THE WELLMAN POLAR EXPEDITION 



483 



tli rough this fortunate accident, were able to discover a hitherto 

 unknown Arctic land. Vainl}'' endeavoring to find water through 

 which to force the Friihjof still farther north along the east coast 

 (then unexplored), and finding nothing but ice in every direc- 

 tion, we were compelled to 

 return to Cape Tegetthoff, 

 and there send our stores 

 ashore for the purpose of es- 

 tablishing winter quarters. 

 By August 3 this work was 

 completed, and the ship 

 sailed away for home, leav- 

 ing us the only human in- 

 habitants of Franz Josef 

 Land, our nearest neighbors 

 being Samoyedes and a few 

 Russians in Nova Zembla, 

 500 miles to the south. 

 Neither Franz Josef Land 

 nor Spitzbergen is now in- 

 habited by Eskimo or other 

 northern tribes, and, so far 

 as can be learned, never was 

 occupied by any other men 

 than Europeans there for the 

 purposes of exploring and 

 hunting or fishing. Spitz- 

 bergen has been known for 

 250 years, and is visited 

 every summer b} r a consid- 

 erable number of craft, but 

 Franz Josef Land has until recently remained almost a terra 

 inroi/iiita. 



The cosmopolitanism of modern scientific exploration is no- 

 where better illustrated than in this region. Discovered b} r 

 chance by Austro- Hungarians, it was next visited by English- 

 men under the leadership of B. Leigh Smith. It was in 1882 

 that Mr Smith, on his second voyage to these coasts, lost his 

 ship, the /-.'/></, near Cape Flora, and was compelled to pass the 

 long winter in an improvised hut built but a few rods from Mr 

 Jackson's suhx'umnit headquarters. The ruins of that hut, in 

 which 25 men passed the winter in good health, living chiefly 



DIAGRAM SHOWING THE ROUTE OF THE FRITHJOF, 



L898 

 Copyright, 1899, by Walter Wellman 



