4S2 THE WELLMAN POLAR EXPEDITION 



a 2,000-mile journey over the Ural mountains, across the plains 

 and tundra, fording swollen rivers and wading deep swamps. 

 Material for house-building was also taken on at Archangel, and 

 the Frithjbf then steamed northward. The pack-ice was met at 

 about the 77th parallel of latitude Jul} r 9, and three da3 r s later, 

 the supply of coal running short, it was deemed prudent to run 

 back to Norway for more fuel. July 20 the ship was again at 

 the ice edge, and after a week of ramming through loose floes and 

 searching for open leads found a clear waterway, in which such 

 rapid progress was made that the ice-capped mountains of Franz 

 Josef Land were visible from the crow's-nest July. 27. 



Next day the Frithjqf was at Cape Flora, which for three years 

 had been the headquarters of the Jackson-Harmsworth (English) 

 expedition, and where Nansen and Jackson had had their mem- 

 orable meeting in June, 1896, a chance encounter which doubt- 

 less saved the lives of the Norwegian explorer and his comrade. 

 It had been the first plan of our expedition to make Cape Flora 

 our winter quarters, and we had secured from Mr Harmsworth 

 the privilege of making such use as we wished of the house and 

 stores there. It appearing that there was a possibility of push- 

 ing our winter quarters farther north and east, we took aboard 

 one of the collapsible houses, which had been used at Cape Flora 

 for storage purposes, and steamed away to the eastward. 



At Cape Flora we had hoped to find Andree and the members 

 of his balloon expedition, which had left Danes island, Spitz- 

 bergen, a year before ; but finding neither Andree nor any tid- 

 ings of him, we were forced to the sad conclusion, which time 

 has since confirmed, that the brave Swede and his comrades lost 

 their lives by a descent of their air-ship into the waters of the 

 Barents sea, east of Spitzbergen and south of Franz Josef Land, 

 probably within 10 or 15 days after their ascension. 



After making an unsuccessful effort to push our ship north 

 through the ice-clad British channel, wdiich had been explored 

 by Jackson and down which Nansen had come in his retreat 

 from his winter hut, we moved eastward along the south coast 

 as far as Cape Tegetthoff and Salm island. Off the south shore 

 of this island we steamed in open water over the ver}^ spot where 

 the Austro-Hungarian ship Tegetthoff had been abandoned, fast 

 in the ice, a quarter of a century before. It may be remembered 

 that for more than a year the Tegetthoff Lad been held in the ice, 

 having become beset off the western shores of Nova Zembla, 

 and that she had drifted helplessly to this spot, where her crew, 



