AECTIC EXPLORATIONS. 277 



commonplace, prosaic record of ordinary geographical discovery. It 

 will be in the memory of all here how their ship, the Tegctthoff, was 

 beset in the ice on August 20, 1872, off the west coast of Novaya 

 Zemlya on the very day and only a few short hours after they had said 

 farewell to Count Wilezek, Baron Stern eck, and other friends on board 

 the little sailing cutter Isbjorn; and how, notwithstanding the powerful 

 aid of steam with which their vessel was provided, and the free use of 

 gunpowder, they failed to release the imprisoned Tegetthoff, and how 

 she remained immovably fixed in the fetters of her icy boudage, drift- 

 ing about in the floe at the mercy of winds and currents for two long 

 years. Then suddenly, on August 31, 1873 — a year after their first 

 besetment — a mysterious dark land loomed up to the northwestward, 

 and they thus became unwittingly and without any exertions on their 

 part the discoverers of a new territory, the existence of which had 

 hitherto been unknown, to which they gave the name of Kaiser Franz 

 Josef Land. 



The drift of the Tegetthoff during the period she was beset in the ice 

 was no less remarkable than it was instructive. Her position when 

 first caught by the ice in August, 1872, was in latitude 76° 22' and 

 longitude 62° 3' east. Six months afterwards she was in latitude 78° 

 45' and longitude 73° 7', showing that the whole body of the pack in 

 which she was beset had been carried steadily during that period in a 

 northeasterly direction. For the next nine months her drift was in a 

 north and northwesterly direction, until the ship became permanently 

 stationary by the adherance of the ice to Wilezek Island. Altogether 

 the drift of the ship, and consequently the pack, was somewhat over 

 200 miles to the northeast between August, 1872, and February, 1873, and 

 about the same distance in a northwesterly direction from the last-named 

 date until the ice remained fixed by attachment to the shore on Novem- 

 ber 1, 1873. Some of this drift may be attributable to the wind, but 

 the real movement was assuredly due to the influence of current alone. 

 During the sixteen months that the ice was in motion — i. e., from 

 August, 1872, until November, 1873, inclusive — I find that for a period 

 of six months the prevailing wind was from the southeast, for five 

 months it was from the northeast, for Wo months from the north- 

 west, and for three months from the southwest. During the six 

 months she was being drifted in a northeasterly direction the prevail- 

 ing winds were from the southwest and southeast, and during the last 

 nine months of her drift the winds may be described as all round the 

 compass. Therefore we can not, I think, do otherwise than arrive at 

 the conclusion that the wind had but little effect on the drift of the 

 ice. either with regard to rapidity of motion or direction. What, then, 

 was the cause of this marvelous drift to the northward? We know 

 very well that the general drift of the north polar current is in a south- 

 erly direction. We have had convincing proofs of it in a remarkable 

 manner down the east coast of Greenland, down Smith Sound and 



