440 



NATURE 



\Oct. I, 1874 



the ship was made free, but to free the aft proved im- 

 possible, ice of 30 ft. thickness lying underneath. 



Disheartened, the expedition had almost resigned itself 

 to have to pass another winter in the same position, when, 

 on the 3 1st of August, high land was seen in the north, 

 soiTie fourteen nautical miles off. The feeling at first of 

 great joy at the unexpected discovery became soon a 

 torture. To be so close and not to be able to get to that 

 unknown land. At last, towards the end of October, the 

 ship d ril'ted to about three miles off one of the islands 

 which lay before the main land, and there the ship froze 

 in at the beginning of November, and lies still in 79^ 51' 

 N. lat. and 58° 36' W. long. Here the winter of 1S73-74 

 was passed in comparative quiet. 



During the time a series of highly interesting astronomi- 

 cal, meteorological, and magnetical observations were 

 made. The Northern Lights were very numerous and mag- 

 nificent— white, red, and green, with crowns, bands, and 

 rays of great size and brilliancy. The needle was so dis- 

 turbed that oscillation became the rule and steadiness 

 the exception. The cold was more intense than the year 

 before, there being 37" Rc^aumur below zero on the ship. 

 But the supply of fresh bear's meat and the absence of 

 that strain on the m.ind produced by constant danger kept 

 the crew in better health. The reappearance of the sun 

 on the 24th of February did the rest for all except 

 Krisch, the engineer, who died of consumption on the 17th 

 of March, and was buried in the newly discovered land, 

 between two basalt columns ; for the explorations had 

 already begun. 



A first expedition of Payer, the two Tyrolese, four 

 sailors, and the only three dogs remaining started for the 

 mainland, went up the promontories named TcgethofTand 

 M'Clintock, 2,500 fi. high, and up the Nordenskjold Fjord, 

 bordered by the large Souklar glacier. It was still very 

 cold, 40° R(5aumur. All was still white with snow and 

 hoar-frost, making the symmetrical rock columns look 

 like candied sugar. 



The second expedition of thirty days started on the 24th 

 of iSIarch. The temperature had risen, but snow-drifts, 

 wet, and the breaking up of ice made the journey still more 

 dangerous. Of course, before getting the map it will 

 be impossible to form a clear image of the configuration 

 of the country. The atmosphere over the ice being 

 hazy, the only way for making observations was by 

 going to the heights, and by these means a succession of 

 points \vas established — Cape Koldewey, 80' 15' ; Cape 

 Frankfurt, 80° 25' ; Cape Ritter, 80° 45' ; Cape Kane, 

 Si'^ 10'; and Cape Fligely, 82° 5', all on the Austria 

 Sound. The diminished stores and the short available 

 time necessitated forced marches, so one-half of the party 

 was left under a rocky eminence in Si° 38', and Payer, 

 Lieut. Orel, the sailor Zaninovich, and the three dogs 

 started to cross Crown Prince Rudolf's Land. Undeterred 

 by a dangerous accident, the expedition went on by a 

 roundabout way to the coast, and along it again north- 

 ward. The progress became more and more difficult and 

 dangerous ; it was all fresh ice, often not more than a few 

 inches thick. From Cape Fligely, the most northerly 

 point touched, another elevated point, named Cape Wien, 

 was sighted in 83°, the most northerly point of the known 

 earth. Then the journey back again was more dangerous 

 than the advance, but on the 25th of April the ship 

 was seen on the spot where it had been left. 



After a few days' rest, very much wanted, a third expe- 

 dition was made, again to the west— like the first— when 

 a high mountain, Cape Briinn, 40 miles from the ship, 

 opened out a view over the mountainous country, with 

 the flumboldt Peak, about 5,000 ft. high, as its culminat- 

 ing point. 



Already, in March, a council had been held, and the 

 decision had been come to to abandon the ship and to 

 try to make their way back on sledges and boats. On 

 the 20th of May the colours were nailed to the masts of 



the shfp, and the expedition started with three boats and 

 as many large sledges. The exertions proved almost too 

 much. The journey had to be made five times over, three 

 times tugging at boats and sledges, then twice back 

 again. The continual south wind driving the ice north- 

 ward seemed to malce all efforts to get south useless, and 

 after eight months' toil it seemed as if nothing re- 

 mained but to return to the ship and pass there 

 another winter. In the second half of July, hoivever, north 

 winds set in with rain, loosening the ice, and breaking it 

 up, until on the 13th of August the expedition got into 

 free water. It was in the unusually high Latitude of 

 "J"]" 40'. Had it not been for this exceptionally favour- 

 able state of the ice, the impression is that the expe- 

 dition would not have been able to return. Now there 

 was the pulling for the land. The crew and officers, 

 divided into two watches, took it in turn day and night, 

 so that forty miles' progress was made daily. On the 

 second day the mountain of Nowaja Saulja was sighted. 

 There were still provisions for a fortnight. A portion 

 was left on shore, and then the southern bays were 

 searched for Russian fishermen. None were found at the 

 Barents Islands ; bad weather set in, the sea ran high, all 

 were wet through and unable to pull. It was already 

 settled th.at tlie White Sea was to be made if no ship was 

 found up to the 2Slh. However, on the 29th, two fisher- 

 men were sighted in a boat belonging to the schooner 

 Nicolay, which brought the expedition to Vardoe on the 

 2nd of September. 



The new land, as far as discovered, is aljout the 

 size of Spitzbergen, and consists of several large 

 masses intersected by fjords and surrounded by islands. 

 A large passage called the Austria Sound separates 

 these masses and forks under 82° north lati'.ude into 

 a north-easterly arm, which could be followed up to 

 Cape Pest in the furthest north. The mountains are 

 dolomitic. Their middle elevation is from 2,000 to 3,000 

 feet, only towards the south they may rise up to 5,000. 

 All the depressions between the summits are occupied 

 by glaciers of gigantic size, as they only occur ia arctic 

 regions. The vegetation is much poorer than that of 

 Greenland, Spitzbergen, or Novaya Zemlya, and in the 

 south, except for Polar bears, it is devoid of aaimal 

 life too. Several attempts were made to pass through 

 the country, but they were found impossible, mountains 

 barred the road, so progress was tried along the coast 

 line, and the more the explorers penetrated north by 

 west the more the temperature rose, and the coasts of 

 Crowa Prince Rudolf Land were found to be tenanted 

 by myriads of birds, elks, &c., traces of bears, foxes, and 

 hares appeared, and seals lay on the ice. In spite of the 

 treacherous nature of the road, it was continued to 82° 5', 

 where, at Cape Fligely, a wide ex,:anse of water only 

 covered with ice of recent formation was seen. In spite 

 of this the explorers think the open Polar sea a delusion. 

 Without raising a theory about the possible connection of 

 this new land wilh-Gillis Land in the south-west, the 

 opinion is that it bears out up to a certain point Peter- 

 man's assumption of an inner arctic archipelago. 



The fact of the expedition having found liarcs in the 

 newly discovered land seems significant of a channel, 

 not invariably frozen in winter, between Franz-Jos aph 

 Land and Spitzbergen, since hares do not occur in the 

 latter. 



In Norway the members of the expedition were re- 

 ceived with the greatest enthusiasm, at Hamburg they 

 were welcomed like bringers of good tidings, and on their 

 entry into Vienna they could not have received a greater 

 ovation had they been the remnant of a conquering army. 

 All this they have richly merited, and there can be 

 no doubt that Lieutenants Payer and Weyprecht have 

 won for themselves a place in the first rank of arctic 

 explorers. 

 A second Austrian Arctic Exploring Expedition is 



