as well as corrected by 

 the expedition. The mountain scenery and glaciers of 

 this stretch of coast are very grand, and attain almost 

 Alpine dimensions and magnificence in the many-annid 

 Franz-Joseph Fjord. Lieut. Payer gives an admirable 

 account of the scenery, geology, and glacial features of the 

 latter, which is well helped out by the engravings and 

 chromohthographs that illustrate his account. One 

 peak, "a pyramid of ice," Payer calls it, rising 11,000 ft. 

 above the sea far to the west of the Fjord, was named 

 after the accomphshed geographer Petermann. 



But we cannot enter into details. Botanists will find 

 plenty to interest them in these pages, as a very full 

 account is given of the almost incredibly abundant 

 flora of the region ; a whole chapter is devoted to an 



