NOTES ON THE SEAL AND WHALE FISHERY. 85 



"south-ice year," as that of 1900 has been for the absence in the 

 Greenland Seas of this indispensable shelter both for the Right 

 Whale and for the breeding Seals. The year first named seems 

 to have been the culminating point of a series of south and east 

 ice years ; there had been very little southerly drift, and one vast 

 ice-field extended in the months of April and May from the east 

 point of Iceland in a north-easterly direction to Bear Island, 

 where it made a sharp bend to the E.S.E., extending to within 

 Sg-" of the North Cape. When Capt. David Gray in the 

 ' Eclipse ' entered the ice, on May 2-'^rd, he had to bore his way 

 through three hundred miles of that obstruction before he 

 reached the "land-water" of Spitzbergen, where the Whales are 

 first looked for. Of course, under these conditions, the east 

 coast of Greenland was utterly unapproachable, and it was 

 equally useless to attempt to penetrate to the then all but 

 unknown Franz Josef Land. Ot late years both these regions 

 have been accessible every year, and the latter mysterious archi- 

 pelago has been repeatedly visited, wintered in, and to a large 

 extent mapped; but in the year 1886 the ice was so heavy in the 

 usual summer fishing-ground off the Greenland coast, that Capt. 

 David Gray, as an alternative, made an attempt to reach the 

 Franz Josef Land waters, hoping to explore that region in search 

 of Right Whales (which subsequent experience has proved do 

 not extend their wanderings so far to the eastward), but was 

 stopped by the impassable ice in 75° N. lat., 36° 44' east longi- 

 tude. In 1898, so changed was the condition of the ice, that 

 Dr. Nathrost was able to reach White Island, as well as the 

 mysterious Wyche's Island, and performed the feat of circum- 

 navigating the whole of Spitzbergen in a single season ; whilst to 

 the westward the east coast of Greenland has been approachable 

 for the last few years. In the past season Prof. Kolthoff was 

 enabled to follow the coast from Cape Broer Ruys to Pendulum 

 Island ; and the captain of the Norwegian whaler ' Cecilie 

 Malene ' took his vessel as high as 75° 30' N. latitude, a point 

 further north than is positively known to have been previously 

 reached by a ship.* Lieut. Amdrup's expedition to the same 

 coast passed through the ice barrier on July 6th, 1900, in lat. 

 74° 30' N., 30° 58' W. longitude, and from the vessel or by boat 



-■= Geogr. Journ. Nov, 1900, p. 567, 



