9. Be this as it may, the present English North-Pole Expedition will essentially contribute to solve the question, whether the Pole can be reached by the route through Upper Smith’s Sound. This, according to the views of almost all Polar navigators, holds out the greatest chances for further advance by sea. Should this expedition, equipped in so effective a manner, and sent out by a nation of such great experience, not come nearer to the goal, or, if nearer, only through sledging—which may very probably be the case—the conviction will then be strengthened, that all efforts to reach the Pole by navigation in the Frozen Ocean are hopeless, and witness only to the glorious persistency of human endeavour.
10. But until aërial navigation to the Pole shall be attempted, it would be advisable to follow the example of the Swedes, and, in the service of Natural History and Geography, content ourselves with the exploration of those Arctic lands of which, up to the present moment, we know only the coast-line, or which, situated on the outermost verge of our Polar charts, are still untrodden by man; we mean specially Gillis’, Grinnell’s, Wrangel’s Land, and above all, the interior of Greenland. The Polar question, hitherto regarded chiefly as a geographical problem, would thus, for a considerable time, be taken up in the interest of Natural Science. Lieutenant Weyprecht, after dwelling on the predominance of exploration in Polar expeditions, expresses a wish, that the great civilized nations would unite in contemporaneous Arctic expeditions for magnetical, electrical, and meteorological investigations: “In order to attain decisive scientific results, a number of expeditions should be sent to different places in the Arctic regions to make observations, at the same time, with similar instruments, and in accordance with similar instructions.” They who think such results too insignificant for the energies and sacrifices which are expended to achieve them, and who would rather that such efforts should be transferred to those still unknown regions of the earth, which may become the dwelling-places of man, will, of course, give their veto against the further agitation of the Arctic question.
1. Every Arctic expedition should be guided by the experience of its predecessors, both in its plan and its equipment; and hence we have often to deplore the negligence of almost all Polar navigators in failing to inform those who follow them of what they actually saw, of their modes of procedure, or of the mistakes which they committed. It will not, therefore, be labour thrown away, if we state our own experience and record our own observations for the guidance of others, in order to show, with the utmost possible clearness, what future explorers have before them, and how best to meet it.
2. Undivided command in an expedition is the first of all rules; but if there be any division of command in a subordinate expedition by sea or land, the duties and rights of its commander must be clearly and exactly defined. In recent times the command of a Polar expedition has sometimes been conferred not on a seaman, but on a man of science, as in the cases of Kane, Hayes, Nordenskjöld, and Torell. Where the investigation of questions connected with Natural History is the aim and object, this precedent is admissible, but it should never be observed where the commander has an important part to fulfil as a navigator. The command of an expedition has never been conferred on a man of science by the English government. In the very commencement, indeed, of Polar discovery, an English expedition was placed under the command of Sir Hugh Willoughby, who was not bred a sailor, but down to the seventeenth century, even in their naval campaigns, such men were appointed to naval commands. The Dutch expeditions of the sixteenth centurygenerally adopted a destructive division of command, under supercargoes and pilots, representing the mercantile and nautical elements: confusion and discord were the inevitable consequences.
3. Next to the selection of a commander, the selection of the crew demands the greatest care. This ought to be made some time before the expedition starts, in order that those unfit for the service may be discovered, and their places supplied by others; this cautious mode of procedure, and not a preference for any particular nationality, will secure the most effective crew. Although seamanlike qualities do not belong in the same degree to every nation, time and pains only are needed to secure a picked crew for a North-Pole expedition from almost any nation. Endurance of cold is not the only test of effectiveness, although this is a very common assumption; but a sense of duty, perseverance, and resolution are the virtues of a seaman. Habit soon teaches men to conquer cold, and inexorable necessity often hardens weaklings into heroes for Arctic discovery. A certain degree of intelligence is of high importance in the crew. In many cases resolution in the midst of dangers depends on their capacity to observe and think, even on their possessing certain branches of knowledge. The greater part of the crew of theTegetthoffhad these advantages. But men who, in a heavily-laded sledge, leave the old and take to recently-formed ice, without noticing the difference,—who observe a frost-bitten foot several hours after the mischief has been done,—who lose their cartridges, know nothing of their rifle, and little more of their compass, or who pass on without observing the configurations of the land, possess an indifference indeed, but of a kind very dangerous to themselves and to the whole party, though they may despise death as much as Achilles is said to have done.
4. An intelligent crew, from their greater feeling of independence, is, however, more difficult to command than an ignorant one. Devotion and blind confidence are more rarely found in an educated crew; their amenability to discipline is dependent on the good example, the kindness and unalterable calmness of those who may command them. The law of a Polar expedition is obedience, and its basis morality. Punishmentsare in such situations a miserable and depressing means for the preservation of order, and then employment, especially in a private undertaking, will tend rather to loosen than to maintain the bonds of discipline. If Parry, in 1820, caused corporal punishments to be inflicted, this proves the greater facility with which discipline is maintained on board of a man-of-war, but not its appropriateness generally. Coercion and threats produce no effect; and hence the folly of attempting to secure success by sending out again those who returned without having achieved anything, which was done last century by the authorities of St. Petersburg with every unsuccessful enterprise on the Arctic coasts of Siberia. The regulation that the most meritorious among the crew shall be specially rewarded, after the return of the expedition, provides for the recognition of merit, without exciting ill feeling in the less worthy. For the officers scientific success may be a perfect reward of their toils, but for the crew the reward should consist of more material advantages. Money, indeed, seems a feeble motive of action to men destined to withstand for years the inclemency of Arctic winters, and uncertain whether they shall ever return; but, notwithstanding, it is the only form by which men without sympathy for the aims of science can be gained for the attainment of such objects. The crews of Sir John Ross received for a martyrdom of four years passed in the ice about £100 a head; in the second German expedition from eight to twelve thalers were the monthly pay of each sailor. The pay of the sledgers in theTegetthoffwas, however, nearly four times as much; in some sledge journeys it amounted to 3,000 gulden a man.
5. Contrary to what might be expected, the re-employment of those who have served before is not to be recommended as a rule. The very best only should be re-enlisted. The others are too much disposed to place their experience on a level with that of their commanders; and in all cases, where their opinions differ from those of their officers, they damage by a kind of passive opposition the fundamental law of an expedition—obedience. Those who enter the Arctic regions for the first time are wont to receive the orders of an experienced commander with an attention as unquestioning as it isrespectful. Married men also should be excluded, as they were by Barentz in his second (1596) expedition.
6. Some of the crew should be good shots, good pedestrians and mountaineers, but all must be of the same nationality, and in perfect health. The least symptom of rheumatism, of diseases of the lungs and the eyes, and of certain chronic maladies only too common among seamen, unfit them for the endurance of the Polar climate, and especially for sledge expeditions. Those who are addicted to drink are peculiarly liable to the scurvy.
7. The medical man of an expedition, besides professional skill and experience, must possess the most imperturbable patience, for to many of his patients he is not less a physician of the mind than of the body. He should convince himself of the sanitary condition of the crew before the expedition starts, although it may have been previously investigated by medical authorities and declared satisfactory.
8. Since an expedition, in addition to its scientific functions, should take up the illustration of Nature at the Pole, the employment of a photographer, but still better of an artist, is very desirable, for the former is too much confined to the immediate neighbourhood of the ship in his operations.
9. The records of Arctic adventure in former days tell us of equipments strangely incompatible with the object pursued. Their commercial purpose constrained them to fill the hold with bales of silk, instead of provisions for years; but the letters of recommendation which were given to the explorers of the North-East passage for the Saracen princes on the route to Chatai seem peculiarly ludicrous. Some justification may be discovered for Owczyn taking a priest with him on his Siberian expedition (1734), but hardly for his wanting fifty-seven men in a vessel only seventy feet long, and arming it with eight falconets. The employment of a drummer, twelve privates and a corporal, on Gmelin’s scientific Siberian expedition, is still more unintelligible; more so than Davis’s band of music, which was intended to charm the feelings of the Eskimos and dispose them to peaceful proceedings, his predecessor Frobisher having had the saddest experience of their barbarism. Other expeditions by the too plentiful distribution of knives and hatchets among the Eskimos placed them in aposition seriously to threaten the white man, and even at the present day the so-called “Wilden-kiste” often contains articles little calculated to inspire the natives with a high opinion of our moral superiority.
10. In fitting out a Polar expedition, all respect should be paid to the principle of bestowing on those who are for a time banished, the greatest possible amount of comfort. The proportions of a ship, and the space at its disposal, narrow the limits available for this end; and since the return to the employment, as at the first, of small vessels, even these limits have been considerably diminished.
11. The following table shows that the employment of small vessels was the principle at first followed, although the English undertakings even of this present century never thoroughly adopted the example of a Fotherby, a Baffin, and a Ross:—
12. The inspection of this table shows that it was the practice of the sixteenth century to send out fleets of shipsof a very small size, that in the seventeenth one small ship was commissioned, and that the employment of two vessels has been the rule since; and this would have been still more evident, if the various Franklin expeditions had been included in the above table. In 1829 Sir John Ross started with a ship drawing eighteen feet, but changed afterwards to one drawing eight feet; and from eight to twelve feet is now the recognised draught in Polar ships. Large vessels require a numerous crew, and if they have not been built exclusively for the purpose of Polar exploration, their small economy of space prevents their being fitted out for more than two years and a half. In 1819 Parry’s ship, the largeFury, had, with a draught of eighteen feet, provisions for only two and a half years, whereas theVictory(1829) of Ross with only seven feet draught had on board, besides stores for the same period, a steam-engine and coals for a thousand hours’ steaming. The Russian Novaya Zemlya navigators of this century have adopted vessels of a size which must be destructive of all comfort and convenience. These vessels are thirty or forty feet long, with a draught of five or six feet, and a crew of nine or ten men. But Arctic ships must have a crew above the ordinary strength and be provided with steam-power; so that, allowing for the necessary space for the quarters of the crew, for the engines and the coalbunkers, little room will be left for the stowage of stores. But this little should be reserved for well-chosen provisions stowed away so as to avoid all empty spaces, and secure the greatest amount of resistance to lateral pressure. The weakest parts of a ship are always the spaces left for air in the quarters of the men. A crew, which is exposed to threatening dangers from the ice, will never regret the strengthening of these void spaces by heavy horizontal tie-beams, removable when the ship is in the winter harbour, and so adjusted as not to impede communication. The mere suspension of heavy beams against the hull of a ship does not always answer the purpose of protection, since the pressure of the ice frequently drives away these protecting timbers. The practice, however, is not absolutely to be rejected.
13. The daily allowance of solid food for the effectives in an Arctic expedition amounts to about two pounds, and insledge expeditions to 2¾ pounds, of which half a pound is bread and one pound preserved meat. Besides the usual provisions, large supplies of preserved vegetables, of cocoa, of extract of meat, of rice, of preserved peas, of dried farinaceous food (such as macaroni), are very desirable. Salted meat is to be avoided as much as possible. The luxury of fresh bread twice a week instead of the hard ship’s biscuit is an essential means of promoting health, and the want of yeast for its preparation may be supplied by “baking powder.” Once a day a ration of lemon-juice should be served out as a preservative against scurvy, and anti-scorbutic victuals should be laid in abundantly. Plenty of tea and tobacco is indispensable; the want of these is painfully felt, especially by the sailors. Cases have actually occurred, where crews have ground the wooden blocks of the rigging to powder, to serve as tea, and have used the hoops of casks for tobacco.
14. The moderate enjoyment of spirituous liquors is much to be recommended, as their influence on health and sociality is of great importance. The preservation, however, of a sufficient stock of wine, especially in winter, is a matter of much difficulty, since most kinds freeze at 21° F. or 14° F. As long as the ship is afloat, as it generally is when winters are passed in the ice, it is advisable to preserve the supply of wine at the bottom of the hold, and to place all other things most liable to be frozen in layers above it. But if a ship be nearly or entirely out of water, it is advisable to keep the wine, and other indispensable liquids, in the empty spaces of the cabin, under the cabin table, near the stove, below the berths, and under the sky-light after it has been closed for the winter. Only absolute want of space justifies the preparation ofchemical wine,[13]since the volume of its constituent parts without water is only a fifth of real wine; and under all circumstanceschemical wineis but a miserable shift, and the beer (even the spruce beer of Sir John Ross) which the English used to manufacture on board ship from the essence of malt and hops is far preferable. The rum and cognac, especially for sledge expeditions, in order to save weight should contain the greatest possible amount of alcohol, for its dilution before use is a matter of no difficulty.
15. During the winter, residence in the ship itself is preferable to living in log-houses, because the ship can be more easily heated and suffers less from the accumulation of ice. But since a ship in the Arctic Sea ceases for ten months of the year to be a ship and becomes in fact a house, this should be kept in view when she is being fitted out.
16. The place where the men live is always in the fore-part of the ship, but their berths should be changed in a certain rotation, because of the inequality of the condensation. It is not advisable to place the kitchen in the quarters of the crew in order to diminish the consumption of coals, because an accumulation of moisture is thereby increased. The officers andsavansoccupy a common messroom in the after-part of the ship, and sleep in little cabins ranged round it. The power to withdraw occasionally from the presence of those who must be together for years is an important element of harmony. Sir John Ross and his officers in 1833, even in the miserable hut built on the Fury coast, did not occupy the common messroom heated by a stove, but preferred separate cabins, the temperature of which seldom rose above the freezing point, and in which they had to suffer much from the accumulation of ice. All the living rooms should be provided with waterproof carpets. Their heating by means of the common stoves is objectionable, because of the unequal distribution of warmth. An even temperature is best maintained by the use of the Meidinger “Fullofen,” which has the further advantage of consuming only a small quantity of coals. Hot-air flues are, perhaps, preferable even to these, because they better prevent the freezing of the moisture in the cabins, and indeed in every part of the ship.
17. An Arctic ship should be provided with an iron-plated washing and drying closet, without which the washing of linen would be restricted to the few weeks of summer weather. This closet may also be used as a bath-room, an important means of promoting health. The lighting of the living rooms by petroleum sufficiently answers all purposes; in the cabins, however, stearine candles are to be preferred either to it or any other oil. The construction of the lamps used in making observations in the open air during the long Arctic darkness is a matter of the greatest importance. Those usedin the second German North-Pole Expedition were of peculiar excellence, and never failed in their difficult service. Massive lamps, with glass globes protected with wire, and burning petroleum in preference to common oil, should be used on deck, and as they are employed for so many purposes and exposed to so many risks, a plentiful supply of them should be provided. In the huts on the deck, built over the hatchways, train-oil may be used with advantage, if the lamps are so constructed that the flame may heat the reservoir containing the oil.
18. So long as the crew remains on board the ship, their clothing, even in the severest winter, needs but little attention. Thick close-fitting woollen under-garments, knitted woollen gloves, outer-garments of strong cloth, are in all cases sufficient on deck, and in all those parts of the ship which are kept at a certain temperature. Leather boots lined with fur were long considered an indispensable requisite for Polar expeditions, but they have not maintained their character, as they are very heavy, become unpliable in frost, and soon quite useless through its action and the wearing off of the fur.
19. Before the departure of the expedition, all the instruments should be thoroughly cleansed from oil by a practical optician, and the fire-arms should undergo a like operation at the hands of the gunmaker, and their barrels should be browned to protect them better from rust. The ammunition, powder and matches to blast the ice, alcohol and petroleum, should be stowed in the after-part of the ship, and the two latter should be reached only through a closely-fitting pump. A very ample supply of alcohol, flannel, buffalo-skins, strong cloth, water-proof canvas, felt, leather, reindeer shoes, snow boots, shovels, cramp irons, poles, &c., articles which are too often overlooked, should be taken, both from their usefulness on board ship and also on land expeditions.
20. The costs of Polar expeditions have relatively rather diminished than increased. The expenses of Willoughby’s expedition 300 years ago amounted to the sum—quite enormous for that day—of £6,000; Moor’s (1746) cost £10,000; while Back’s difficult but successful undertaking to explore the great Fish-river (1833-1835), only £5,000. The Siberianexpedition of Middendorf (1844)—costing only 13,300 rubles (£1,717)—was a matchless example of extraordinary achievements with little expenditure. The costs of the various Franklin Expeditions from 1848 to 1854 amounted, according to the statement of the English Admiralty, to twenty million francs (£833,333); those of the second German North-Pole Expedition to 120,000 thalers (£11,000), and the expenses of our own Austrian-Hungarian North Pole Expedition to 220,000 gulden (£18,333).
JUNE 20-OCTOBER 4, 1871.
1. The failure of the second German Arctic expedition directed the future efforts of Polar exploration to the seas of Novaya Zemlya. Although the geographical position and political relations of Austria prevented its Government from taking any active part in the great geographical problems and questions of our times, an interest in Polar discovery had been excited in her statesmen, which gradually ripened into a determination to send its flag, renowned for its military fame, to consecrate struggles on the peaceful domain of scientific exploration. The magnanimous act of Graf Wilczek, contributing 40,000 florins towards the equipment of an Austro-Hungarian expedition, not only strengthened but also endowed the resolve. In order, however, to obviate the possibility of spending large sums on a plan which might be unfeasible, or if feasible, of little value, it was determined to despatch a pioneer expedition to the seas of Novaya Zemlya under the joint command of Lieutenant Weyprecht and myself. The knowledge and experience gained in that voyage—which is described in the following pages—induced the Austrian Government to send another and more powerful vessel to those seas, equipped to pass two or more winters in the ice.
2. It seemed to be established as the result of many expeditions, that almost invincible difficulties opposed the reaching of the central Arctic regions by the routes throughBaffin’s Bay, Behring’s Straits, along the coast of Greenland, and from Spitzbergen, mainly because on them all we are met by the great Arctic currents, which act as channels to carry off the ice of the Polar basin. These currents carry with them vast masses of ice, which they deposit on all the coasts which they strike. On the results of many Norwegian, Russian, and German voyages, partly in the interests of science, partly in the interests of commerce, many geographers maintained that the traces of the Gulf Stream did not disappear at the North Cape, but rather that it exercised a considerable influence on places and in latitudes not before imagined, as, for instance, on the north-east coasts of Novaya Zemlya. An expedition, therefore, which followed the course of the warmer waters of the Gulf Stream would find fewer and less formidable obstacles, than on the routes exposed to the Arctic currents, carrying with them colossal masses of ice towards the south. On the east of Spitzbergen there is a land which has, indeed, been often seen, but never reached, or even attempted to be reached—Gillis’ Land—lying in the course of the Gulf Stream; and it is a probable assumption, that navigable water would be found under its western coast, as at Spitzbergen, where 80° N. Lat. can be reached every year without any difficulty. If, then, this stream extends still further to the north—which is probable according to the soundings taken by the Swedes—it is reasonable to expect that higher latitudes may be reached on this than on any other route.
3. It is remarkable, that the seas between Spitzbergen and Novaya Zemlya were utterly unknown to science. No expedition had ever been sent thither, though many things seemed to invite and favour the venture, and Dr. Petermann had long endeavoured to organize a powerful and well-equipped expedition to explore higher latitudes on this route. At length Lieutenant Weyprecht and I undertook a voyage of reconnaissance to those waters, in order to ascertain whether the climate and the state of the ice were as favourable in reality, as they seemed to be in theory. No attempt was to be made to reach high latitudes or to make important geographical discoveries. The small means at our command forbade either. Our aims were more limited; they referred to thetemperature of the water and the air, to the currents, to the state of the ice, to the probability of success in the following year (1872), and lastly, to opportunities for extended sledge journeys. We were to sail from Tromsoe about the middle of June, and return thither by the middle of September.
4. In order to diminish expenses, we chartered at Tromsoe a small sailing ship. A steamer would, indeed, have been more serviceable, but the cost would have been quadrupled, without any adequate advantage. TheIsbjörn(i.e., Ice-bear) was a vessel of fifty tons, cutter-rigged, 55 feet long, 17 feet broad, with a draught of 6 feet. Her bows were protected with sheet-iron, two feet above, and two feet under, water. She was new and strong, and made with us her first voyage. We had also two small boats, and a so-called “Fang-boot”—whale-boat. She was commanded by Captain Kjelsen, and had as a crew a harpooner, four sailors, a carpenter, and a cook—all Norwegians. We were provided with the requisite instruments by the Imperial Geographical Institute, and were provisioned for four or five months. The Austrian Consul Aagaard aided us to the utmost of his ability in the equipment of the vessel. It must be observed, that we had no direct command or control over the vessel and its crew; the responsibility for the ship, and the immediate command over its crew, belonged to the skipper Kjelsen. Weyprecht was, however, the real commander.
5. The information we gathered concerning the state of the ice in the region of our projected exploration, was exceedingly contradictory. While, for example, Dr. Bessels, in the steamerAlbert, of Rosendal, discovered a branch of the Gulf Stream with a temperature of 41° F. at the ice-barrier on the south of Gillis’ Land, Dr. Petermann sent us a letter of Lamont, in which he said: “Every year the ice appears to me more formidable.” The whalers of Tromsoe, who knew the ice of that region only from hearsay, and could give no positive information as to its limits, uttered many unfavourable prognostications as to the possibility of penetrating that frozen sea, or of approaching Gillis’ Land from the south. The region was utterly unknown, even to many skippers who sailed from Spitzbergen to Novaya Zemlya. The few attempts to penetrate to that land, first seen in 1707, and regarded by theSwedes as a continent, had been unsuccessful. So also their efforts to reach it from the south-west in 1864 and 1868. Captain Koldewey’s attempt also, which was made from the “Thousand Isles” three months before the last-named voyage, had been attended with the same want of success. None of these expeditions had passed beyond the ice-barrier, and their failures contributed greatly to strengthen the opinion, that the Novaya Zemlya seas were unnavigable.
6. All our inquiries were met also with the prediction of an exceedingly unfavourable year for the ice. The spring of 1871 had been unusually severe, and even to the middle of June the northern parts of Norway were covered with a mantle of snow reaching down to the sea. It was inferred, therefore, that there would be an excessive accumulation of ice in the seas further north. We heard even, that there was ice at the distance of about twenty (Norwegian) miles from North Cape. And it was certainly true, that the north winds, which prevailed for some weeks, kept a number of Norwegian fishing and seal-hunting vessels weatherbound off the “Scheeren.” All this notwithstanding, we determined to keep to our plan of sailing to Hope Island, and of following from thence the ice-barrier towards the east, our progress, of course, being dependent on favourable conditions of the ice, and perhaps on the influences of the Gulf Stream. As it was within the verge of possibility to make Gillis’ Land during the season of our operations, we considered it advisable not to pass beyond 40° E. Long. while we penetrated northward.
7. On the 20th of June we left Tromsoe during a drizzling snow-storm, and while we were sailing up the “Qualsund” without a pilot, we touched the ground—a danger we incurred from the desire of our married sailors to put their wives ashore, after leave-taking, as near the land as possible. At Rysoe we fell in with the fleet of the Tromsoe fishing-boats at anchor, waiting for a change of weather, and with them some vessels which, we thought, would have been by this time in the ice, having left Tromsoe four weeks before.
THE FIRST ICE
THE FIRST ICE
8. The rocky islands off the coast of Finnmark are surrounded by bleak cliffs, rising to the height of 2,500 feet, and upwards. Trees cease to grow there; occasionally the birch appears, but never in sufficient numbers to form a wood. Thenumerous islands of a gneiss formation show the same landscape which characterizes Norway—indescribably bleak table-lands, deep secluded valleys and gorges, interspersed with lonely mountain lakes. The bold, picturesque outlines of these islands are exceedingly striking, though their fertility is meagre in the extreme. The solitary rocky shores are inhabited by poor families, secluded from the world, and having little intercourse with each other. They live for the most part on the fish which they catch. The remains of fish round these settlements render their approach exceedingly disagreeable; on the Loffoden Islands a guano manufactory has been established, which turns this refuse to good account. Tromsoe or Hammerfest appears in their eyes as the glory and pride of the world. We were detained two days—June 24 and 25—by contrary winds, at Sandoe, an island covered with sea-sand full of small mussel shells, to the height of 600 feet. Ascending an elevated peak of this island, 2,000 feet high, we saw a panorama of countless cliffs of all sizes stretching down to Andeness, and opposite to us, the gloomy, rugged wastes of Norway, which show iron-bound walls, waterfalls, and bleak headlands, without woods, meadows, or habitations. For many hours we were mocked by an eagle, which, now soaring high, now darting down with rapid flight, gave his unwieldy pursuers a stiff and exhausting climb. We at last put to sea on the 26th of June, and passed the enormous rocky pile of Fugloe, down the precipitous face of which the inhabitants descend by means of ropes to get the down of the Eider-geese. Next day we were out of sight of land. The breeze freshened, and, as we sailed further to the north, we saw many whales. On the 28th of June we came on thefirst ice—a sight which reminds the Polar navigator that he has reached his home! Driven down by the north wind, its fragments lay thickly on the misty horizon like gleaming points. We were now south-east of Bear Island in 73° 40′ N. Lat. and 21° E. Long., and found the ice so broken up that we did not hesitate to penetrate it, in order to find out the latitude in which its closed masses would appear. We passed through forty miles of this loose drift-ice, and then came on the pack in 74° 30′ N. Lat. and 23° E. Long. Already, on the 30th of June, we had experienced the powerlessness of a small sailingvessel in such circumstances. The calms which had set in rendered it impossible to steer the ship, just when the ice was drifting in wild confusion. In spite of all our efforts to warp, the ship was inclosed by ice—in fact,beset. During our captivity of ten days, there was an alternation of fogs and gales with heavy sea-swells. The neighbourhood of floes sometimes small, sometimes large, which constantly shifted their places, kept us in a state of continual watchfulness. TheIsbjörn, on some of these days, sustained such severe pressures from the ice, that her safety was imperilled. On the 4th of July we had heavy storms from the south-east, which packed the ice still closer, and, though the sea is generally quite calm within the ice, it was otherwise on this occasion. In the afternoon we heard through the dense fog the thunder of the ocean breaking on the outer edge of the ice, and the roar increased as the sea rose. Our attempts to haul further into the ice and still-water were fruitless; the ship was pressed too firmly, and was not to be moved from its place. Our position became more and more critical as the sea continued to rise. During the whole night the waves roared and boiled around us. The rudder groaned under the pressure of the floes, and had to be made fast to prevent its being broken off. A mass of ice grazing past the davits utterly destroyed one of our boats. The critical nature of such a situation is simply the uncertainty as to the amount of pressure which a ship can sustain. Towards evening the fog lifted and rolled away, presenting a spectacle of fearful grandeur. All round us lay the open sea dashing against the ice, which was itself in wild motion. Floes and icebergs were driven about by the waves, and their fragments strewed in all directions. At midnight our little ship sustained shock after shock, and her timbers strained and creaked. The “brash” of the crushed ice, which had gathered round the ship, prevented her destruction. As the storm abated, the larger masses of ice moved off to the edge of the horizon, so that in the morning we could not see open water from the deck. The day broke: what a change in the ice! The sea was calm, and a long swell died out on its outer edge. Piles of ice all round us,—a weird and deathlike calm! The heavens were cloudless; the countless blocks and masses of ice stoodout against the sky in blue neutral shadow, and the more level fields between them sparkled like silver as they shone in the sun. The movement of the sea beyond the ice abated, “leads” within the floes, hitherto scarcely perceptible, widened out. But again the sky was overcast, the sea assumed the colour of lead, though it continued quite calm and the “ice-blink” appeared on the northern horizon.
9. On the 10th of July the ship under full sail forced her way through the floes, which were still somewhat close, and reached open water. The masses of ice through which we pressed were of considerable size. We now continued our course, which had been interrupted in the manner described, along the ice-barrier in a north-easterly direction. After leaving the Norwegian coast, the depth of the sea decreased considerably. We were now on the bank of Bear Island, and we found bottom at 90 metres (49·213 fathoms). Our course was impeded by calms, currents and winds from the east, and even in the middle of July by severe storms. We were sometimes in drift-ice and sometimes outside of it. We soon discovered that the ice of these seas was not to be compared with the vast masses of the Greenland seas. The floes we saw were not more than one year old. As we sailed eastward, the icebergs were neither so numerous nor so large, and disappeared almost entirely at 40° E. Long., which we reached on the 21st of July, after we had followed the ice-barriers from 74° to 75° 30′ N. Lat. Here we penetrated within them. Though drift-ice lay on every side, a steamer would have found nothing to arrest her progress. But the prevalence sometimes of east winds, sometimes of calms, the constant occurrence of fogs, the defects of our vessel, the little authority we had over the crew when extraordinary labour was demanded, the great extent of the region to be explored,—all these difficulties prevented our pressing on in this direction. We therefore turned, July 22, in a westerly direction, in order to explore another opening in the ice, into which we advanced for about fifteen miles, and found floes not more than a year old lying so loosely together, that our ship under full sail seemed to pass over them, much in the same fashion as a sledge glides over a snow-covered plain. But again our course had to be altered, and Weyprecht steered the vessel in a south-westerlydirection to the ice-barrier. In 76° 30′ N. Lat. and 29° E. Long. we came on high and close masses of ice, and escaped with much difficulty (July 29) the danger of being again “beset.”
10. We had meantime been convinced that, though the state of the ice was on the whole so favourable, we could not, with the means at our command and with a crew not trained to habits of obedience, do more than carry out our original intention. We could not make up for the defects of our sailing craft by any special exertion on the part of the crew. Could we have done this, we might have penetrated further in a northerly direction; though at this late period of the summer we could not calculate on being able to return, and by the end of October our provisions would have been exhausted. We could only, therefore, attempt to reach Gillis’ Land, and ascertain whether it possessed the importance attributed to it by the Swedes. A safe harbour had therefore to be sought, in which the ship might be left, while a party in a boat should make for the mysterious land. Such a harbour we expected to find at Cape Leigh-Smith. We therefore held to the westward, towards the Stor-Fiord. It is an extremely hazardous thing, demanding incessant attention, to tack and cruise at the ice-barrier during the continuance of fogs and with heavy seas and unfavourable winds. Not unfrequently, the ice-blink is seen all round the horizon, and we discover that we have come into a great “ice-hole,” or a calm makes it impossible to steer the ship, just when a strong current is bearing her into the thickest of the ice-masses. We had our share of these and other risks till we suddenly beheld, while sailing in a fog among icebergs a hundred feet high, the long stretching plateau of Hope Island. According to Weyprecht’s observations, there is an error of 40′ in latitude in the position of this island on the Swedish maps. The real position of the south-west cape of Hope Island is 76° 29′ N. Lat., and 25° E. Long. Seduced by a great opening in the ice, and deviating from our course for a short time, we advanced in a northerly direction to the east of the island, in the hope of reaching Gillis’ Land from thence. But after sailing in a fog for a whole day among icebergs lying close to the cliffs of the island, we were driven further westward, and coming suddenlyon the ice—Lat. 76° 30′—with an exceedingly high sea, escaped being dashed to pieces as by a miracle. To penetrate here was an impossibility. We therefore altered our course again for Walter-Thymen’s Straits. A dense girdle of ice several miles deep, and a strong current setting towards the south-west, frustrated every attempt to land on Hope Island. To the west of this we found the ice-barrier in 76° N. Lat., formed of heavy pack-ice, and small icebergs. Our passage to the South Cape (Cape Look-out) of Spitzbergen (76° 30′ N. Lat.) was comparatively quick. Numerous cliffs and rocks on which the waves were breaking, not marked on any chart, rose in the night of August 4 out of the fog at the distance of a few ships’ lengths from us, and it was with the utmost difficulty that we could tack with the heavy sea and strong north-east wind.
11. The day after, when the heavy storm-clouds lifted from the table-land of Cape Look-out, we made the unpleasant discovery, that we were to the south-west of it. Hitherto we had been sailing in dense fog, but after passing this Cape we had almost unbroken sunshine, which illuminated the whole western side of Spitzbergen up to Prince Charles’s foreland. A current one or two miles wide, which flows southward, turns at Cape Look-out and flows in a northerly direction. At this Cape, which is the apex of the current, besides many rocks on which the waves break, there are twenty islands, some of them of considerable size. This promontory, which has been of great importance to navigators for more than 200 years, is erroneously represented in the charts I have seen. Many ships, therefore, have been wrecked at this place, chiefly those of the Spitzbergen whalers and sealers, who base their sailing on making this headland, though they are ignorant of its exact geographical position. Thrice we tried at the beginning of August to reach the Stor-Fiord from the western side of Cape Look-out, and thrice we were driven back by this current, though the wind was in our favour. This, however, gave us an opportunity we had not expected, of seeing something of the west coast of Spitzbergen with its fiords and glaciers as far as Horn Sound. A fog, as dense as coal smoke, floats almost always over “Hornsundstind” (4,500 ft. high) and the pyramid of Haytand. The slopes, clothed in dull green, running downto the coast, make Spitzbergen seem scarcely an Arctic land when compared with the cold grandeur of Greenland. The rocky shores of the northern parts of Norway are more dreary, and wear more the aspect of Arctic regions than Spitzbergen. Hence General Sabine, comparing Spitzbergen with Greenland, called it “a true paradise.”
12. On the 10th of August the ice began to move out from the Stor-Fiord. It pushed on with great velocity from the north-east, turned round Cape Look-out, and deposited itself along the west coast, covering it with thick layers in sixteen hours. On the 12th of the month, in consequence of the fog and strong current, we found ourselves between the heavy drift-ice and the reefs of Cape Look-out. According to our reckoning we should have been twenty-five miles to the east of it. It was only by boldly charging the drift-ice, with the vessel under full sail, that theIsbjörnescaped the danger of being beset. On the 13th the wind chopped round, and, standing away to the south, we succeeded, after cruising about for ten days, in running into Wyde-Jans Water. Our involuntary detention off Cape Look-out enabled us to land twice. During one of these visits we built a cairn, in which we deposited a notice of the course we had steered. The hasty survey we made enabled us to correct some very gross errors in the maps. On the evening of the 14th we sighted Edge Island, and cruised in the drift-ice, which was becoming gradually more dense in that direction. Here we fell in with two ships from Finland, engaged in the capture of the walrus, and learnt from their skippers some particulars concerning the state of the ice, which induced us to give up the direct course to Cape Leigh-Smith, and to prefer coasting along the west side of the Fiord.
13. The ice was now more packed. The ship, weakened by numerous ice-pressures and countless shocks, and making much water, was in so bad a condition, that part of the bows under the water-line was shattered, and some timbers of the hull were forced in. In order to give some notion of the force of the shocks to which we had been exposed in forcing our course through the ice, let it suffice to say, that the iron plating an inch thick, with which the bows had been strengthened at Tromsoe, had been broken off like so many chips.
14. Tacking up against the north wind we came, in the night of August 16, on broken ice off Whale’s Bay, in 77° 30′ N. Lat. The expected free coast-water was not to be found, and the prevailing winds from the north took away any hope of reaching Cape Leigh-Smith in less than a week. Our plan of a boat expedition, for which three weeks would have been necessary, from Cape Leigh-Smith to explore Gillis’ Land, had now to be renounced; and as the southern extremity of Stor-Fiord is generally blocked up at the end of August by an accumulation of ice brought from the east, we were constrained to leave the fiord at once, and return to the ice-barrier we had left.
15. The geological formation of the western coast of this fiord has never been explored. From a visit to the land and the ascent of a mountain 2,000 feet high, we learnt some interesting facts concerning its Jurassic formation, which appeared to extend far to the south. We found traces, at some distance apart, of the more recent brown coal, and fossil remains (Bivalves in ferruginous chalk-marl); we gathered also some plants still in flower, and brought away some red snow. This excursion enabled us also to examine the beautifully-developed glaciers of Spitzbergen. Hornsundstind (4,500 feet high) is a most imposing mountain, and viewed from the east resembles a sugar-loaf. The other mountains on the coast of the fiord rise to heights varying from 2,000 to 4,000 feet. Noble glaciers slope down both sides of the main ridge, which runs in a southerly direction through the island. Some of these, when they reach the sea, are three or four miles wide, and their terminal fronts are about 80 feet high. The snow-line of those which debouch on the Stor-Fiord is at an altitude of 1,000 feet, and their surface is little broken by crevasses. None of these glaciers are of sufficient size to shed icebergs, properly speaking. The sea close to the coast is shallow, and the detachments from the glaciers are merely larger or smaller blocks of ice.
16. On the evening of August 16, sailing before the wind, we forced our way through the ice of the Stor-Fiord, and two days afterwards arrived at Hope Island, the steep, rocky walls of which rose out of the fog just as we were close under it.We found the icebergs still firmly grounded, precisely as we had observed them three weeks before. As an unusually strong current was running towards the south-west at the rate of two miles an hour, great caution was needed when we landed in the whale-boat amid rocks and cliffs not marked on any chart. The geological formation of the island was identical with that of the mountainous region on the south of Whale’s Bay. We found brown coal, but the shortness of our visit did not permit us to inspect the beds of it. Drift-wood of Siberian larch and pine lay in great quantities on the shore.
17. It was surprising to observe the change which meanwhile had taken place; the ice both to the west and east of us had disappeared. We were eager to find it, and again penetrated as far as possible into it. We tacked about on the 19th, 20th, and 21st of August—the weather being stormy—with little success against the north wind, which had prevailed for some weeks. A current from the north drove us constantly southwards. After leaving the Stor-Fiord the temperature of the water exceeded the temperature of the air. On the 22nd of August, in 76° 45′ N. Lat. and 28° 30′ E. Long. we found very little drift-ice, which standing out but a few inches above the water-level presented no impediment to navigation. Nothing but contrary winds stood in the way of our penetrating in a northerly direction, except, indeed, the doubts and fears raised by our skipper and his crew at our attempting higher latitudes at so late a period of the year. König Karl’s Land lay only forty miles to the north—still invisible on account of the mists. Fresh traces of Polar bears announced the neighbourhood of land. We therefore bore away to the east in 32° E. Long. on the 24th of August—the day on which the sun set for the first time. The number of icebergs constantly increased from this date, while some weeks previously, in the same region, we had scarcely seen one. This, perhaps, is to be explained from the fact, that their appearance is irregular, depending on the varying movement of the glaciers, and also on the time and manner in which the icebergs clear out from the bays and fiords. On the 26th we had stormy weather, rain, and snow. On the 27th, amid a dense fog, and with the sea running high, we cameclose to an iceberg, against which the sea was dashing itself in foam and spray, just in time to avert a collision. On the 29th of August we perceived that the ship had been carried 1° 30′ eastward in a short time by a current. The further we sailed in this easterly direction, the further northward the ice retreated, and we began to hope that we should come nearer the Pole than any ship ever had in this sea. The southern limit of the ice-barrier in the Novaya Zemlya seas, towards the end of summer, is usually placed at 76° N. Lat., but we had reached 78° N. Lat., with 42° E. Long., without seeing (August 30th) a fragment of ice. TheIsbjörnhad, therefore, penetrated 100 miles in seas hitherto unknown. There was still a long heavy swell from the north, but the temperature of the water had fallen 4½° within twenty-four hours, and it was no longer of an ultramarine, but of a dirty green colour; so that, notwithstanding the sanguine expectations we had cherished, we expected every moment to come on pack-ice. Already, too, the “ice-blink” was visible here and there on the horizon.
18. Whales, secure from persecution in this remote sea, seemed to abound; we saw many “blowing” and spouting. They came sometimes in pairs close to the ship. Their chase and capture might have been carried on here with every hope of success. On the morning of the 31st of August we saw six Eider-geese, the precursors of near land. A blue shadow on the eastern sky arrested the attention of us all for a long time. We felt as if we were on the brink of great discoveries. But, alas! the supposed land dissolved into mist. The poverty of our equipment prevented us from penetrating further. We might easily have been driven onwards by unknown currents, and the ice closing behind us might have cut off return to Europe. We could not be assured that we had not come upon a bight, orcul-de-sac, stretching far to the north, and which might quickly change its character. On the night of August 31, in 78° N. Lat., the ice lay in some places loose and widely dispersed, in others it was more compact, but nowhere was it in great masses; it scarcely rose above the horizon, and it was entirely without icebergs. There was nothing to prevent a vessel with steam power from penetrating further.
19. Still following the ice-barrier as it retreated northwards, we passed beyond 78° 30′ N. Lat. in the night of August 31. The influence of the high latitudes we had reached, on the duration of light, was unmistakable. For some days, however, the temperature had fallen below 32° F., a coating of snow lay on the deck, and the rigging was covered with ice like glass. The morning of the 1st of September broke; about half-past three o’clock fresh breezes from the north drove off the mist, and revealed one of those pictures peculiar to the high north from its dazzling effects of colour—the beams of the sun in glowing splendour were piercing through heavy masses of clouds, while the moon shone on the opposite side of the heavens. An ice-blink resembling an Aurora lay on the north.
20. We had reached 78° 38′ N. Lat., and yet the ice around us presented no serious impediment—none at least as far as we could see. Should we then venture further with our ship in its weakened condition? We might still follow up an opening within the ice running northward, though, in doing this, we should expend the time needed for the exploration of the eastward-lying Novaya Zemlya seas. We determined therefore to bear away to the east before some currents of loose drift-ice. But fog and a high sea from the north-west caused us to alter our course more and more to the south-east. For the first time in these high latitudes we observed drift-wood, and we found ourselves in a sea, the temperature of which at the surface did not materially exceed the temperature of the air. Whenever, however, the temperature of the air rose, a thaw suddenly set in. The colour of the sea alternated between blue and a dull green. A few days previously we had passed over a sea extraordinarily rich in the ribbed Medusæ (Beroë), and where the Rorqual (whale) abounded.
21. The great question now arose, whether the open water found in these high latitudes were only an accidental bight in the ice or a connected sea. It seemed bold to assume the latter, since 76° 30′ N. Lat. had never before been passed in that region. In order, therefore, to arrive at some positive conclusion on this point, we stood away from the ice at noon of the 1st of September, and ran down in open water to75° 52′ N. Lat. and 51° 44′ E. Long., intending to return to the north again, in order to explore the state of the ice to the north-east. Overcoming with much difficulty the opposition of our skipper, we returned to the edge of the ice, which we found, September 5th, in 78° 5′ N. Lat. and 56° E. Long. Though there was not much wind, a high sea running on the ice compelled us to leave it. In our course to the south-east we crossed 77° 30′ N. Lat. and 59° E. Long.; here, also, to the south of 78°, there was no ice. To penetrate further to the east formed no part of our plan, and since another attempt to return to the ice would have been objectless, for the reasons above stated, we proposed to run into a bight on the west coast of Novaya Zemlya to take in fuel and water, which we urgently needed. The longer nights now made it almost impossible to manœuvre a ship in the ice when the winds were high, though a good steamer might have persisted for some time longer. The temperature of the sea on the 5th of September was 39° F. in Lat. 77° 30′, and on the 8th of the month, when we were in sight of Cape Nassau, it reached 41° F.
22. Storms compelled us to keep to sea. As a current constantly set us to the north-east, we found it not possible to land on Novaya Zemlya, scarcely even to see it. On the night of September 12th we came into the region where the equatorial and Polar air-currents meet, and had an opportunity of observing the hurricane-like effects of their conjunction. The barometer fell about two inches, and the sea was so broken that the ship could hardly be steered, even with a fresh wind. On September 14th we were off Matoschkin Schar, and could not anchor, a snow-storm from the north-east completely hiding the coast. The change, which meantime had taken place in the sky, was strange and remarkable. Heavy thunder-clouds lay over our heads, just as they do in the region of the trade-winds, and every moment threatened to discharge themselves. On the 13th of September we saw the first Aurora, in the shape of an arch, passing through, our zenith. The want of fuel and water, from which we began to suffer, and the end of the season for navigation, compelled us to avail ourselves of the favourable wind which had set in, and begin our voyage home, without landing on NovayaZemlya. On this same day three of our crew of seven men fell ill, one of them with scurvy. A heavy storm from the north-east compelling us to heave to, we lay close under the coast of Lapland for a whole day. On the 20th of September we ran into Tana Fiord on the east of North Cape, the most northerly point of Europe, and took in water. The gloomy cliffs of Tanahorn and the rocky iron-bound coasts were not at all behind the lands we had left in their terrible desolation. On the 24th of August theIsbjörnpassed North Cape; on the 4th of October she anchored in Tromsoe. Weyprecht had remained on board while, with a Lapland sailor who could speak Norwegian, I left the ship in Tana Fiord and went on to Tromsoe through Lapland, sometimes by means of a small boat on the shallow rivers and sometimes by means of reindeer sledges.
23. It had formed no part of our plan, either to make discoveries, or to reach high latitudes. Our object was to investigate whether the Novaya Zemlya seas offered greater facilities, either from the influence of the Gulf Stream, or from any other causes, for penetrating the unexplored Polar regions. Many arguments, derived from the scientific results of our voyage, would seem to favour this idea, and in contradiction to the discouraging views of our predecessors, whose failures are explained by their defective equipment and the choice of the most unfavourable season for navigation, we ventured to draw the following inferences:
(1.) The Novaya Zemlya Sea is not filled with impenetrable ice, rendering navigation impossible; on the contrary, it is open every year, probably up to 78° of N. Lat., and is connected with the Sea of Kara, which is also free from ice in autumn, and even, it may be, with the “Polynjii,” in the North of Asia. If this inference should not be admitted, the following remarks of Lieutenant Weyprecht, in anticipation of objections, are put forward as worthy of consideration:—“In all probability the open condition of the ice in 1871 will be ascribed to chance, or to an especially favourable ice-year. With respect to the latter alternative, the accounts given by the walrus-hunters of Spitzbergen and Novaya Zemlya should convince us, that the year 1871 was not only not a favourable, but a most unfavourable year in the ice. It wasalmost impossible to navigate Wyde-Jans Water, and the Sea of Kara could only be reached through the most southerly straits—the Jugorsky Straits. There remains, therefore, only the other objection, that the accident of favourable winds was the cause of our penetrating so far. But our meteorological journal shows North, or at any rate Northerly winds, and often, too, blowing freshly, from August 4th to September 5th, with the exception of twelve watches,i.e.two days. But in no case could these winds have driven the ice to the north. With respect to the loose character of the ice we encountered, it might be said, that we saw only the outer ice. But, in the first place, we were often so far within the barrier that it would be inadmissible to speak of it as the outer ice; and, in the second place, the ice-barrier shows the state of the ice behind it. Whenever the wind lies against the ice, there the ice is always the most dense and packed, and we find open places only when we have worked our way through the outer ice.”
(2.) The time most favourable for navigation in this sea falls at the end of August, and lasts—though rendered hazardous by storms, the formation of young ice, and the darkness which supervenes at that season—till the end of September, and during this period the ice may be said to be at its minimum.
(3.) The Novaya Zemlya Sea is a shallow sea—a connection and continuation of the great plains of Siberia. In the extreme north, its depth was 600 feet, and south-east of Gillis’ Land about 300 feet.
(4.) Gillis’ Land is not a continent, but either an island or a group of islands. Whereas, from the circumstance that in the highest latitudes—in 79° N. Lat.—we found drift-wood covered with mud, sea-weed, creatures which live only near the land, decreasing depths of the sea, sweet-water ice and icebergs laden with dirt, it may be inferred, with great probability, that there exist masses of land to the north-east of Gillis’ Land.
(5.) The appearance of Siberian drift-wood, only in the most northern seas reached in our voyage, seems to point to an easterly current there.
(6.) The Russian expeditions in the past and presentcenturies, which attempted to penetrate by the north-west coast of Novaya Zemlya, miscarried, because they sailed before the favourable season for navigation, and also because they had not the advantage of steam.
(7.) How far the Gulf Stream has any share or influence in the favourable conditions for the navigation of the Eastern Polar Sea which have been described, cannot as yet be positively determined. The state of the ice, the observations which were made on the temperature of the sea, its colour and the animal life found in it, seem to speak in favour of the action of this current in that region. It is possible that the Gulf Stream may exercise its culminating influence on the west coast of Novaya Zemlya only at the beginning of September; for while the temperature of the sea in the months of July and August gradually fell from 45° F. to 36° F. in Lat. 75° N., and to zero and below it, still more to the north, we observed 39° F., September 6, in Lat. 78°, and 41° F., September 10, in Lat. 75° 30′. The temperature of the air was in all these cases considerably less than that of the water. If the unusually favourable state of the ice on the east of Spitzbergen should be ascribed to warm southerly currents of air, it may be replied that our observations specify the almost uninterrupted occurrence of north winds. It is also possible, that at the beginning and middle of summer the Gulf Stream may move slowly in a northerly direction along the coasts of Novaya Zemlya, and that towards autumn it spreads itself more and more to the west. Our observations proved the existence, in the eastern Novaya Zemlya seas, of a band of warm water, from thirty-six to forty feet deep, beneath which lies, without gradation, a colder stratum. It is evident that the unequal density of these strata prevents their mingling. This band of warmer water near North Cape is about 150 feet deep, with a temperature of nearly 45° F., but diminishes as it flows northward. The frequency of fogs and mists in the Novaya Zemlya Sea, and the squalls unknown to other Arctic regions, which are characteristic of a more southerly region, indicate also a current of warm water. How this warm current gradually cools towards the north, and becomes shallower, and how distinctly it divides into those strata of water of equal temperature, so characteristicof the Gulf Stream, is shown by three series of observations taken by Weyprecht at different latitudes, with the maximum and minimum thermometer of Casella:—
24. These inferences rendered the despatch of a well-equipped expedition to the Novaya Zemlya seas very desirable, either to penetrate towards the north, or to pursue the direction of the north-east passage. To this idea a most gracious reception was given by the Emperor of Austria. Hence arose the Austro-Hungarian expedition of 1872. The promoters of this undertaking assumed neither the existence of an open Polar Sea, nor the possibility of reaching the Pole by sledge or boat expeditions. Their object, simply and broadly stated, was the exploration of the still unknown Arctic regions, and it was their belief, that a vessel could penetrate further into this region by the route between Novaya Zemlya and Spitzbergen, where theIsbjörnin her pioneer voyage found the ice more loose and navigable than had been imagined possible. But in addition to the causes already specified, the influence of the warm currents, produced by the great rivers of Siberia discharging themselves into a shallow sea, was also supposed to co-operate in producing this phenomenon. Of these rivers, the Obi and Jenisej alone discharge into that shallow sea a body of water as great as the waters of the Mediterranean or the waters of the Mississippi. The course of the current produced by these mighty rivers is as yet unknown; but it was natural to suppose, that old and heavy pack-ice could not be formed on a coast submitted to such an influence. This is confirmed by the observations of the Russians, who in the coldest period ofthe year always find open water in the Siberian seas. Middendorf, August 26, 1844, found the Gulf of Taimyr quite free from ice; our own observations, made in 60° E. Long., and those of the Norwegian Mack, who advanced to 81° E. Long. (75° 45′ N. Lat.), support the supposition of a still navigable sea. Of the region between Cape Tscheljuskin and the ice-free spaces asserted to exist by Wrangel, and others, we know but little; but it is probable that the character of the ice in those seas does not greatly differ from the character of the ice in contiguous seas. Of the seas between Novaya Zemlya and Behring’s Straits, at the distance of a few miles from the Asiatic coast, nothing is known. No ship has ever navigated this enormous Eastern Polar Sea.
25. It was the plan of the Austro-Hungarian expedition to penetrate in an E.N.E. direction, in the latter half of August, when the north coast of Novaya Zemlya is generally free from ice. The places at which the expedition was to winter were left undetermined; these might, possibly, be Cape Tscheljuskin, the new Siberian islands, or any lands which might be discovered. A return to Europe through Behring’s Straits, however improbable it might be, lay among the possibilities of the venture. Minor details were left to circumstances. In the event of the loss of the ship, the expedition was to endeavour to reach the coast of Siberia by boats, and, on one of the gigantic water-courses of Northern Asia, penetrate into more southern regions. The depôt of provisions and coals which it was Graf Wilczek’s intention to deposit on the north coast of Novaya Zemlya, was to be the nearest refuge for the crew in the event of disaster to the ship. Stone cairns were to be erected on all prominent localities, and in these were to be laid accounts of the course of the expedition. Till its return at the end of the autumn of 1874, its members were to be cut off from all intercourse with Europe. The motives of an undertaking so long and so laborious cannot be found in the mere love of distinction or of adventure. Next to the wish to serve the interests of science by going beyond the footsteps of our predecessors, we were influenced by the duty of confirming and fulfilling the hopes which we ourselves had excited.