182 THE EUEOPEÀN ISLANDS OF THE AKCTIC OCEAÎT. 



In August, 1880, Mr. Leigli Smith succeeded in tracing the southern coast of 

 Franz- Joseph Land for a considerable distance to the westward of the farthest 

 points seen by the Austrian explorers. He discovered a secure harbour, which he 

 named — after his staunch yacht — " Eira," and traced the coast as far as 

 lat. 80° 20' N., long. 45*^ E., whence Capes Ludlow and Lofley could be seen far 

 to the north-westward. 



The mountains of Franz- Joseph Land have a mean altitude varying from 2,000 

 to 3,000 feet, apparently culminating, south of Zichy Land, in Mount Richthofen, 

 5,000 feet, or about 500 higher than Horn Sound Peak in Spitzbergen. In general 

 the heights do not terminate in sharp peaks or rugged crests, but spread into broad 

 tables, so that these horizontal elevations look more like detached fragments of a 

 plateau than true mountains. The prevailing formation is the Spitzbergen hyperite, 

 with basalt columns cropping out here and there. Franz-Joseph Land also 

 resembles Spitzbergen in its upward movement, as shown by the old marine beds 

 strewn with shells, and rising in parallel lines above the waters of Austria Sound. 



Besides the igneous rocks pointing to a common origin with Spitzbergen, the 

 explorers recognised some tertiary sandstones containing slight deposits of lignite ; 

 but exact geological observation is difficult in a land whose gentler slopes are 

 mostly under snow and ice, and the abrupt escarpments covered with rime due to 

 the abundant moisture condensing on contact with the polished surface of the cliffs. 

 " The symmetrical mountain ridges," says Payer, " seem incrusted with sugar," 

 and some islands are entirely clothed in ice, like so many glass globes. The 

 depressions between all the elevations, and even most of the slopes, are filled or 

 covered with glaciers, some presenting a seaward frontage over 12 miles broad, and 

 from 100 to 200 feet high. The Dove glacier, on the west side of Wilczek Land, 

 forms a concave crescent over 36 miles long, whence large icebergs break away 

 with every ebb tide. These glaciers differ from those of the Alps in the vastness 

 of the snow-fields, the grey or greenish colour of the ice, the coarseness of its grain, 

 the great thickness of the yearly layers, the rareness of crevasses, the slight 

 development of moraines, and their slow progress. 



The vegetation is extremely poor, being restricted altogether to some saxifrages, 

 a poppy, the Silène acauUs, a few mosses, and lichens. No reindeer are seen ; 

 but on the north side, facing the open sea, traces of the bear, hare, and fox are 

 everywhere detected, and shoals of sea-calves frequent the ice-bound coast. 

 Here also, as in the Faroer, Iceland, and Spitzbergen, the isolated rocks are 

 inhabited by myriads of penguins and other birds, which at the approach of man 

 rise with a deafening flapping of their wings. Whether the more open seas, 

 higher temperature, and corresponding development of animal life on the north 

 side of the archipelago were permanent or temporary phenomena, the explorers 

 were unable to determine. Possibly the waters are here deeper and more open to 

 the warm currents than on the east or south side. The basin comprised between 

 Spitzbergen, Franz- Joseph Land, and Novaya Zemlya is nowhere over 300 fathoms 

 deep. Its bed is everywhere flat except where it dips slightly a little to the east 

 of the submarine continuation of Wilczek Land, in the Siberian waters. 



