HISTORY OF DISCOVERY. 125 



play an important part, and that in these somewhat 

 northerly latitudes the maximum temperature of the 

 southern midsummer is a very low one. The observa- 

 tions made of the icy covering of the land, which was 

 closely approached, also verify what had been previously 

 ascertained, though in higher latitudes. Towards the 

 end of February the Dundee whalers again left these 

 waters, the last iceberg being seen by the Active on the 

 25th, near Elephant Island, in very nearly the same 

 latitude as that in which the first had been sighted near 

 Clarence Island on the 1 8th of December. 



The Dundee vessels had not been alone in their 

 undertaking of the southern summer of 1892-3. The 

 Norwegian whaling steamer Jason, commanded by 

 Captain Larsen, and commissioned by the Hamburg 

 Oceana Association, had appeared simultaneously in the 

 same waters. This was the same vessel that had taken 

 Nansen to the east coast of Greenland for his celebrated 

 journey across the country. Larsen had arrived at the 

 same time as the Scotchmen, and had also left the un- 

 profitable seas at the same time, but had kept a somewhat 

 different course. He had sailed by the South Orkney 

 Islands, on one of which he landed, steering south, con- 

 siderably to the east, therefore, of the other ships. From 

 Seymour Island to the west of Mount Haddington, where 

 a landing was effected, valuable fossils were brought, and 

 Dr. Donald considered that Captain Larsen manifested a 

 lively interest in discovery. While the Scotch vessels, 

 disappointed in their attempt to meet the profitable whale- 

 bone whale in southern waters, gave up all further effort 

 in the icebound Antarctic seas, Larsen left the harbour of 

 Sandefjord, on the 12th of August, 1893, commissioned 

 by the Oceana Company to make a second attempt in 

 seeking out the Dirk Gerritz Archipelago. He was 

 accompanied by the Her t ha, commander Captain Even- 

 sen, and the Castor, under Captain Pedersen. On the 



