PAYER ON FRANZ- JOSEPH LAND. 597 



slow motion, and the considerable thickness of the annual layers. 

 The nvve, or glacial re«j:;ion above the snow-line, was much more 

 elevated above the sea than in Greenland or Spitzbergen. 



" Another peculiarity which characterises all the low islands in 

 the Austria Sound is their being covered by a glacial cap. 



" The vegetation is far poorer than that of Greenland, Spitz- 

 bergen^ or Novaya Zemlya ; and, excepting in the Antarctic 

 Regions, no country exists on the face of the earth which is 

 poorer in that respect. The general physiognomy of the Flora 

 (but not that of the species) resembles that met v/ith in the Alps 

 at an altitude of 9,000 or 10,000 feet. The season during which 

 we visited the country was certainly that in which vegetable life 

 Hrst puts forth its appearance, and most of the slopes were still 

 covered with snow ; but even the most favoured spots near the 

 sea-level, which were no longer covered with snow, were unable 

 to induce us to arrive at a different conclusion. On level spots 

 even we scarcely met with anything but poor and solitary bunches 

 of Grass, a few species of Saxifrage, and Silene acaulis. Dense 

 carpets of Mosses and Lichens were more abundant, but most 

 abundant of all was a Lichen — the winterly Umhilicaria arctica. 



" Drift-wood, mostly of an old date, was met with on many 

 occasions, but only in very small quantities. We once saw lying 

 only a trifle higher than the water-line the trunk of a Larch, 

 about a foot thick, and some 10 feet in length. The Drift-wood^ 

 like our vessel, had probably been carried to these latitudes by the 

 winds, in all likelihood from Siberia, and not by currents. 



" The country, as might have been supposed, has no Human 

 inhabitants, and in its southern portion scarcely any animals 

 excepting Ice-Bears are met with. 



" Many portions of the newly discovered country are exceed- 

 ingly beautiful, though it bears throughout the impress of Arctic 

 rigidity." 



Lieut. Payer remarks (p. 24.) that in January 1874, on 

 Count Wilczek Island, south of Franz-Joseph Land, " the visits 

 of Bears were as frequent then as they had been at other seasons 

 of the year : they came close up to the ship, and were killed by 

 regular volleys fired from deck. The Bears here are certainly 

 much less ferocious than those we met with in Eastern Greenland, 

 where they not unfrequently attacked us, and, on one occa- 

 sion, they-even carried one of the crew out of the ship : here they 

 generally took to flight as soon as we made our appearance. 



"As regards the disputed question whether Bears pass the 

 winter in a dormant state or not, we observed that amongst the 

 great number shot by us during two winters, there was not a 

 single female ; and during our second sledge-expedition in the 

 spring of 1874, we even discovered a tunnel-shaped winter hole 

 in a snow cone lying at the foot of a cliff, which was inhabited by 

 a female Bear and her cubs. 



" On encountering Bears, we found it generally most advan- 

 tageous to fire after they had approached within a distance of 50 

 or 80 paces. 



