FRANZ-JOSEPH LAND. 



181 



the expedition. But from this point they sighted vast northern lands, with moun- 

 tains and glaciers. Julius Payer was able to traverse a great part of the archipelago, 

 surveying its main geographical features, and making numerous minor observations. 

 An irregular channel, ramifying right and left into fiords, and known as 

 "Austria Sound," runs south and north between two extensive islands, Zichy 



Fig. 89.— Franz-Joseph Land. 

 Scale 1 : 3,000,000. 



50 Miles. 



Land on the west, and AVilczek Land on the east. The sound is dotted with 

 numerous smaller islands, from a lofty headland on the farthest of which Payer 

 and his comrades descried, beyond a vast open sea, the bold outlines of two other 

 lands, that of King Oscar on the west and of Petermann on the north, the latter 

 stretching beyond the eighty-third parallel, and consequently the nearest European 

 land to the pole that has yet been sighted. 



