VII.] 
SOLITUDE ISLAND. 
335 
water. On the 16th he had the Taiinur country in sight. 
Here he turned, and steered first to the west, then to the north. 
In 77° 31' N.L. and 86° E.L. from Greenwich he discovered and 
circumnavigated a new island, which was named “ Ensamheten ” 
(Solitude). The island was free of snow, but not overgrown with 
grass. The animals that were seen were some bears and bearded 
seals, terns, fulmars, ivory gulls, flocks of black guillemots, and 
a “bird with a rounded tail and long bill,'’ probably some wader. 
On the north-east side of the island a strong northerly current 
prevailed. The remote position and desolate appearance of the 
island gave occasion to the name proposed by Jobannesen. 
Hence Jobannesen sailed with a great bend to the north, which 
brought him to 78° N.L., back to the northern extremity of 
Hovaya Zemlya, and thence on the 12th September to Norway. 
During the return voyage across the Kara Sea also scarcely any 
ice was met with.^ 
An exceedingly persistent fog prevailed during the whole 
of the time we remained here, but at last on the 18th it light¬ 
ened a little. We immediately weighed anchor and steamed 
along the w^estem shore of Taimur Island. It is surrounded by 
a large number of islands that are not given on the map, and 
possibly Taimur Island itself is divided by sounds into several 
parts. During our voyage, however, the fog that was still very 
close hindered us from mapping, otherwise than in a very loose 
way, the islands, large and small, between and past which the 
Fe^a searched for a passage. So much we could in any case see, 
that the northern extremity of Taimur Island does not run so 
far north as the common maps show. 
Ice we met with only in small quantity, and what we saw was 
very rotten fjord or river ice. I scarcely believe that in the 
course of the day we met with a single piece of ice large enough 
to flense a seal upon. We had as yet seen no true old drift-ice 
^ H. MoJin. Dielnsel Einsamkeit, &c., with a map (Petermann’s Mitthei- 
lungerij 1879, p. 57). 
