!W.Vt\<WtkVH.VTgWMO^VVN.V^^

Deposited by the
Linonian and Brothers Library
1908

NEW LANDS
WITHIN THE ARCTIC CIRCLE.

TWILIGHT AT MIDDAY, FEBRUARY 1874.

NEW LANDS
WITHIN THE ARCTIC CIRCLE.

NARRATIVE OF THE DISCOVERIES
OF THE AUSTRIAN SHIP " TEGETTHOFF"
IN THE YEARS 1872-1874.

BY
JULIUS PAYER,
ONE OF THE COMMANDERS OF THE EXPEDITION.

WITH MAPS AND NUMEROUS ILLUSTRATIONS FROM DRAWINGS
BY THE AUTHOR.

fransIattJ* from tlj£ ditrman, fcii^ i\t %xd\ax'z ^approbation.

NEW^YORK:
D. appleton'^and company,
649 AND 551 BROADWAY.
1877.

AUTHOR'S PREFACE.
In laying this book before the Public I desire, in the first
instance, to acknowledge without reserve my sense of the
great merits of my colleague, Lieutenant Weyprecht. The
reader of the following pages will learn with what unwearied,
though fruitless, energy he struggled to free the Tegetthoff
from her icy prison, and what dauntless courage and unfailing
command of resources he displayed in our hazardous retreat
from the abandoned ship, till the moment of our happy rescue.
The order and discipline maintained on board ship, and in the
terrible march over the Frozen Ocean, as well as in the peril
ous boat voyage after leaving tbe ice-barrier, were mainly due
to his distinguished abilities. He had supreme command of
the expedition, as long as its duties were strictly nautical ;
when the operations of sledging and surveying began, I had
the responsibility of a separate and independent command.
Nor ought I to be slow to pay my tribute of respect to the
perseverance and constant self-denial of Lieutenant Brosch
and Midshipman Orel. It would be difficult to determine,
whether they shone more as officers of the ship, or as
observers of scientific phenomena. The highly important
duty of managing the stores and provisions was discharged
also by Lieutenant Brosch with a conscientiousness that
secured the confidence of all.
To the watchful skill of Dr. Kepes we owed it, that the
health and constitution of the members of the expedition
suffered so little from all their hardships and privations.

AUTHOR'S PREFACE.

The conduct of the crew was on the whole praiseworthy.
Their obedience to command, their perseverance and resolu
tion shown on every occasion, will be cited as an example of
what these virtues and qualities can achieve amid the most
appalling dangers and trials.
With regard to my narrative, I make no claim for it founded
on its literary excellence ; rather I sue for indulgence to its
manifold shortcomings. I have not written for the man of
science, though I have not shunned a few scientific details.
Nor have I aimed at presenting a record, which might be pro
fitable to those who shall follow us in the same career of
discovery, though some hints will be found in my pages which
will not be without their use to those who may consult them
for information and guidance. Rather I have endeavoured to
narrate our sufferings, adventures, and discoveries in a manner
which shall be interesting to the general reader who reads to
amuse himself
The magnetical and meteorological observations, so care
fully taken and tabulated by Weyprecht, Brosch, and Orel,
together with the sketches of the Fauna of the Frozen Ocean,
drawn by myself from the collection of Dr. Kepes, were
presented to the Imperial Academy of Sciences of Vienna,
and will in due time be pubhshed under the auspices of
that august body.

PRELIMINARY NOTICE
BY THE TRANSLATOR.
It will be interesting to English readers to learn a few par
ticulars concerning the two leaders of the Austrian North
Polar Expeditions. Carl Weyprecht was born in Hesse-
Darmstadt in 1838, and in his eighteenth year entered the
Austrian navy. Ten years afterwards he was present at the
action between the Austrian and Italian fleets at Lissa — July
20, 1866; was promoted to the rank of lieutenant of the
second class, and decorated with the order of the Iron Cross
in recognition of his services in that battle. It was shortly
after this, that Weyprecht volunteered to take the command
of a small vessel, manned by only four seamen, which was to
sail from Hammerfest to explore the Arctic Ocean. This
dauntless offer was the basis of the first German North Polar
expedition. When, however, permission to act in this capacity
was obtained. Lieutenant Weyprecht was serving on board
the Austrian frigate Elizabeth, which formed one of the
squadron sent by the Austrian Government to bring home the
body of the ill-fated Maximilian. Immediately on his return
to Europe he repaired to Gotha, eager to place his services at
the command of the expedition which had meantime been
planned by Petermann and a committee of patrons of Arctic
exploration. But unhappily, just at this moment his health,
which had suffered from fever caught at New Orleans, failed,
and the command of the expedition, known as the first
German North Polar Expedition (May 24 — October 10, 1868),
was undertaken by Captain Koldewey. It was only in 187 1
that he recovered his health, and in the June of that year

PRELIMINARY NOTICE

began, in the Ishj'drti, his life of Arctic experience and dis
covery. In the following year, 1872, he was appointed to the
naval command ofthe expedition which sailed in the Tegetthoff,
whose strange and eventful history is recorded in the following
pages. His companion and colleague, Julius Payer, was born at
Schonau in TepHtz, Bohemia, in 1841, and received his edu
cation as a soldier at the Wiener-Neustadt Military Academy,
1856-59, where General Sonnklar was his teacher in geo
graphical science, and early imbued his mind with a love for
the grandeurs of the glacier world. With the rank of " Ober-
Lieutenant " he sferved in the campaign of 1866 in Italy, and
was decorated for his distinguished services at the battle of
Custozza. Afterwards, while serving with his regiment in
Tyrol, he gained great celebrity as one of the most successful
Alpine climbers, and turned his experience as a mountaineer
to profit in his surveys of the Orteler Alps and glaciers.
Payer gained his first experience as an Arctic discoverer in
the second German North Polar Expedition, under Koldewey
and Hegemann— June 15, 1869— Sept. 11, 1870. His services
during that expedition were of a most distinguished character.
He shared in the most important discoveries which were then
made, specially those of Konig Wilhelm's Land, and of the
noble Franz-Josef Fjord. He acquired in East Greenland
the experience of sledging, which was of such eminent use in
his explorations of the great discovery of "the Tegetthoff
Expedition— Kaiser Franz- Joseph Land. He shines "^too as
an author in his descriptions of Greenland scenes, in the Secotid
German North Polar Voyage, published in 1874 by Brockhaus
of Leipzig, and partially reproduced in an English translation
by the Rev. L. Mercier and Mr. H. W. Bates. For these
services, on the return of the expedition, he was again decor
ated, receiving the order of the Iron Crown.
Inthe voyage of the Isbjorn, June 21— Oct. 4, 1871 we
find him associated with Weyprecht in the pioneering voyage
described in the eariier part of this work, and lastly as joint
commander of the renowned 7^^^^«^^# expedition, June, 1872
— September, 1-874.

BY THE TRANSLATOR.

The Gold Medals entrusted to the Royal Geographical
Society were awarded in 1875 : the Founder's Medal to
Lieutenant Weyprecht, and the Patron's Medal to Lieutenant
Julius Payer.
As these pages are passing through the Press, the country
has been deeply moved by the unexpected intelligence of the
return of the Arctic Expedition. Gratulations on its safe and
happy return have been unanimously and eagerly expressed
by all the organs of public opinion. Disappointment, how
ever, has, we fear, fallen on many minds as, after the first
feelings of joy at the safe arrival of the officers and crews of
the Alert and Discovery, they read the brief telegraphic
summary sent by Captain Nares : " Pole impracticable,"— -
" No land to northward." Popular enthusiasm looked rather
for the conquest of the Pole ; expected, perhaps, to read, one
day, that the Union Jack had been hoisted there, to com
memorate the triumph of England's perseverance at last
rewarded. Pew, we apprehend, would pass through the
chill of these two clauses of the message to mark the hope
contained in the third — " voyage otherwise successful." ' In
what special respects the success proclaimed was achieved, we
must patiently wait for a future record to reveal ; but while
awaiting the history which no doubt will be written to justify
and prove this announcement, let us exercise our loyal belief
in the skill and courage of our countrymen, and feel persuaded
that what men could do under their circumstances no doubt
was done by them.
The interest which will be excited afresh in Arctic discovery
and adventure, will doubtless sharpen the interest in the
volumes which record the fortunes of the Austrian expedi
tion ; and we venture to affirm — without undue partiality —
that, though the history of Arctic exploration and discovery
abounds in records of lofty resolution and patient endurance
of almost incredible hardships, the narrative of the voyage of
the Tegetthoff will be found to fall below none in these high
qualities. The mere destiny of the vessel itself equals, if it
does not exceed, in the element of the marvellous, anything

PRELIMINARY NOTICE

which has before been recorded. Surely this is borne out
when we think, that on August 20, 1 872, the Tegetthoff was
beset off the coast of Novaya Z&x{Ay2. \ remained a fast
prisoner in the ice, spite of all the efforts made by her officers
and crew to release her ; drifted during the autumn and the
terrible winter of 1872 — amid profound darkness — whither
they knew not ; drifted to the 30th of August in the following
year (1873), till, as if by magic, "the mists lifted, and lo ! a
high, bold, rocky coast — lat. 79° 43' E., long. 59° 33' — loomed
out of the fog straight ahead of them. Close to this land —
which could be visited with safety only twice, on the 1st and
3rd of November of that year — the ship remained still fast
bound in the ice. Not till the winter of 1873 had passed,
and the sun had again returned, was it possible to explore
the land, which had been so marvellously discovered. On the
lOth of March, 1874, the sledge journeys commenced, and
terminated May 3rd, after 450 miles had been passed over,
and the surveys and explorations completed, which enabled
Payer to write the description of Kaiser Franz-Josef Land
(pp. 258-270), which shows that other still undefined lands,
with an archipelago of islands, have been added to the
geography of the earth.
But the perils of the expedition did not end here. On
the 20th of August, 1874, it was resolved to abandon the
Tegetthoff in the ice, and to return in sledges and boats to
Europe. Captain Nares tells us, in his telegraphic despatch,
that the sledging parties of the Alert and Discovery com
passed on an average one-and-a-quarter mile per day on the
terrible "Sea of Ancient Ice," and discovered, after the
experience gained in seventy miles passed under these condi
tions, that the "Pole was impracticable." If our readers
wish to have a conception of the toils and perils of the
Austrian sledge parties on their return from the Tegetthoff, let
them mark the single image presented to the mind by 'the
statement (p. 364):-" After the lapse of two months of
indescribable efforts, the distance between us and the ship
was not more than nine Enghsh miles." Had the ice on the
Novaya Zemlya seas remained as obstinate as it seems to

BY THE TRANSLATOR.

have done in the new desolation, the " Sea of Ancient Ice,"
escape would have been as impossible to the Tegetthoff' s crew,
as advance towards the Pole was to the sledge parties of our
last Arctic expedition. But fortunately, soon after, " leads "
opened out in the ice ; the boats were launched, and after
about another month of alternate rowing and sledging, the
ice barrier was happily reached in the unusually high latitude .
J"]" 40' ; and the brave men who three months before had left
the Tegetthoff were saved.
This is perhaps the most marked analogy between the perils
of the two expeditions ; so far as those of our own are yet
known. But the scientific conclusions of Lieutenant Payer,
as set forth in the general Introduction to his narrative, strik
ingly harmonize with the actual discoveries of the Alert and
Discovery. Already it is authoritatively announced, that there
is no open Polar Sea ; that this hypothesis is as baseless as
the existence of President's Land. In the fourth chapter of
that Introduction (pp. 25-31), our author has analysed with
great sagacity the various theories on which that hypothesis
was made to rest, working up to the conclusion, that no such
sea exists. The demonstration of experience now takes the
place of enlightened argument and opinion ; fact and theory
are here at one.
Nor can we forbear to direct attention to another statement
in the same chapter. Let our readers mark the prophetic
spirit of the following passage : " All the changes and pheno
mena of this mighty network lead us to infer the existence of
frozen seas up to the Pole itself; and according to my own
experience, gained in three expeditions, I consider that the
states of the ice between 82° and 90° N. L. will not essentially
differ from those which have been observed south of latitude
82° ; I incline rather to the belief that they will be found
worse instead of better" (p. 30). And "worse instead of
better " they have been found, as we cannot doubt, when we
weigh the ominous significance of the designation the " Sea
of Ancient Ice."
History may or may not verify the position which the
telegram so briefly resumes— "The Pole impracticable."

PRELIMINARY NOTICE

Impracticable no doubt it was, if the condition of the ice seen
by our expedition in that awful sea be its normal condition.
All that it was possible for men to dare and achieve, England
will feel that her officers and sailors dared and achieved under
the circumstances they encountered. It may be, that later
experience will show, that even that Sea may present to
future explorers an aspect less tremendous ;. yea, that in some
seasons, which science may yet predict, when her theories of
the sun-spots are matured and formulated, open water will be
found, as perhaps it was found in the year of the expedition
of the Polaris, where the heroic sledging parties from the
Alert and Discovery saw nothing and found nothing, but
piled-up barriers of ice rising to the height of 150 feet.
It would be idle to predict, in the face of these results, that
the Pole shall yet be reached. Any confident prediction in
this spirit would, at the present moment, be singularly
inopportune, as well as unwise. But despair would be equally
unjustifiable, while its influence would be most hurtful and
depressing, especially if Arctic exploration and the attain
ment of the Pole v/ere supposed to' be identical propositions.
There are two things : reaching the North Pole, and the
explorarion of the Polar region. If the former appeals more
to the imagination, and readily calls forth the emotions which
are fed by the love of the marvellous, the latter enlists the
sympathies of those who take a broader view of the necessities
of Arctic exploration. These have found a powerful repre
sentative in one whose services entitle him to speak with
authority,^ in the naval chief of the Tegetthoff expedition. At a
meeting of the German Scientific and Medical Association
held at Gratz in September of 1875, Weyprecht read a paper
on the principles of Arctic exploration, in which, according
to the summary of its contents, which appeared in Nature,
October II, 1875, he maintains, that the Polar regions offer, in
certain important respects, greater advantages than any other
part of the globe for the observation of natural phenomena-
Magnetism, the Aurora, Meteorology, Geology, Zoology, and
Botany He deplores, that while large sums have beeli spent
and much hardship endured for geographical knowledge.

BY THE TRANSLATOR.

strictly scientific observations have been regarded as holding
a secondary place. Though not denying the importance of
geographical discovery, he maintains, that the main purpose
of future Arctic expeditions should be the extension of our
knowledge of the various natural phenomena which may be
studied with so great advantage in those regions. He insists
in that paper on the following propositions : — " i. Arctic ex
ploration is of the highest importance to a knowledge of the
laws of nature. 2. Geographical discovery in those regions is
of superior importance only in so far as it extends the field
of scientific investigation in its strict sense. 3. Minute Arctic
topography is of secondary importance. 4. The geographical
Pole has for science no greater significance than any other
point in high latitude. 5. Observation stations should be
selected without reference to the latitude, but for the advan
tages they offer for the investigation of the phenomena to be
studied. 6. Interrupted series of observations have only a
relative value." The suggestions thrown out by Lieutenant
Weyprecht have been taken up by one whose mind seems to
rise instinctively to all high aims and objects. Prince Bismarck
forthwith appointed a German Commission of Arctic Explor
ation, consisting of some of the most eminent men of science
of whom Germany can boast, who reported to the Bundesrath
in a memoir, the recommendations of which were unanimously
adopted. From Nature, November 11, 1875, which we have
already quoted, we borrow the following rhume of that
report : —
" I. The exploration of the Arctic regions is of great
importance for all branches of science. The Commission
recommends for such exploration the establishment of fixed
observing stations. From the principal station, and supported
by it, exploring expeditions are to be made by sea and by land.
"The Commission is of opinion that the region to be
explored by organised German Arctic explorers is the great
inlet to the higher Arctic regions situated between the eastern
shore of Greenland and the western shore of Spitzbergen.

PRELIMINARY NOTICE BY THE TRANSLATOR.

" 3. It appears desirable, and, so far as scientific prepara
tions are concerned, possible, to commence these Arctic
expeditions in 1877.
" 4. The Commission is convinced that an exploration of
the Arctic regions, based on such principles, will furnish valu
able results, even if limited to the region between Greenland
and Spitzbergen ; but it is also of opinion, that an exhaustive
solution of the problems to be solved can only be expected
when exploration is extended over the whole Arctic zone, and
when other countries take their share in the undertaking.
" The Commission recommends, therefore, that the principles
adopted for the German undertaking be commended to the
governments of the states which take interest in Arctic inquiry,
in order to establish, if possible, a complete circle of observing
stations in the Arctic zones."
Thus we are brought face to face with two different purposes,
which may be termed, respectively, the romantic and the
scientific purposes of Arctic discovery. To the former the
attainment of the Pole has hitherto been the all in all of a
geographical discovery. "The Pole impracticable," tele
graphed by Captain Nares, as the result of the expedition
which has returned baffled to our shores, is a stern reproof
to all who would still advocate a dash at the Pole as the
worthiest purpose of Arctic discovery. Aims and endeavours
not so glaring, nor appealing in the same degree to the love
of the marvellous, are suggested in the sagacious proposals
of Lieutenant Weyprecht, to whom science will not refuse
her calmer and more measured respect, and in whom, as
Captain of the Tegetthoff, all who love deeds of daring 'and
energy will find a congenial spirit.
To Lieutenant Payer has fallen the distinguished honour of
being not only the colleague in command and friend of
Weyprecht, but the historian of their common sufferings and
common glory in an enterprise, the fame of which the world
we beheve, will not willingly let die.

CONTENTS.

INTROD UCTION.
CHAPTER I.
THE FROZEN OCEAN  .pace I  lo
I. The ice-sheet of the Arctic region. — 2. "Leads" and "ice-holes" defined. —
3. Pack-ice and drift-ice. — 4, 5, 6. Various designations of ice-forms. —
7. Estimate of the thickness of ice. — 8. Rate of its formation.— 9. Old ice.
— 10, II. Characteristics of young ice. — 12. Results of the unrest in Arctic
seas.— 13. The snow-sheet described. — 14. Colour of field-ice. — 15. Charac
teristics of sea-ice. — 16. Specific gravity of ice. — 17. Irregularity of the
forms of ice. — 18. Temperature of the Arctic Sea. — ig. Noise caused by dis
ruption. — 20. The ice-blink. — 21. The water-sky. — 22. Evaporation. — 23.
Calmness of the sea beneath the ice. — 24. Overturning of icebergs. — 25.
Change of the sea's colour near ice. — 26. Icebergs described. — 27. Noise
caused by the overturning of icebergs.
CHAPTER IL
NAVIGATION IN THE FROZEN OCEAN  page II— 19
I. Preparatory study necessary for Polar navigators. — 2. Choice of a favourable
year necessary. — 3. Navigation in coast-water recommended. — 4. Failure
often caused by leaving the coast- water. — 5. Distance possible to accomplish
in one summer. — 6. The best time of year. — ']. Steam-power recommended.
— 8. The rate of speed. — 9. The build of Arctic ships. — 10. Tactics of a ship
in the ice. — II. Small vessels preferred.^ — 12. Iron ships not suitable. — 13.
Two vessels to be employed. — 14. "Besetment" and how to avoid it. —
15. The use of a balloon recommended. — 16. The "crow's-nest." — 17. Winds
and calms. — 18. A winter harbour or " dock."

CHAPTER III.
THE PENETRATION OF THE REGIONS WITHIN THE POLAR CIRCLE ;
THE PERIOD OF THE NORTH-WEST AND NORTH-EAST PAS
SAGES  pl^ge 20 — 24
I. The Pole. — 2. Old fancy of reaching India through the ice. — 3, 4, 5. The first
Polar navigators. — 6-10. The North-West and North-East Passages. — >II.
Strange tales of the old discoverers. — 12. The Polar world becomes the object
of scientific investigation. — 13. M'Clintock perfects the art of sledging.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER IV. . . ^age 2t, — 31
THE INNER POLAR SEA  '^ ¦^
I. The Arctic Sea compared to the glaciers of *e Alps. -2, 3- Old ^^^^^s r^
specting an Inner Polar Sea.-4. I'"P™bability of such ^/^^;^^™f:
5^ Influence ofthe Gulf Stream. -6. The Polynju ^^^'^J^..Zl f' Vrl-
State of the ice in different years as found by ^^^S-^f Pf ''^°P;7°i,eady
bability that the most northerly regions do not differ from those already
discovered. -9. Improbability that the Pole can be reached by a ship.
10. The English expedition to penetrate Smith s bound.
CHAPTER V.
THE FUTURE OF THE POLAR QUESTION  P"g^ 32—30
I. Material advantage from Arctic voyages. -2. The commercial vahie ofthe
North- West and North-East Passages no longer thought of.— 3. Ihe l-olar
question a problem of science.— 4. The increase of the safety and convenience
with which the ice-navigation is now performed.— 5. The means of conduct
ing Polar expeditions perfected. —6. Sledge expeditions afford the chief hope
of success.— 7. Not much more to be expected from ships.- 8. The route by
Smith's Sound recommended.— 9. The English expedition.— 10. Lieutenant
Weyprecht's plan for united scientific investigation.

CHAPTER VI.
POLAR EQUIPMENTS  page 2)7— A(>
I. Past experience to be consulted. — 2. The commander. — 3. Selection of the
crew.— 4. Discipline and pay. — 5. The best men to be obtained. — 6. Special
qualifications. — 7. Them-edical man. — 8. An artist or photographer desirable.
— 9. Old ideas of equipment. — 10. The greatest possible comfort necessary.
— II. A table of the sizes of the vessels in various expeditions. — 12. The
best kind of ships. — 13. The allowance of food. — 14. Spirituous liquors. —
15. The ship becomes a house in the winter. — 16. The quarters of the men.
— 17. Lamps and candles. — 18. Clothing of the crew. — 19. Instruments and
ammunition. — 20. The cost of different expeditions.

The Pioneer Voyage op the IssyoRN  page 49—69
I. A pioneer expedition resolved on. — 2, 3. Route to the east of Spitzbergen.
— 4. The Isbj'orn chartered for the service. — 5. Attempts to gain information
on the probable state of the ice. — 6. An unfavourable ice-year predicted. —
7. The expedition leaves Tromsoe. — 8. The coast of Norway described. —
9. The /i^(7>-« in the ice. — 10. Seeking a harbour. — 11. Cape Look-out. —
12. Two ships met with. — 13. In the ice. — 14. The return to the ice-barrier.
— 15. The geological formation of the western coast. — 16. Arrive at Hope
Island. — 17. Ice disappeared. — 18. Whales abound. — 19. Splendid effects of
colour. — 20. In a sea. — 21. A run along the west coast of Novaya Zemlya. —
22. Storms compel us to keep to sea. — 23. Object of the voyage. — 24. The
Austro-Hungarian Expedition of 1872. — 25. The plan of the Austro-Hungarian
Expedition.

CONTENTS.

VOYAGE OF THE "TEGETTHOFF."
CHAPTER I.
FROM BREMERHAVEN TO TROMSOE  page 73 — 77

I, The qualities requisite for a Polar navigator. — 2. The crew of the Tegetthoff. —
3. The Tegetthoff \\il% her anchor. — 4. The vessel. — 5. Crossing the sea. —
6. The languages spoken on board the Tegetthoff. — 7- The officers and crew of
the Tegetthoff. — 8. Arrive at Tromsoe. — 9. The first and last voyage ofthe
Tegetthoff begins.

CHAPTER IL
ON THE FROZEN OCEAN  page 78 — 92
I. Within the frozen ocean. — 2. The sea of Novaya Zemlya. — 3. We continue
our course by steam. — 4. The decay of ice. — 5- Effects of light. — 6. We
meet the Isbforn. — 8-10. The Barentz Islands described by Professor Hofer.
— II. Preparations for future contests with the ice. — 12. Inclosed in the land-
ice.— 13. We celebrate the birthday of Francis Joseph 1.^^14. Our prospects
do not improve. — 15. The Tegetthoff finally beset.

CHAPTER III.
DRIFTING IN THE NOVAYA ZEMLYA SEAS  page C)'^— 100
I. Winter begins. — 2. The impossibility of reaching the coast of Siberia.— 3.
Unsuccessful efforts to get free. — 4. The name-day of the Emperor Francis
Joseph I. — 5. Encounters with polar bears. — 6. A " snow-finch " visits the
ship. — 7. Novaya Zemlya recedes gradually from our gaze.

CHAPTER IV.
THE "TEGETTHOFF" FAST BESET IN THE ICE . . . page lOl—ll';,
I. Signs indicate the insecurity of our position.— 2. A dreadful Sunday. — 3. We
make ready to abandon the ship.— 4. The dogs.— 5. We return to the ship.—
6. We drift in the Frozen Sea.— 7. Our alarms.— 8. Our constant state of
readiness to meet destruction. CHAPTER V.
OUR FIRST WINTER (1872) IN THE ICE  page 1 14-125
I. Surrounded by deep twilight. — 2. Our preparations for winter.— 3. The difficulty
of sledge-travelling. — 4. Sumbu mistaken for a fox — 5. The rending of the
ice. — 6. Our short expeditions. — 7. The contmual threatening of the ice.— 8.
A bear shot.— 9. The effect of the long Polar night.— 10. The middle of the
long night. — n. Christmas feasts. — 12. The first hour of the new year. — 13..
The dogs allowed in the cabin. — 14. Carlsen writes in the log-book.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER VI.
LIFE ON BOARD THE "TEGETTHOFF"  page l^ii—l^?)
I. The 7>f^;Mo^ covered with snow. — 2. The excessive condensation of moisture.
—3. The destruction of the snow wall. — 4. The removal of the tent roof —
5. The stove of Meidingen of Carlsruhe. — 6. The arrangements of the officers'
mess-room. — 7. Those who occupied the mess-room. — 8. Our meals. — 9.
Divine service on deck. — 10. After dinner. — 11. The monotony of our life.
— 12. After supper. — 13. Middendorf contrasting the influence of climate
on men. — 14. Our sanitary condition. — 15. Baths. — 16. Passages from my
journal. — 17. A school instituted. CHAPTER vn.
ICE-PRESSURES  page I39— 142
I. Preparations for leaving the ship. — 2. Extracts from journal.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE WANE OF THE LONG POLAR NIGHT  page I43 — 148
I. The light increases. — 2. A bear hunt. — 3. Table ofthe course ofthe Tegetthoff.
— 4. Throw out bottles inclosing an account of the events ofthe expedition.
CHAPTER IX.
THE RETURN OF LIGHT. — THE SPRING OF 1873 . . . page 149  l6l
I. The sunrise.— 2. Our first look at each other.— 3. Visits from bears.— 4. The
carnival.— 5. Continual fall of snow.— 6. Return of birds.— 7. IU health of
Dr._Kepes.— 8. Bear shot— 9. A road constructed.— 10. Reading without
artificial light.— II. Accumulation of rubbish round the ship.— 12. Begin to
dig out the ship.— 13. Surprised by bears.— 14. Our hopes to reach Siberia —
15. Snow continues to fall.— 16. Visited by birds .-17. The steam machinery
put m workmg order.— 18. A partial eclipse of the sun.- 19. Birth of four
Newfoundland puppies.

CHAPTER X.
THE SUMMER OF 1873  page 162-I72
I. Decay of the walls of the ice.-2. The blaze of light on clear days.-:! Our
constant digging.-4. Continual sinking of the ship.-s. Nothing but ice -
6. Short expeditions.--?. Feast on the birthday of the Emperor -8. Table
^}i7C%Zt'tT^%^ t^''^-7'^- tT P,"^g'^Phs from the Admiral's report
ot the Fegetthoff.— 10. Sounding the depth of the sea.
CHAPTER XI.
NEW LANDS

 page 173—177
'¦ S^^fj^™''"f-2-. Sunset at midnight.-3. The second summer gone.--4 Land
at last.-5. Kaiser Franz-Josef's Land.-6 Hochstetter Island. ^

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER XII.
THE AUTUMN OF 1873. — THE STRANGE LAND VISITED . page 1"]% — 184
I. Autumn of 1873. — 2. Resolve to abandon the vessel. — 3. Daylight begins to
fail. — 4. Everything in readiness to leave the ship. — 5. Wilczek Island. — 6.
Our joy at reaching land. — 7. Exploring the island. — 8. An expedition. — 9.
The silence of Arctic Regions. — 10. The island continues a mystery.
CHAPTER XIII.
OUR SECOND WINTER IN THE ICE  page 185 — 198
I. Night begins to reign. — 2. Leisure for study. —3. Complete darkness. — 4.
Continual fall of snow. — 5. The middle of the second Polar night. — 6. Ill
temper of the dogs. — 7. The dogs. — 8. Pekel, Sumbu, and Jubinal. — 9.
Christmas time. — 10. Our life in the ship. — 11. Improvement in health. —
12. Scurvy.

CHAPTER XIV.
SUNRISE OF 1874  page 199—201
I. Return of the moon. — j,. Sun appears above the horizon. — 3. Lieutenant
Weyprecht and I resolve to abandon the ship after the sledge journeys.

CHAPTER XV.
THE AURORA  page 202— 210
I. The northem lights. — 2-4. The appearance of the aurora. — 5. The influence on
the magnetic needle. — 6. Description of the aurora by Lieutenant Weyprecht.

THE SLEDGE JOURNEYS.
CHAPTER I.
THE EXPLORATION OF KAISER FRANZ-JOSEF LAND
RESOLVED ON  page 213— 215
I. Necessity of exploration. — 2. Plan of the sledge journeys. — 3. Eagerness to
begin. — 4. Illness of Krisch.

CHAPTER II.
OF SLEDGE TRAVELLING IN GENERAL  page 2l6 — 221
I. The sledge the best means of exploration. — 2. The coast line to be followed. —
3. Best season for sledging. — 4. State of the snow-road.— 5. The formation
of depots. —6. Sledges dragged by men and dogs — 7. Sledging best performed
by dogs. — 8. The instruments required on a sledge journey.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER III.
THE EQUIPMENT OF A SLEDGE EXPEDITION .... page 222—234
I. The equipment of a sledge. — 2. Construction of our sledges.- 3. The cooking
apparatus.— 4. Fuel.— 5. Tents used at night— 6. The sleeping bag.— 7.
Arms and ammunition. — 8. Chest for instruments, &c. — 9, 10, 11. The pro
visions. — 12. Boats in sledge expeditions. — 13. Articles of clothing. — 14.
Furs. — 15. Covering for the feet.— 16. Drawing the sledge.
CHAPTER IV.
THE FIRST SLEDGE JOURNEY  page 235—24$
I. Qualities of a leader. — 2. Object of our first expedition. — 3. My party. — 4. We
begin our journey. — 5. Violent motion of the ice. — 6. Conduct of the dogs. —
7. Death of the bear. — 8. The driving snow. — 9. Reach the plateau of Cape
Tegetthoff. — 10. Ascending the plateau. — II. Night in the sleeping bag. — 12.
Difficulty of dragging the sledge. — 13. Ascend a mountain, Cape Littrow.
CHAPTER V.
THE COLD  page 246 — 257
I. The Sonklar glacier.— 2. Effect of cold.— 3. The frightful cold of North
America. — 4. Effect of low temperature on the human frame. — 5. The voice
in cold weather.— 6. Hardness of everything. — 7. Effect of cold on the senses.
— 8. Protection against cold.— 9. Danger of frost-bite. — 10. Thirst. — 11. A
block of snow. — 12. Return to the ship. — 13. Death of Krisch.
CHAPTER VI.
A GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF KAISER FRANZ- JOSEF LAND page 258 — 270
I. Size of the country.— 2. Surface of ice.— 3. Map of the country.— 4. Naming of
discoveries.— 5. Comparison of Arctic lands.— 6. The existence of volcanic
formations.— 7, 8. Geology of Franz-Josef Land.— 9. Glaciers of Spitzbergen.
—10. Ice of Franz-Josef Land.— 11. Temperature of the air. — 12. The
plasticity of the glaciers. -13. North-east of Greenland and Siberia  14. The
vegetation.— 15. Finding drift-wood.— 16. Impossibility of inhabiting Franz-
Josef Land.— 17. The absence of animal life.— 18. Seals abound.— 19 Species
of fish seen.— 20. Birds.— 21. The collection of Dr. Kepes.
CHAPTER VII.
THE SECOND SLEDGE EXPEDITION.— AUSTRIA SOUND . ^^.^^ 271—294
I. Plan of second expedition.— 2. Danger of leaving the ship.— 3. Visited bv
bears.-4. Our preparations finished. -5. The sledge party.-6. Our march.
—7. Torossy wounded by n bear.— 8. Danger of frost-bite.— 9. Arrive at
Cape Frankfurt.— 10. The configuration of the country.— 11. We penetrate
to Cape Hansa.-i2. A bear killed.-i3. I examine the beach.-i4f^ Loss of
the dog Sumbu.— 15. Easter Sunday.— 16. Approach of a bear. —17 Our
canvas boots worn out.-i8. We reach Becker Island.-ig. We lose a bear
—20. Direct our course towards Cape Rath.— 21. A bear shot.- 22. Difficultv
of advancmg.— 23. V,?e arrive at Cape Schrbtter. ^

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER VIII.
IN THE EXTREME NORTH  page 295— 313
I. We ascend the summit of the Dolerite Rock. — 2. Our expedition to the ex
treme north. — 3. We divide the provisions. — 4. The merits of our dogs. —
5. Klotz has to return. — 6. Zaninovich and the sledge fall into a crevasse. —
7. Reach Cape Habermann. — 8. Cape Biorok. — 9. The enormous flocks of
birds. — 10. Difficulty of travelling. — 11. Cape Saulen. — 12. Reach Cape
Germania. — 13. Cape Fligely. — 14. We plant the Austro-flungarian flag. —
1 5. Document inclosed in a bottle.
CHAPTER IX.
THE RETURN TO THE SHIP  page 314— 335
I. Our return journey. — 2. Observations of temperature. — 3. Snow-blindness. —
4. A bear shot. — 5. Reach Cape Hellwald. — 6. Orel continues to march
southwards. — 7. Reach Cape Tyrol. — 8. Grandeur of the scenery. — 9. Find
our companions. — 10. We sink in the snow. — 11. Arrive at open sea. — 12.
Over the glaciers of Wilczek Land. — 13. Enveloped in whirling snow. — 14.
Digging out our depot. — 15. The difficulty of advancing. — 16. Reach Schonau
Island. — 17. I find the ship. — 18. The ship in our absence.

CHAPTER X.
THE THIRD SLEDGE JOURNEY  page 336 — 340
I. Our wish to explore Franz-Josef Land. — 2. We leave the ship. — 3. The dogs
and the bears. — 4. A bear killed. — 5. Ascent of the pyramid-like Cape
Briinn. — 6. The extreme difficulty of the ascent. — 7. Return to the ship.

THE " TEGETTHOFF" ABANDONED.— RETURN
TO EUROPE.
CHAPTER I.
LAST DAYS ON THE " TEGETTHOFF "  page 343 — 347
I. "Plundering the ship." — 2. Appearance of the ship. — 3. Short expeditions.-^
4. Rapid decrease of the cold. — 5. The boats and their contents. — 6. The
dogs, Gillis and Semlya, shot. — 7. Our stock of clothes. — 8. Our plan of
escape. CHAPTER II.
ON THE FROZEN SEA  page 348—376
I. The day for abandoning the ship comes. — 2. We start. — 3. The dogs. — 4. We
return to the ship to replenish the stores. — 5- Shooting bears. — 6. Reach
Lamont Island. — 7. Return to the ship for the jolly boat. — 8. Impatience to
launch our boats. — 9. Launch at last. — 10. Shoot a seal. — 11. Quotations
from the journal. — 12. Crossing fissures. — 13. Disheartening efforts. — 14.
From one floe to another. — 15. Carlsen. — 16. Life in the boats. — 17. Our

CONTENTS.

dreadful situation. — 18. Our rations diminished. — 19. Forcing our way. —
20. Pushing floes asunder. — 21. No advance, but great efforts. — 22. Delight
caused by an advance of four miles a, day. — 23. Secure a bear. — 24. Our
progress greatly increases. — 25. Ice-hummocks everywhere. — 26. Alternate
launching and drawing up the boats. — 27. Increased progress. — 28. The
swell of the ocean. — 29. Shut in once more. — 30. Contrivances to pass away
the time. — 31. Calkingthe boats. — 32. We reach the open sea. — 33. Farewell
to the Frozen Ocean.

CHAPTER III.
ON THE OPEN SEA  page 377 — 389
I. Sight ofthe open sea. — 2. Compelled to kill the dogs.— 3. We take a last look
at the ice. — 4. Fifty miles from land. — 5. We sight Novaya Zemlya.— 6. We
hold on our course. — 7. Vain attempt to land on Novaya Zemlya. — 8. Differ
ence in the climate in various years. — 9. Land in Gwosdarew Bay. — io. Step on
land once more. — 11. Coast of Novaya Zemlya. — 12. Look in vain for a sail.
— 13. Our provisions nearly exhausted. — 14. We divide the remnant of food.
— 15. Deliverance at last. — 16. The schooner Nikolai. — 17 Our reception on
board. — 18. We hear the news from Europe. — 19. Captain Voronin agrees to
take us to Norway.— 20. The crew of the Nikolai. — 21. We run along the
coast of Lapland.— 22. Landing at Vardd— 23. Reception.

APPENDIX.,
I. METEOROLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS  page 39 1  393
II. DIRECTION AND FORCE OF THE WIND  page 394
•^°^^  '• Page?,9S

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

PAGE

TWILIGHT AT MIDDAY— FEBRUARY, 1874 .... Frontispiece
THE FIRST ICE  53
STILL LIFE IN THE FROZEN OCEAN  79
GWOSDAREW INLET  84
FORMATION OF THE DEPOT AT "THE THREE COFFINS". . " . . 89
THE " TEGETTHOFF " AND " ISBJORN " SEPARATE  90
THE "tegetthoff" FINALLY BESET  9I
ATTEMPTS TO GET FREE IN SEPTEMBER  94
SEAL-HUNTING — SEPTEMBER 1 872  96
SHOOTING AT A TARGET, OCTOBER 1 872  97
PARHELIA ON THE COAST OF NOVAYA ZEMLYA  99
AN OCTOBER NIGHT IN THE ICE  I05
THE MOON WITH ITS HALO  I09
OUR COAL-HOUSE ON THE FLOE  Ill
THE TWILIGHT IN NOVEMBER 1872  II5
SUMBU CHASED FOR A FOX  I16
WANDERINGS ON THE ICE IN OUR FIRST WINTER  II7
ENCOUNTER WITH A POLAR BEAR  I20
ICE-HOLE COVERED WITH YOUNG ICE  121
CARLSEN MAKES THE ENTRY IN THE LOG  1 24
THE "TEGETTHOFF" IN THE FULL MOON  1 27
DIVINE SERVICE ON DECK  I3I
ICE-PRESSURE IN THE POLAR NIGHT  140
FRUITLESS ATTEMPT TO RESCUE MATOSCHKIN  I45
SUNRISE (1873)  150
THE CARNIVAL ON THE ICE  I52
THE "TEGETTHOFF" DRIFTING IN PACK-ICE. — MARCH 1 873 . . 1 55
SOUNDING IN THE FROZEN OCEAN  I7I
APPROACHING THE LAND BY MOONLIGHT  1 83
DEPARTURE OF THE SUN IN THE SECOND WINTER  1 87
NOON ON DECEMBER 21, 1873  ¦. . 189
PEKEL, SUMBU, AND JUBINAL  193
IN THE MESS-ROOM  I96
THE AURORA DURING THE ICE-PRESSURE  204
KRISCH, THE ENGINEER  215
TEAM OF SEVEN MEN AND THREE DOGS  224
THE COOKING APPARATUS  224
THE SLEDGE WITH ITS LOAD  229
THE DRESS OF THE ARCTIC SLEDGER  23 1
TOROSSY IN HARNESS  234
CAPE TEGETTHOFF  ,  ^42
MELTING SNOW DURING A HALT NEAR CAPE BERGHAUS . . . 244
ON THE SONKLAR-GLACIER  247

xxiv LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

PAGE
BLOCK OF SNOW  ^^1
THE BURIAL OF KRISCH  5°
LIPARIS GELATINOSUS  7^°
HIPPOLYTE PAYERI  5o
HYALONEMA LONGISSIMUM  ^°"
UMBELLULA  Z^
KORETHRASTES HISPIDUS  ^7°
NEPHTHYS LONGISETOSA  ^7°
THE DOGS DIFFER AS TO THE TREATMENT OF YOUNG BEARS . 273
THE WINTER HOLE OF A BEAR  ^77
LIFE IN THE TENT  ..'•••• ^79
CAPE FRANKFURT, AUSTRIA SOUND, AND THE WULLERSDORF
MOUNTAINS  ^°°
HOW SUMBU WAS LOST  .• • • 2°4
CAPE EASTER AND STERNEK SOUND  285
HOW WE RECEIVED BEARS. CAPE TYROL IN THE BACKGROUND 28b
DINING ON bears' FLESH . . .-  287
CUTTING UP THE BEARS  292
ICEBERGS AT THE BASE OF THE MIDDENDORF GLACIER . . . 298
THE SLEDGE FALLS INTO A CREVASSE ON THE MIDDENDORF
GLACIER  300
KLOTZ'S AMAZEMENT  302
THE ALARM OF THE HOHENLOHE PARTY  303
HALT UNDER CROWN-PRINCE RUDOLF'S LAND  305
CAPE AUK  307
CAPE SAULEN  309
THE AUSTRIAN FLAG PLANTED AT CAPE FLIGELY  31 1
MELTING SNOW ON CAPE GERMANIA  315
ENCAMPING ON ONE OF THE COBURG ISLANDS  318
THE VIEW FROM CAPE TYROL. COLLINSON FIORD— WIENER
NEUSTADT ISLAND  321
BREAKING IN  323
ARRIVAL BEFORE THE OPEN SEA  325
DRAGGING THE SLEDGE UNDER THE GLACIERS OF WILCZEK LAND 326
THE SLEDGE IN A SNOW-STORM  328
DIGGING OUT THE DEPOT  329
THE' MIDNIGHT SUN BETWEEN CAPE BERGHAUS AND KOLDEWEY
ISLAND  331
THE "tegetthoff" DESCRIED  332
KLOTZ  > • 333
MARKHAM SOUND, RICHTHOFEN PEAK FROM CAPE BRtlNN . . 338
FIRST ABANDONMENT OF THE "TEGETTHOFF"  348
IN, THE HARBOUR OF AULIS . . '  352
WE LAUNCH AT LAST  355
MARCHING THROUGH ICE-HUMMOCKS  357
HALT AT NOON  358
CROSSING A FISSURE  359
CARLSEN  361
SCENE ON THE ICE  366
BEARS IN THE WATER  371
CALKING THE BOATS  -374
FAREWELL TO THE FROZEN OCEAN  37 5'
LANDING ON THE COAST OF NOVAYA ZEMLYA  380
THE BAY OF DUNES. THE RUSSIAN SCilOONERS  385

AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES.

INTRODUCTION. . CHAPTER I.
THE FROZEN OCEAN.
I. The ice-sheet spread over the Arctic region is the effect
and sign of the low temperature which prevails within it.
During nine or ten months of the year this congealing force
continues to act, and if the frozen mass were not broken up
by the effects of sun and wind, of rain, waves, and currents,
and by the rents produced in it from the sudden increase of
cold, the result would necessarily be an absolutely impene
trable covering of ice. The parts of this enormous envelope
of ice sundered by these various causes now become capable
of movement, and are widely dispersed in the form of ice
fields and floes.
2. The water-ways which separate these parts are called
"leads," or, when their extent is considerable, "ice-holes."
The meshes of this vast net, which is constantly in motion,
open and close under the action of winds and currents in
summer ; and it is only in its southern parts that the action
of waves, rain, and thaw produces any considerable detach
ments. Towards the end of autumn, the ice, forming anew,
consolidates the interior portions, while its outer edge pushes
forward, like the end of a glacier, into lower regions, until

AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES. [iNTRO.

about the end of February the culminating point of congela
tion is attained. Motionless adhesion of the fields, which
naturally reach their greatest size in winter, does not, how
ever, exist even then; for during this period they are
incessantly exposed to displacement and pressure from the
currents of the sea and the air.
3. When the ice is more or less closed, so as to render
navigation impossible, it is called "pack-ice," and "drift-ice"
when it appears in detached pieces amid predominating water.
Since there are forces operating which promote the loosening
process at its outer edge, and its consolidation within, it is
self-evident, that the interior portions tend to the character of
" pack-ice," and its outer margin to that of " drift-ice." This
general rule, however, is- so modified in many places, by local
causes, currents, and winds, that we find not unfrequently at
the outer margin of the ice thick barriers of pack-ice, and in
the inner ice, ice-holes (polynia 1) and drift-ice*.
4. Ice navigation, during its course of three hundred years,
has created a number of terms to designate the external forms
of ice, the meaning of which must be clearly defined. Ice
formed from salt-water is called " field-ice ; " that from the
waters of rivers and lakes "sweet-water ice." The latter is
as hard as iron, and so transparent that it is scarcely to be
distinguished from water. Icebergs are masses detached from
glaciers. The words " patch," " floe," " field," express relative
magnitude, descriptive of the smallest ice-table up to the-ice-
field of many miles in diameter. The term "floe," however, is
generally applied to every kind of field-ice, without reference
to its size. The ice which lies along coasts, or which adheres
to a group of islands within a sound, is called " land-ice."
Sledge expeditions depend on its existence and character.
Along the coast-edge land-ice is broken by the waves and
tide, and the forms of its upheaval and deposition on the
shore constitute the so-called "ice -foot." Broken ice, or
" brash," is an accumulation of the smaller fragments of ice
which are found only on the extreme edge of the ice-belt.
" Bay-ice " is ice of recent formation, and its vertical depth is
inconsiderable. ' Polynia, a Russian term for an open water space. —Glossary in Kane's Arctic
Explorations, vol. i., p. 14.

CHAP. I.] THE FROZEN OCEAN. . 3
5. Land-ice is less exposed to powerful disturbances, and
its surface, therefore, is comparatively level, and is only here
and there traversed by small hillocks called " hummocks " or
"torrosy." These are the results of former pressures, and
they are gradually reduced to the common level by evapora
tion, by thawing, and by the snow drifting over them.
6. But ice-floes exposed to constant motion from winds
and currents, and to reciprocal pressure, have a more or less
undulating character. On these are found piles of ice heaped
one upon another, rising to a height of twenty or even fifty >
feet, alternating with depressions, which collect the thawed
water in clear ice-lakes during the few weeks of summer in
which the temperature rises above the freezing point. The
specific gravity of this water, where it does not communicate
with the sea by cracks, is in all cases the same with the
specific gravity of pure sweet water ; and as the salt is gra
dually eliminated from the ice, the water produced is perfectly
drinkable. In the East Greenland Sea ice-floes frequently
measure more than twelve nautical miles across — these are
ice-fields properly so called.^ In the Spitzbergen and Novaya
Zemlya Seas, they are much smaller, as Parry also found.
7. The thickness which ice acquires in the course of a
winter, when its formation is not disturbed, is about eight
feet. In the Gulf of Boothia, Sir John Ross found the
greatest thickness about the end of May ; it was then ten
feet on the sea and eleven feet on the lakes. In his winter
harbour in Melville Island, Parry met with ice seven or
seven-and-a-half feet thick ; and Wrangel gives the thickness
of a floe on the Siberian coast, which had been formed in the
course of a winter, at nine-and-a-half feet. According to the
observations of Hayes the ice measured nine feet two inches
in thickness in Port Foulke. He estimates it, however, by
implication, far higher in Smith's Sound : " I have never
seen," he says, " an ice-table formed by direct freezing which
exceeded the depth of eighteen feet."
8. The rate at which ice is formed decreases as the thick
ness of the floe increases, and it ceases to be formed as soon
as the floe becomes a non-conductor of the temperature of
' Ice-fields have been seen there equal to the superficial extent of a Germaxi
principality, or even to the Duchy of Salzburg.

AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES. [intro.

the air by the increase of its mass, or when the driving of the
ice-tables one over the other, or the enormous and constantly
accumulating covering of snow, places limits to the penetra
tion of the cold.
9. While therefore the thickness which ice in free formation
attains is comparatively small, fields of ice from thirty to
forty feet high are met with in the Arctic Seas ; but these
are the result of the forcing of ice-tables one over the other
by pressure, and are designated by the name of " old ice,"
which differs from young ice by its greater density, and has a
still greater affinity with the ice of the glacier when it exhibits
coloured veins.
10. When the cold is excessive a sheet of ice several inches
thick is formed on open water in a few hours ; this, however,
is not pure ice, but contains a considerable amount of sea-salt
not yet eliminated ; complete elimination of the saline matter
takes place only after continuous additions of ice to its under
surface. A newly-formed sheet of ice is flexible like leather,
and as it becomes harder by the continued cold, its saline
contents come to the surface in a white frosty efflorescence.
II. Hayes mentions that he met with fields of ice from
twenty to a hundred feet thick in Smith's Sound. But if
it is difficult in many cases to distinguish glacier-ice, when
found in small fragments, from detached portions of field-ice,
it is often still more difficult to distinguish between old and
new ice, and the attempt to do so is merely arbitrary, because
their masses depend not on their age alone, but on other pro
cesses to which they are exposed. A floe of normal thickness
is never more than two or three years old ; and if it is to
exist and preserve its size for a longer period, it must some
where attach itself to land-ice, so as to escape destruction
from mechanical causes, and dissolution from drifting south
wards. Many floes run their course from freezing to melting
within a year.
12. The perpetual unrest in the Arctic Sea, which con
tinues undiminished even in the severest winter, and the
mcessant change in the " leads " and "ice-holes," are the main
causes of the increase of the ice, both in its area and in its
vertical depth. Were this constant movement to cease
the result would be the formation of a sheet of ice of the

CHAP. I.] THE FROZEN OCEAN. 5
uniform thickness of about eight feet over the whole Polar
region. 13. A layer of snow, which, like the ice itself, is at a
minimum in autumn, covers the whole surface of all the ice
fields. This snow, which in winter is sometimes as hard as a
rock, sometimes as fine as dust, takes, towards the end of
summer, more and more the character of the glacier snow of
our lofty Alpine ranges. Its grains, in a humid state, exceed
the size of beans, and when in motion they make a rustling
noise like sand. This granular snow is the residuum of the
incomplete evaporation of what fell in the winter, and of the
surface of the ice which has become " rotten " and porous.
Its crystals are frequently from a third to a sixth of an inch
in length, and firm ice is found even in autumn only at the
depth of one or two feet. In the North of Spitzbergen,
Parry observed that the surface of the ice was frequently
cut up into ice-needles of more than a foot long by the
drops of rain, which in summer fall upon it, and in some
places he found it overspread with red snow. We ourselves
never saw the phenomenon observed by Parry, and the
ice-crystals we met with seldom exceeded the length given
above. 14. Field-ice is of a delicate azure-blue colour, and of great
density, and there is, in these respects, no difference between
that of the Arctic and Antarctic regions. Cook, indeed, calls
the South Polar ice colourless, though Sir James Clark Ross
speaks expressly of the blueness of its ice-masses. Sea-ice
surpasses the ice of the Alps both in the beauty of its colour
and in its density. The glorious blue of the fissures is due
to the incidence of light, the blue rays of which only are
reflected, while the other rays are absorbed. A spectrum
observation made in 1869 on a Greenland ice-field gave
brownish red, yellow, green and blue. The yellowish spots
observed in ice are due to the presence of innumerable
microscopic animalculae.
15. Sea-ice, which, when the cold is intense, is hard and
brittle, loses this quality with the increase of temperature till
it acquires an incredible toughness, far exceeding that of
glaciers ; and floes several feet thick bend under mutual
pressure before they split. Hence the fruitlessness, especially

6. AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES. [iNTRO.
in summer, of all attempts to loosen the connexion of its parts
by blasting with gunpowder.
i6. The specific gravity of sea-ice is 0.91, and accordingly
about nine parts of a cubical block of ice are under water,
while one part only rises above the surface. If, however,
the ice of a floe be irregularly formed and full of bubbles,
the specific gravity will be correspondingly reduced, and the
volume submerged may diminish to two-thirds of the whole
mass. 17. The irregularity of the forms oi ice is so great, that no
deduction can safely be drawn from them ; cases may occur
where a recently-formed ice-floe, which has been attached to
old ice, is forced by its neighbour to sink under the normal
level ; hence the submergence of floes beneath the level of the
sea is often overstated.
18. The temperature of the Arctic Sea at the surface is
generally below the freezing point, and then increases slightly
with the depth. Sir James Ross observed that the tempera
ture in all oceans does not alter at great depths, and placed
this constant temperature at 39° F. In summer the tempera
ture of the atmosphere rises little abov'e freezing point, and,
according to Sir James Ross, it is still less at the South
Pole, because he saw no thaw-water streaming down from
the icebergs there as he did in the North. It was first
observed in Forster's days, that is about a century ago, that
the salt was gradually eliminated from frozen sea-water. Of
this fact Cook knew nothing ; and even Sir James Ross
endorses Davis's remark that "the deep sea freezes not."
But the fact that ice is formed on the open sea, and far
from the vicinity of land, was first asserted by Scoresby, and
has been confirmed by all subsequent observers, though it
was long disputed.
19- The crackling sound so commonly heard along the
outer edge of the ice exposed to the action of the waves is a
consequence of the penetration of its pores by the sea-water
which IS then immediately frozen, and disruption follows at
once. But disruption on a far grander scale is due to a cause
the very opposite of this, the sudden contraction and splitting
of the ice, even in the great ice-fields, which is produced
usually in winter by the sudden fall ot the temperature

CHAP. I.] THE FROZEN OCEAN. 7
20. When light falls on a field of pack-ice, it is reflected in
the stratum of air above it, and this span of light, called the
"ice-blink," just above the horizon, warns the navigator ofthe
impossibility of penetrating further. This phenomenon is often
observed also over drift-ice, although not so intense nor so
yellow in colour as over pack-ice.
21. Water spaces, on the other hand, show their presence
by dark spots on the horizon, produced by the formation of
clouds from ascending mists. These are the so-called
" water-sky,'' and faithfully indicate the " leads " beneath
them. Above the larger " ice-holes," they assume the dark
colours of a thunder-sky, though they are never so strongly
defined. 22. The annual evaporation from the surface of the ice,
which even in winter is never entirely interrupted during the
severest frost, and the destruction of ice by the action of rain
and waves, are balanced, to speak generally, by its re-formation
by frost. The maximum accumulation of ice takes place in
spring, its minimum in the beginning of autumn. We ob
served in the autumn of 1873 not only the evaporation of the
snow of the preceding winter, but also a vertical decrease of
ice of about four feet. Evaporation is, therefore, the most
potent, regulator of the balance between waste and growth
in the accumulation of ice ; and next in importance is the
drifting of its masses towards the south through all those
openings by which the Polar waters mingle with the waters
of lower latitudes.
23. However great the agitation of the sea may be in the
open ocean, and though it may dash its waves with wild fury
on the edge of the ice, within the icy girdle it is undisturbed,
in consequence of the. enormous weight ofthe superincumbent
masses. It is only in the large " ice-holes," and when the
winds are very high, that the action of waves is discernible.
An isolated accumulation of floes in a circular form, suffices to
produce a calm interior sea, and its outer edge only encounters
the beat of the ocean.
24. The ceaseless attack to which the ice is exposed on its
outer edge is the cause of its excavation and undermining.
Hence its centre of gravity is constantly displaced ; and the
overturning of its masses and its strange transformations

8 AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES. [iNTRO.
are the consequences of this instability. The smaller the
masses of the ice, the more fantastic are the shapes they
assume. 25. Change of colour in the sea as we enter the ice-region
is frequently, though not invariably, observed. Almost imme
diately on entering the ice, its normal dull green colour gives
place to a deep ultramarine blue, especially in the East Green
land seas, and this colour is maintained under all changes of
the weather, and is only modified by local currents. Two
hundred and fifty years ago it appeared to Hudson, on the
coast of Spitzbergen, that the sea, whenever it was free from
ice, was green, and that its being covered with ice and its
blueness of colour were intimately connected. Sir James
Ross states that in both Polar oceans the colour of the sea
changes in the neighbourhood of ice, and that the dull brown
ish colour sometimes seen near pack-ice in the Antarctic
Ocean is owing to an infinite number of animalculse. The
rapid fall of the temperature of the water to the zero point is
another indication that ice is near.
26. Of all the ice-formations in the Arctic Seas, icebergs
are the most enormous. "It is well known that ice is not
by any means so heavy as water, but readily floats upon its
surface. Consequently whenever a glacier enters the sea, the
dense salt water tends to buoy it up. But the great tenacity
of the frozen mass enables it to resist the pressure for a time.
By and by, however, as the glacier reaches deeper water its
cohesion is overcome, and large fragments are forced from its
terminal front and floated up from the bed of the sea to sail
away as icebergs."i This process is sometimes called "the
calving" of the glaciers; and the direction of the cleavage is
a pre-indication of the forms of the masses when detached.
The characteristic features of icebergs are their simple outline,
differing widely from the fantastic shapes which the fragments
of sea-ice tend to assume ; their great height as compared with
heir breadth-their greenish-blue colour-their distinct stra-
ification-their shght transparency-and the roughly-granu
lated character of their ice. Icebergs with long, sharp-pointed
peaks, hke those exhibited in numerous illustStions^Tve no
^ Geikie's Great Ice Age, pp. 38, 39.

CHAP. I.J THE FROZEN OCEAN. . 9
real existence. It is only fragments of field-ice, raised up by
pressure, exposed to the action of waves and the process of
evaporation which are transformed into fantastic shapes. Ice
bergs are generally of a pyramidal or tabular shape, and in
time they are usually rounded off into irregular cones. They
vary in height from 20 to 300 feet. Sir John Ross (1818) men
tions an iceberg of 51 feet ; Baffin (1615) of 240 feet ; Parry
(1819) of 258 feet; Kane (1853) of 300 feet; and Hayes
(1861) one 315 feet high, the depth of which below the water-
line he estimated at half a mile. On the coast of East Green
land, Scoresby once counted 500 icebergs, some of which
reached the height of 200 feet ; and during the second German
North-Pole expedition, we saw many at the mouth of the
Kaiser Franz-Josef fiord which measured 220 feet in height.
In Austria Sound, and on the east coast of Kron-Prinz
Rudolph's land, their altitude varied from 80 to 200 feet.
P"rom the covering of mist which envelops them, icebergs
generally appear much higher than they really are, and their
depth below the surface is not so considerable as is generally
supposed. In an iceberg 200 feet above the water, a total
height of 600 to 800 feet may, as a mean, be inferred. It is
only glaciers of a very great size which shed icebergs ; smaller
glaciers, like those of Novaya Zemlya, only strew the sea with
a multitude of fragments which resemble broken sea-ice.
Hence the appearance of icebergs is connected with the prox
imity to glacier-covered lands, and with the currents which
prevail along their coasts. Baffin's Bay, Smith's Sound, East
Greenland, the South-East of Greenland, Austria Sound, are
the principal places where they collect together and lie like
fleets before the entrances of bays and gulfs. Under-currents
of the sea take them not unfrequently in directions contrary
to the drift of the field-ice, which depends only on upper-
currents ; and abnormal winds may sometimes carry them out
to seas where they have been seldom or never seen.^ This
appears to be the case even with those met with on the north
west coast of Novaya Zemlya. On the other hand, they have
never been seen on the coasts of Siberia, which have no
glaciers. 1 In the North Atlantic Ocean down to 40° N. L.
3

10 • AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES. [intro.
27. The constant displacement of the centre of gravity
of an iceberg, resulting from the unsymmetrical decrease
of its form, causes its periodical oversetting ; and the
different temperature of the internal and external ice is the
principal cause of its rending asunder with a noise like
thunder ; a process which occurs generally in the height of
summer.

CHAPTER II.
NAVIGATION IN THE FROZEN OCEAN.
I. Although it be impossible to give any one, who has not
with his own eyes seen the Arctic Sea, a perfectly clear
conception of its character, the phenomena described in the
preceding chapter are sufficient to indicate the difficulties
and dangers to which its navigation is necessarily exposed.
And to these" difficulties and dangers, formidable enough in
themselves, are often added the evil influences of preconceived
theories and exaggerated expectations, usually followed by
bitter disillusions. The calm judgment, which, to all the bold
plans of navigation within the Polar basin, opposes distrust in
their feasibility, while it points to the hundred expeditions
which have at last returned home after penetrating but a
little way into the frozen sea, is an attainment of slow growth.
Years, too, must be devoted to the theoretical study of the
Polar question, to the examination of all that predecessors
have experienced and recorded. But this study is very
important to Polar navigators ; for the discoveries which they
too readily regard as exclusively their own prove sometimes
to have been made centuries before them.
2. A most essential element of success is the choice of a
favourable ice year; and the commander of an expedition
must possess sufficient self-control to return, as soon as he
becomes convinced of the existence of conditions unfavourable
for navigation. It is better to repeat the same attempt on a
second or even a third sum.mer, than with conscious impotence
to fight against the supremacy of the ice.
3. Polar navigators have learnt in the school of experience
to distinguish between navigation in the frozen seas remote

AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES. [intro.

from the land, and navigation in the so called coast -waters.
The former is far more dangerous, entirely dependent on
accident, exposed to grave catastrophes, and without any
definite goal. It affords no certainty of finding a winter
harbour for the long period when cold and darkness render
navigation impossible. On the other hand, a strip of open
water, which retreats before the growth of the land-ice only
in winter, forms itself along coasts, and especially under the
lee of those exposed to marine currents running parallel to
them ; and this coast-water does not arise from the thawing
of the ice through the greater heat of the land, but from the
land being an immovable barrier against wind, and therefore
against ice-currents. The inconstancy of the wind, however,
may baffle all the calculations of navigation ; for coast-water,
open as far as the eye can reach, may be filled with ice in a
short time by a change of the wind. Land-ice often remains
on the coasts even during summer, and in this case there is
nothing to be done but to find the open navigable water
between the extreme edge of the fast-ice and the drift-ice.
Should the drift become pack-ice, the moment must be awaited
when winds setting in from the land carry off the masses of
ice blocking the navigation, and open a passage free from ice,
or at least only partially covered with drift-ice. It is evident
that navigation in coast-waters must be slow and gradual,
though it has always been attended with the greatest ad
vantages. Barentz was the first who tested its value ; but it
was Parry, the most distinguished of all Polar navigators, who
discovered its full importance, and from his day it has been
accepted as an incontrovertible canon of ice-navigation. On
this point he himself says : " Our experience, I think, has
clearly shown, that the navigation of the Polar Seas can never
be performed with any degree of certainty without a con
tinuity of land. It was only by watching the openings
between the ice and the shore that our late progress to the
westward was effected ; and had the land continued in the
desired direction, there can be no question that we should
have continued to advance, however slowly, towards the
completion of our enterprise."^
1 Va.rxy'& Journal of a Voyage for the Discoveiy of a North-West Passage, 1819-20,
p. 298. 4to. London, 1821.

CHAP. IL] NAVIGATION IN THE FROZEN OCEAN. 13
4. The successes of the English in the North American
Archipelago were the result of this mode of navigation. Its
principle is to search for and sail along the network of narrow
channels when the main passage is blocked by pack-ice, and
to turn to account the narrowest opening between the ice and
the land. In the Siberian coast expeditions also this method
of constantly following the coast-waters has been successfully
observed. Where coast-water does not exist, or only to a
limited extent, as on the East Coast of Greenland, this method
is of course impracticable. The fate of the second German
North Pole expedition is an illustration of this ; it was
ordered to penetrate in this direction, and its failure was
inevitable. On the other hand, all the unsuccessful attempts
of expeditions to penetrate northward from Spitzbergen —
expeditions whose course and termination resemble each other
as one egg resembles another — may be reckoned among those
in seas remote from land. To the same category belong
the expeditions for the discovery of a north-east passage,
and simply because of the great extent of frozen sea between
Novaya Zemlya and Cape Tcheljuskin.
5. In the frozen sea remote from the land, from 200 to 300,
or at the most 400, nautical miles must, according to all past
experience, be regarded as the greatest distance which a vessel
is able to compass, under the most favourable conditions
during the few weeks of summer in which navigation is
possible. The fact that Sir James Ross at the South Pole,
and Norwegian fishermen in the Sea of Kara, accomplished
still greater distances, only proves that they were little or not
at all impeded by ice. Ross observed that the ice-floes of
the Southern Arctic Seas are smaller than those of the
Northern : " The cause of this is explained by the circum
stance of the ice cf the southern regions being so much more
exposed to violent agitations of the ocean, whereas the
northern sea is one of comparative tranquiUity." ^ The rarer
occurrence of land at the South Pole permits freer scope to
the currents of the sea, diminishes the opportunity for the
growth of ice on the coasts, tends to widen the passages in
the network of water-ways, and thus facilitates navigation.
Even the swell of the sea within the ice is observed in the
1 Sir J. C. Ross's Southern Antarctic Voyage, vol. ii., p. 151.

14 AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES. [intro.
South Polar Ocean, while it is never seen in the North.
Besides the greater hindrances peculiar to the whole North
Polar Sea, there is the specially unfavourable circumstance,
in the case of the North-East passage, that the shallowness of
the Siberian Sea prevents a close navigation of its coasts.
6. The choice of the most appropriate season is another
important consideration in ice-navigation ; for this period does
not fall at the same time in all seas, and the disregard of
season was a common cause of the failures of the expeditions
of earlier centuries. Since the frozen sea remains unbroken
and almost unaffected by the action of the sun even in June,
and at that time extends far to the south, it is evident that all
attempts to force a passage in that month are labour thrown
away. The ice-barrier retreating northward, or the transfor
mation of pack into drift-ice, leaves free navigable water four
or five weeks later. The month of August is the best time
for ice-navigation in Baffin's Bay ; the end of July or begin
ning of August on the East Greenland coasts; the second
half of August and the beginning of September in the
Spitzbergen waters ; and in the region of the Parry Islands
the favourable opportunity ends about the. beginning of
September. In general, it seems that the time most pro
pitious for all the coast-water routes, begins some weeks
earlier than the corresponding period in the frozen seas
remote from land. But since, even in the first weeks of
September, the most promising conditions are often succeeded
by a sudden reaction due to storms, to cold setting in rapidly
or to excessive falls of snow, navigation in the land-remote
frozen seas, in itself so extremely hazardous, becomes specially
critical, just when the ice-sheet at its minimum appears to
promise the greatest results.
7. The help of steam power is an indispensable requisite
as by It a vessel is able to defy the capricious changes of the
wind. The movements of a ship amid the ice are made in
interminable curves, and the power to describe an arc with the
least radius enables a vessel to follow up narrow and often
blocked water-ways. As it is incessantly exposed to severe
shocks from the ice, a paddle-wheel steamer is useless ; and
even in screw-steamers care must be taken to protect the pro
peller by a special construction.

CHAP. II.] NAVIGATION IN THE FROZEN OCEAN. 15
8. The rate of speed of a vessel in the ice must necessarily
be moderate. From three to six miles an hour are sufficient :
and a rate of eight or ten miles would soon render her not
seaworthy. But even with this reduced rate, her whole frame
work is shaken and loosened at last by the incessant shocks
she sustains ; and this condition of the ship becomes apparent
when concussion with the ice is followed not by a noise as of
thunder, but by a low, dull, groaning sound. The larger a
vessel, the less her capacity to withstand these shocks, and
the sooner will these signs of her diminished strength betray
themselves. 9. An Arctic ship should be built with sharp rather than
with full lines; so that when pressed by the ice, she may more
easily escape being nipped and crushed. A ship built with
what is called — in England — full lines, a full, round ship, is
not easily raised but is liable to be crushed by ice-pressure.
The Hansa was built in this manner, and was crushed by the
first squeeze from the ice ; the Germaiiia and the Tegetthoff
were both of them sharp-built ships, and stood the test of
the ice excellently well. To protect it from the effects of
grinding on ragged " ice-tongues," the hull is generally iron-
plated for some feet under water, and the bows are strength
ened as much as possible, because this part of the ship is
exposed to the greatest shocks.
10. The tactics of a ship in the ice are guided entirely by
the character of the hindrances tp be overcome. If the ice
fields be large and heavy, they are then generally separated
by broader water-ways and " leads," and a ship may often
amid such ice follow her course for hours with few deviations
subject always to the danger of being " beset " and crushed.
When the passage is blocked by a barrier of ice, the situation
becomes grave and serious ; for such fields are not to be dis
placed by any force which the ship may exert, and nothing is
left to the navigator but to await their parting asunder in a
position as sheltered as possible. When the ice is loose and
the floes comparatively small, the impeding barriers may be
charged by the ship. She may then force asunder some of
these floes or separate them by the continuous pressure of
steam-power. In cases of this kind, large vessels have the
advantage, and can bring to bear a greater amount of pressure,

i5 AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES. [intro.
whereas smaller ones stick fast and remain immovable. These
accumulations of ice, while they make a " besetment " more
likely, diminish the danger of pressure.
1 1. Hence it is clear that small are to be preferred to large
vessels for ice-navigation, except under circumstances of rare
occurrence ; first, because they are more readily handled, and
next, because of their greater power of resistance and of
their being more easily raised under pressure from the ice.
Their one disadvantage of lesser momentum is of compara
tively slight consequence. The experience of all the North
Pole expeditions of this century shows, that ships of 150, or
at the most of 300 tons, are best suited for all purposes.
12. Iron ships have often been employed, but with no
success ; they are far less able to bear pressure than wooden
ships, as was proved, among other things, by the fate of the
River Tay in 1868, in Baffin's Bay, and of the Sophia, a
Swedish ship of discovery in the north of Spitzbergen.
13. It admits of no question, that two vessels should be
employed in preference to one, and this should be accepted as
a first pripciple whenever the means at our disposal admit of
it. Both ships should also be provided with steam-power, for
otherwise their separation is almost inevitable, — a danger,
however, for which, under all circumstances, they must be
prepared. 14. All that is commonly understood about piercing the ice
by sawing and boring through it is a delusion, and arises from
the misunderstanding of technical expressions. Where there
is navigable water, there any one can sail— where there is none,
no one. In 1869 and 1870, after coming on a cul-de-sac of
ice in Greenland to the east of Shannon Island, we could not
penetrate a yard further ; in 187 1, in loose, but solid ice, we
drew away only by warping on the smaller floes, without being
able to make the slightest progress, and in 1872 we were twice
" beset," in heavy ice, in spite of our steam power. The pene
tration of close pack-ice is an impossibility: in this case
patient endurance is alone of any avail, and hence Sir John
Ross so emphatically recommends the Polar navigator "never
to lose sight of the two words caution and patience."i If a
I.ondra^°i8" ^°'''-~^'"""^ ^"y'S' of Discovery io the Arctic Ocean, p. 180. 410.

CHAP. II.] NAVIGATION IN THE FROZEN OCEAN. 17
vessel, therefore, is arrested by impenetrable masses barring its
way, the breaking up of the ice must be patiently awaited,
and this, generally, is effected by calms, although the ebb and
flow of the tide appear to have an influence on the solidity of
the ice. It is then usual with sailing ships to seek the larger
" ice-holes," or keep in the freest water-ways, in order to guard
against the danger of being completely inclosed. These
precautions, however, are not so requisite for steam-vessels,
as their power to escape quickly and iri any direction secures
them against this danger. A steam-ve5sel may even venture
to fasten on to an ice-floe by means of an ice-anchor, and of
course under its lee, the fires being banked up, so that by
getting up steam she may shift her place as soon as the ice
moves nearer. As a principle, and so far as it is possible with
out the exhaustion of her powers, a ship in the ice should
endeavour to be in constant motion, even though this entail
many changes of her course and the temporary return to a
position which had been abandoned. The making fast to a
floe, however, should never be attempted, except when every
hope of navigating in the surrounding waters has been proved
fruitless. The fastening a vessel to an iceberg diminishes,
indeed, its drifting, but is, if possible, to be avoided, because
of the danger of the iceberg overturning or rending asunder,
things which occur far more frequently than we should be led
to expect from their great appearance of stability. When a
ship, notwithstanding every possible caution, is " beset," it is
then advisable to " ship " the rudder in order to protect it from
injury, to which it is peculiarly liable from its unusual weight
and size. A ship is exposed to considerable danger when she
finds herself among icebergs in a calm ; but since these are
over-spread by a dazzling sheen, even in the thickest mist,
the peril of the position is to be avoided at the last moment
by warping.
15. As the happy choice of a sea-way is one of the essential
conditions of success in ice-navigation, the ability to determine
the ship's position and to ascertain whether a surface covered
with ice to the horizon, admits of being penetrated, is most
desirable. Hence the employment of a balloon would be of
the last importance in Arctic navigation. The advantage of
being able to ascend from the ship in a balloon secured by a

i8 AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES. [intro.
rope, to the height of a few hundred feet, is self-evident ; and,
undoubtedly, the first vessel which avails herself of this great
resource will derive extraordinary benefit from it.
1 6. From the deck of a ship even drift-ice appears to be of
such solidity at a little distance as to defy navigation, while
from the mast-head more water than ice may be descried.
In order then to extend the horizon, a look-out, called "the
crow's nest," is fixed on the mast-head, in which an officer is
always on the watch, and from which all the operations of
the vessel are directed. In a ship of the size and height of
the Tegetthoff, the horizon visible from "the crow's nest"
extends to about eleven miles,^ but at the distance of even
five miles the possibility of penetrating cannot be determined
with sufficient exactness. It is the business of the officer in
" the crow's nest" to observe the passages through the ice and
distant objects generally, as he is in the best position to fulfil
this most important duty. It is the special business of the
watch on the forecastle to mark what lies in the immediate
neighbourhood of the vessel, and his constant care is demanded
to avoid isolated ice-floes and prevent collision with them.
The seaman at the helm steers the ship by the signs and
calls which come to him from " the crow's nest," and modifies
them according to those of the watch on the forecastle. The
rest of the crew remove the smaller fragments of ice from
the vessel's course, special care being taken to prevent their
damaging the screw.
17. While sea-currents move the ice in close and continuous
lines, winds produce great disturbances in their movement,
and open long " leads " in the direction of their course, which
often alternate with strips of the thickest pack-ice. This
movement of the ice varies with each accumulation of floes,
as its rate of motion depends on the height of the ice-field,
which then acts as a sail. It is ascertained by experience
that calms, on the other hand, have the remarkable property
of breaking up the ice. The knowledge and application of
these circumstances are essential to the Arctic navigator. If
the course of a ship lies across or against a current, it is con
stantly deflected. The deflection on the coast of East Green-
1 The nautical mile or "knot," which is about an ordinary mile and a sixth, is
meant.

CHAP. IL] NAVIGATION IN THE FROZEN OCEAN. 19
land, for example, amounted to five, even ten miles, within
twenty-four hours ; hence the importance of choosing routes
with and not against the course of currents.
18. Lastly, it is of the greatest moment to choose betimes
an appropriate winter harbour, and it is therefore necessary to
keep near the coast towards the close of the season for navi
gation. To find one suitable for shelter during the winter in
an unknown Arctic region is a matter of great difficulty, for
it very often happens, that the ice drifts out from these
" docks "^ in the storms which constantly occur, or perhaps the
" dock " is so sheltered, that the ice, if it breaks up at all,
breaks up only in the following summer. Shallow bays which
freeze almost to the bottom, lying under the lee of a current
or within a fiord, are the most appropriate spots in which to
winter. ^ Dock, an opening in the ice, ai-tificial or natural, offering protection. Kane's
Glossary of Arctic Terms, vol. i., p. 13.

CHAPTER IIL
THE PENETRATION OF THE REGIONS WITHIN THE POLAR
CIRCLE ; THE PERIOD OF THE NORTH-WEST AND
NORTH-EAST PASSAGES.
I. Around the lonely apex of the Pole stand cairns of
stone which serve to mark the points to which the restless
spirit of human enterprise and discovery has penetrated. In
its zenith wheels the sea-gull in its flight, and the harpoon-
persecuted seal finds on its ice-floes an unapproachable
asylum ; but the Pole itself remains the goal which no
human effort has yet reached.
2. As all knowledge is perfected slowly and gradually, so
man's knowledge of the earth and its configuration forms no
exception to this general rule. Of the few attempts of early
antiquity to enlarge the domain of geographical knowledge,
tradition tells us only of the Argonautic expedition of the
Greeks, of the voyage of the PhcEnicians to Ophir, and their
bolder circumnavigation of Africa. With the conception of
the spherical form of the earth the still vague notion of
climatal zones makes its appearance, and to this, four cen
turies before Christ, Pytheas of Marseilles gave the first
scientific elucidation and the first approximation to modern
theories by his doctrine of the Polar Circle. Almost contem
poraneously Alexander's expedition to the wonder-land of
India created a paradise for commerce and navigation, to
secure which a shortened route, the route through tlie ice — the
most perverse notion that ever entered into the mind of man
to conceive — was one thousand eight hundred years afterwards
eagerly and passionately sought.
3. Rome had extended her knowledge to Scandinavia, and
Seneca's prophetical mind foresaw the discovery of new

CH. III.] NORTH-WEST AND NORTH-EAST PASSAGES.

worlds. But the deluge of religious strifes, the migrations of
nations in the earlier part of the Middle Ages, the holy zeal
for destruction in the apostles to the heathen, proved formid
able barriers to the extension of geographical knowledge,
which were broken through only by the piratical hordes of
Normans so renowned in story. While the Romans boasted
that Britain had never been circumnavigated, the Normans,
throwing tte deeds of the Phcenicians into the shade, dis
covered Greenland, and became the first Polar Navigators.
4. Travels by land were the principal means by which the
geographical knowledge of the world was enriched ; but
.during the Middle Ages the information which travellers
communicated, uncertain and superficial even for Europe,
served only to supply food for the fancies of map-makers, as
far as the distant parts of the world were concerned.
5. But the grand moment at length arrived in the history of
mankind when the civilization of the West, looking beyond
the narrow horizon of the Old World, and awaking from the
geographical dreams of centuries, burst the fetters of tradition,
and within three hundred years perfected the knowledge of
our planet up to the Pole.
6. When by his famous line of partition, Pope Alexander
VI. granted to Spain and Portugal the new countries dis
covered in the East and West, the brigantines of these nations
spread themselves over all seas in search of new lands and
fresh glory. To the other maritime nations, to the Enghsh
and the Dutch, nothing remained, if they meant to acquire
gold-yielding lands, but to drive the Spaniards and Portuguese
from their conquests, or to seek new Eldorados — yea, by the
discovery of sea routes on the north of Asia and America, to
aspire to India itself This was the conception first enter
tained by both the English and the Dutch, and Geography at
any rate profited by their delusions. These nations were
not to blame if those routes, known afterwards as the North-
West and North-East passages, degenerated into chimeras, if
passages had to be sought in higher and still higher latitudes,
— ultimately in the ice itself, although the Dutch geographer,
Plancius, struck out the consoling theory of the open Polar
Sea. 7. But who in those days could presuppose that the

22 AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES [intro.
continents of Asia and America, just where those passages
were attempted, symmetrically developed the most enormous
longitudinal dimensions ? Even the actual discovery of the
vast extent of Siberia exerted but little influence on the
question of the North-East passage, for the achievements of
individuals were not then so quickly disseminated as at
present. A succession of men in vessels poorly equipped
now struggled against the supremacy of the ice, avoiding at
first the dreaded wintering, while they attempted sometimes
the North-East, sometimes the North- West, sometimes the
passage over the Pole itself In these attempts many lost
their lives; many returned, despairing of but still hoping
for the solution of the problems — but no one reached the goal.
8. The amazing simplicity of the first adventurers is seen
in Frobisher's project to erect forts, duly provided with can
nons and men, on the commanding points of the passage, in
the letters of recommendation given by kings of England to
the leaders of the expedition for the small Saracenic .states
which were supposed to exist beyond the river Obi ; but
these old navigators carried no letter of recommendation to
the great potentate— the ice. Gold, too, they hoped to find
in the North, because the book of Job speaks of gold coming
from thence, and the North-East passage was considered as
free from danger, because Pliny mentions some Indians who
had been driven towards Norway !
9. When another century and a half had clasped, a series
of unsuccessful attempts to force the North-East passage put
a decisive check to material interests in Polar expeditions.
The North-East passage belonged henceforward to the history
of the past. The English and Dutch withdrew from the
Novaya Zemlya seas ; and after Wood's retreat no scientific
expedition entered those seas for two hundred years, until the
days of the Austrian Expeditions.
10. Among the maritime nations of Europe, it was England,
and especially her merchants, who had hitherto largely in
vested in the costs and risks of these Argonautic expeditions
" for the glory of God and the good of the country." The
Dutch soon contented themselves, after Barentz's death, with
the capture of whales in the Arctic seas ; France remained
an unconcerned spectator, while the sylphs of Versailles

CH. ni.] NORTH-WEST AND NORTH-EAST PASSAGES. 23
consumed the whalebone of whole fleets of whalers ; and Spain
and Portugal early withdrew from seas in which, instead of
ingots of gold, ice-floes only were to be found. But even for
England the days of the prophets had now passed away —
th^ days of a Cabot, a Mercator,^ a Wolstenholme, and a
Walsingham. Men of weight raised their voices against the
chimeras of Arctic commercial routes, and Chillingworth con
temptuously compared an expedition for the discovery of the
North-East passage to the study of the Fathers.
II. It may be asked why nations struggled with daunt
less ambition for the lost cause of the barren North-West
and North-East passages, while for a century they stretched
forth timid hands after the rich treasures of lands lying in
the more favoured zones ? The mighty stimulus of the love of
the marvellous explains this series of efforts taken up by
generation after generation. Frobisher, Davis, Baffin, and
the Novaya Zemlya adventurers, told on their return of gold-
lands far within the domains ofthe icy Hydra. Their tales of
single combats with spear or matchlock against polar bears, of
the dreadful snow-storms and fearful cold of the Arctic winter,
were heard with grim delight by listeners on whom no hard
ships were imposed. Or they spoke of a darkness that con
tinued for months, of the flaming arches of the northern
lights, of the sun remaining visible for many weeks in the
heavens, of a race of dwarfs, of unheard-of animals, of fish
as big as ships of war, of monsters with long teeth which
precisely resembled the Sphinxes of the plains of the Pyra
mids, of white and blue foxes, of floating mountains of
dazzling crystal, of ships seen upside down in the air — when
had ever the mind of man more food to nourish the love of
the marvellous or greater incentives to stimulate the love of
distinction 1 But besides these appeals to the imagination,
every generation desires new confirmations of its convictions ;
and hence geographical questions, after being shelved for a
time, come again to the front as by an inward necessity.
12. If the earher Polar expeditions pursued exclusively
material ends, a decided change appears in those of the
present century — the Polar world itself became an object of
scientific investigation. With Sir John Ross (1818) began a
' Mercator was not an Englishman ; he was a Dutchman, bom 1512, died 1594.

24 AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES. [intro.
series of expeditions, at first subservient to the idea of a
North-West passage, but which ultimately derived all their
importance from their attempt — ineffectual as it proved — to
rescue the lives of 139 men, who had fallen far from the fields
and scenes where earthly fame is commonly achieved. It
was these expeditions, still fresh in the memory of this gene
ration, which, summoning to their aid the modern power of
steam against the ice, succeeded in drawing on our Arctic
maps a circle whose mean distance was 200 (German) miles
from the Pole. Parry on the frozen sea of Spitzbergen had
approached it within 100 miles (German) ; Kane, Hayes and
Hall on the coast of the Kennedy Channel, the former to
within 116, and the two latter to within 108 miles, and the
Austro-Hungarian expedition to within 109 miles
13. M'Clintock, who returned with the relics of the
Franklin expedition, succeeded in perfecting a mode of
discovery independent of the ship — that by means of sledg
ing — admirably adapted for future Arctic expeditions. But
the North-West passage for which six generations had toiled,
though discovered, was shown to be utterly worthless for all
material purposes — a dreary web of coast lines.

CHAPTER IV.
THE INNER POLAR SEA.
I. The Arctic Sea, in some of its features, forcibly impresses
us with its resemblance to the glaciers of the Alps. In both
cases, the ice presses from a region, colder and less favoured
by climate, towards one warmer and more favoured. In the
Alpine glaciers, the movement is from above downwards;
in the Frozen Ocean, the movement is from a higher to a
lower geographical latitude. In both cases, the tongues and
spurs of the masses of ice formed by the configuration of the
land or by currents of the sea, terminate, whenever they reach
an isothermal curve of altitude or latitude, the mean tem
perature of which suffices to dissolve them or prevent their
formation. Moraines also have their equivalent in the Arctic
Sea ; for it is an established fact that icebergs and ice-fields
laden with the dibris and rubbish of Arctic lands, deposit
these burdens round the outer edge of the Frozen Ocean,
and to this process, partially at least, the origin of the New
foundland Banks is ascribed. If this comparison between the
phenomena of high latitudes and great altitudes be just, then
we should have as much reason to believe in the existence of
the so-called open Polar Sea, as we should have to maintain,
that in our glacier ranges ice ceases to be formed above a
certain altitude.
2. The belief of past times ^ in such a sea shows how-
unsatisfactory is the simple to man's mind, and how old is
his tendency to clothe the remote and the uncommon with
' Three centuries ago, Plancius, the Dutch geographer, devised this for the
North Pole, while Barros, the Portuguese historiographer, did the same for the
South Pole. 4

26 AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES. [intro.
a garment of the marvellous. What was the open Polar Sea
but the "Harz Sea" of the North, or the legendary zone
of the ever-sunny Eden of the Hyperboreans, far beyond
the land of the Anthropophagi over which was spread an
atmosphere veiled in snow, and through which no light could
penetrate ! Who has ever seen this open Polar Sea .'' Do
the accounts of navigators confirm its existence ? Nay —
their accounts are rather a series of counter-statements:
Hudson, Baffin, Phipps, Tschitschagoff, Buchan, Franklin,
Parry, CoUinson, Scoresby, M'Clintock, Koldewey, Torell,
Nordenskjold, have all expressed their disbelief in its exist
ence.. If some have pretended that they have seen it, how
strange it is that they never sailed on it ! It has recently
been attempted to make the great champion of the Polar
question. Dr. Petermann, a supporter of this conception ; but
in the " Mittheilungen " of this highly meritorious geographer,
there are many passages which most emphatically protest
against it. His views extend only to an inner Polar Sea
navigable under certain circumstances, and every one ac
quainted with those regions may adopt his point of view,
though he refuses to admit the existence of the open
Polar Sea.
3. In those centuries when the Natural Sciences were
little cultivated, when the theories of the Trade Winds, of
Equatorial and Polar sea-currents, were still unknown, and
when as yet the processes in the Frozen Ocean had not
been submitted to scientific investigation, we cannot be sur
prised at the preconceptions which were formed concerning
its phenomena. In those times all beyond Norway was a
chaos of ice-filled darkness ; the necessity of a scientific
investigation of those wastes was not felt ; and down to the
time of Sir John Ross, Polar navigators on their return home
brought with them no kind of scientific knowledge of Nature
in the Arctic regions. To reach India was the main if
not the only end they had in view. The instructions which
Willoughby, the first Polar navigator, received, give us an
insight into the delusions of earlier times. These, for example
warned adventurers against men-eaters who swam naked in the
sea, and in the rivens. It was the period of fables lon<^ since
forgotten. Maldonado, de Fuca, Bernarda, Yelmer, Andrejew

CHAP. IV.] THE INNER POLAR SEA. 27
Martini^re, and the whale-fishers, brought home tales of pas
sages to India discovered, of new continents, of the ascertained
connexion of Novaya Zemlya with the northernmost point of
Siberia (Yelmerland) or even with Greenland. Two centuries
ago the failure of all attempts at a North-East passage was
attributed to Russia's commercial policy, inasmuch as it had
been proved to the satisfaction of all, that the heat was
greater in the north, that the seas there ceased to freeze, and
that the country was covered with a luxuriant green !
4. There was, indeed, a certain logical consequence in the
belief of an inner Polar Sea, as long as it was unknown that
ice is formed on the open sea as well as on the coasts. There
was also one argument, which made the existence of such a
sea not altogether improbable. It might be assumed, that
the formation of ice renewed every year in the Arctic
regions, would necessarily produce eternal bulwarks of con
gelation and destroy all organic life, unless sea-currents
modified these extremes of climate. The ice which is formed
round the Pole — it was argued — is not of an unlimited but
of a definite quantity. Since, then, this quantity of ice must
be brought with tolerable uniformity from the innermost Polar
region to lower latitudes by the action of sea-currents, there
are at least one or two raonths of the summer when the ice
is at a minimum, when no new formation takes place, and
when a sea relatively ice-free may appear in the place of the
sea which had been covered with ice. This sea would be the
more open and navigable, just in proportion as less land
might be found at the Pole. But in this assumption it is
imphed, that the ice moves with perfect regularity and in
radial lines from a given point without any disturbance from
winds, or counter-currents, or land, consequently with a quiet
simplicity of hydrography, for which Nature, neither there
nor elsewhere, shows any predilection. Dove makes the
mean annual temperature of the North Pole, 2-5° F. ; but
it is probably still less. What, then, is the probability of an
open Polar Sea, if this annual mean only be considered .? All
the accounts too of animal life increasing in exuberance as we
advance northwards — from which a more favourable climate
within the innermost Polar region and an open Polar Sea
have been inferred — must be received with caution, for the

28 AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES. [INTRO.
appearance of numerous flocks of birds proves only that they
remain where open water prevails for a time and that the^
change their abode with its change of place.
5. In more recent times great influence has been attributed
to the Gulf Stream as a power influencing all the seas, known
and unknown, of the whole Arctic region. Dr. Petermann,
however, in a lately published work, endeavours to show that
its effects are discernible only on the northern seas of Spitz
bergen and Novaya Zemlya. Its action on the coasts of Spitz
bergen has been indisputably established by the Swedes, who
discovered there certain tropical plants {Entada gigalobiujn) ;
but the penetration of the warmer waters of this current to
the northern coasts of Novaya Zemlya has not been so posi
tively ascertained. In the Austrian Expedition of 1873-4, we
discovered no proofs of its existence. We found neither the
constant current, nor the water of a higher temperature, which
characterizes that renowned stream.
6. For a long time the " ice-holes," seen by Wrangel and
Morton, were regarded as indications of an ice-free Polar Sea.
With regard to those seen by Morton in 81" 22', Richardson
very justly remarks : " The open water of the Kennedy Channel
is not of greater extent in the month of June than the open
spaces which have occasionally been seen in summer on the .
north of Spitzbergen by whale-fishers." Wrangel, when he
describes the " Polynjii," which he saw on the ea,st of the New
Siberian Islands, accounts for them by the action of a local
coast-wind ; and yet Wrangel would have been the first to
favour the notion of an inner Polar Sea, for he still thought,
in opposition to Scoresby, that ice could not be formed on the
open sea, because of the absence of land as a support for the
ice in its formation.
7. The first practical application of the theory of an open
Polar Sea was long ago devised by Plancius ; the discovery,
namely, of a route in high latitudes to China. But the
expeditions to the North Pole, properly so termed, sprang
also^ from this theory, which was held with the greatest
pertinacity. The evidence of unsuccessful undertakings was
always met and outweighed by the counter-experience of one
favourable year in the ice. Thus Barentz, in the exceedingly
propitious summer of 1594, advanced without difficulty one

CHAP. IV.] THE INNER POLAR SEA. 29
degree of latitude beyond the northern extremity of Novaya
Zemlya, while his successors frequently encountered insur
mountable difliculties at Cape Nassau, and he himself in the
following year, 159S, found the state of the ice changed much
for the worse. In the years 1871, 1874, Mack, Carlsen, and
the two Austro-Hungarian expeditions came upon an open
sea in the very places where very few, if any, water-ways vvere
to be seen in 1872 and 1873. In the summers of 1816, 18 17,
the mighty stream of ice on the coast of East Greenland had
decreased to such an extent that Scoresby met with little
ice between 74° and 80° N.L., but since then whalers have
constantly seen the heaviest ice there, heavier than anywhere
else. In 1753 and 1754, the Sea of Kara and the Novaya
Zemlya Sea were free from ice. But in subsequent years the
whale-fishers knocked in vain at their ice-barred entrances.
In 1823 Liitke from a point on the west coast of the Sea
of Kara saw that sea without ice ; but, in the middle of
August, 1833, Pachtussow found the western side of that sea
open, while in the previous year he himself could not pass the
Karian Gates. Again in 1743 and 1773, the North Spitz
bergen Sea held out promises the most inviting, which might
possibly have permitted the reaching of a still higher degree
of latitude than that which Nordenskjold and Koldewey
attained in 1868. Sir John Ross, in the first year of his
second voyage, found all things most favourable for navi
gation ; but in the following year the very reverse ; and
Sir James C. Ross experienced the same alternation of cir
cumstances in the Southern Polar Sea. In 1850, Penny
found the Wellington Channel free from ice, but in 1852,
Belcher, although he penetrated far further than Penny,
was confronted in the same channel by pack- and drift-ice.
Scoresby the younger, to whose profound faculty of obser
vation we owe the most significant hints on the nature of
the Polar Sea, although he had navigated the Greenland
ice-ocean for twenty years, landed only once on its coast.
The Swedish expedition (1861) could approach the north
east of Spitzbergen only in boats ; Smith sailed over the
sea there (1871) as far as Cape Smith. The walrus-hunter,
Matilas, sailed rouiid (1864) the north-east island completely,
and Carlsen, an ice navigator, as successful as he was skilful, in

30 AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES. [intro.

1863 circumnavigated Spitzbergen, and in 1871 Novaya Zemlya.,
and discovered there the relics of Barentz's winter quarters. In
1872, King Karl Land was circumnavigated, although both
Koldewey and Nordenskjold (1868) as well as the first Aus
trian expedition (i87i)had in vain attempted to approach it.
How greatly also, in the same year, the state of the ice varies
in different places, is proved by the fact, that Franklin learnt
from the whalers that they never saw the ice so thick and so
strong in Davis Straits as at the end of July 18 19, while
Parry, more to the north by some degrees of latitude, pursued
his path of discovery even to Melville Island, and in the fol
lowing year returned to England without meeting any special
obstacles. These examples, to which many more might be
added, show how variable are the chances of ice-navigation
from one year to another. But however variable the con
ditions of the ice may be, the impediments, even under the
most favourable circumstances, are so very great, that we
have never been able to penetrate the innermost Polar
regions, — -penetrate, that is, to where, according to the views
of an earlier time, the open Polar Sea should be found.
8. Those propitious ice-years amount therefore to nothing
more than a greater recession of the outer ice-barrier —
trifling when compared with the mighty whole — or to an
increased navigability of certain coast-waters, or to a local
loosening of the inner Polar ice-net. In reality the whole
Arctic Sea, with its countless ice-fields and floes, and its web
of fine interlacing water-ways, is nothing but a net constantly
in motion from local, terrestrial, or cosmical causes. All the
changes and phenomena of this mighty network lead us to
infer the existence of frozen seas up to the Pole itself ; and
according to my own experience, gained in three expeditions,
I consider that the states of the ice between 82° and 90° N.L.
will not essentially differ from those which have been observed
south of latitude 82° ; / incline rather to the belief that they will
be found worse instead of better.
9. If this view be correct, it will remain an insuperable
difficulty to reach the Pole with a ship. The penetrating
to 82° or 83° exhausts, according to all past experience, the
disposable time for navigation, and presupposes moreover the
most favourable conditions for the attaining of such high

CHAP. IV.] THE INNER POLAR SEA. 31
latitudes. A ship which reaches 82° N.L. by the beginning
of autumn must risk nothing more, should only navigate
really open water, and the expediency of securing a winter
harbour should then outweigh every other consideration.
10. He who expects with a ship of the present construction
to reach the Pole in a single summer, necessarily believes in
an ocean at the Pole. But even if an expedition should
penetrate to 84° in Smith's Sound, or should reach Cape
Tcheljuskin on the north-east route, it would not follow that
such an ocean exists, but only that the Polar Sea presents at
different times and in different places open water-ways, which
may enable a ship to advance beyond a point hitherto reached ;
but it is improbable that the circumstances which favoured
this will be repeated the next summer, so as to permit the
ships to penetrate still further— or to return. The last
American expedition returned without being able to speak
decisively as to the possibility of navigating Lincoln Sea, and
since this has not yet been verified by fact, we must suspend
our judgment on the matter. To the English expedition,
which has taken this route to the Pole, is reserved the great
work of throwing light on the region of Upper Smith's
Sound, and the whole civilized world will hail with joy any
successes which a nation, so long conspicuous for its persever
ance in the cause of discovery, may happily achieve.

CHAPTER V.
THE FUTURE OF THE POLAR QUESTION.
I. The eagerness of human nature for gain and material
prosperity is so great, that we are wont to estimate the value
of all undertakings by the standard of utility ; and too often
it is forgotten, that each generation is destined to fulfil the
task of acquiring and collecting the knowledge which is to
benefit only a later generation. If, then, the Polar question
be valueless for our material interests, is it therefore valueless
fpr science ? and assuming that it is for the present worthless
as far as gain and wealth are concerned, must it continue
so for all time ? Not that we are entitled, even from this
narrower point of view, to deny the usefulness of Polar
exploration, as Cook seems to have done when he said, " Never
from those regions will any advantage accrue to our race ; "
but rather bear in mind what Sir James Ross tells us : " The
profit which accrued to England, in each year after the voyage
(1818) of my uncle (Sir John Ross) in North Baffin's Bay, from
those rediscovered parts of the Arctic seas, was more than
enough to defray all the expenses of the voyages of discovery
undertaken from 1818 to 1838." Scoresby with his single ship
made a million thalers by the capture of whales, and the
Americans had for many years a clear profit of eight million
dollars from the fisheries of the frozen seas of Behring's
Straits. There were also, it is true, very considerable losses ;
for, in 1830, nineteen English ships engaged in the whale
fishery were "beset" inthe ice of Melville Bay, and nearly
all destroyed; in 1871, twenty-six American ships were
crushed to pieces in Behring's Straits, and as many as seventy-

CHAP, v.] THE FUTURE OF THE POLAR QUESTION. 33
three Dutch vessels sank in one year in the seventeenth
century from the pressure of the ice.
2. We do not, however, mean to assert, that the progress of
Polar discovery is always followed by a corresponding increase
in the capture of fish in the Arctic seas. On the contrary,
the take of oil-yielding animals is steadily decreasing, and
even if an open sea should, be discovered in 82° N.L., 'in
which whales should be found in as great abundance as ice
floes unhappily are, the whaler with his poor equipment would
never be able to follow them thither. The fur countries,
once as productive as the mines of Peru, are incapable of
further extension ; even the treasures of mammoths' tusks
have be9ome rare, and in order to bring thirty tons of lignite
from the north-east of Greenland, a ship must expend seventy
tons of sound coal in the transit, besides passing the winter
there. That the teas of China, the silks of Japan, the spices
of the Moluccas will never descend to us from the ice-fields
has long been settled. No one at the present day thinks any
longer of the commercial value of the North-West and.North-
East passages. Modes of escape from the perils and caprices
of the ice have grown out of the endeavour to discover routes
of commerce, which lay beyond the reach of the cannon of
the Spaniards at the time when they aspired to the monopoly
of the trade of the world. The reward of 25,000 gulden,
offered by the Dutch government for the discovery of a
North-East passage, and that of ;£'20,ooo by the English
parliament for the North-West passage, have never been paid,
because never claimed, nor are they, in the least degree, likely
to be claimed.^
3. Yet, quite independent of material results. Polar explo
ration presents no unworthy object for scientific investigation
— a region of the globe 1 20,000 square miles in extent never
yet entered by man. The Polar question, as a problem of
science, aims at determining the limits of land and water, at
the perfecting of that network of hnes with which compara
tive science seeksto surround our planet, even to its Poles.
The completion of this labour will serve to discover those
physical laws which regulate climates, the currents of the
1 As a corrective to this rather extreme statement, see Clement Markham's
Threshold of the Unknoivn Region, 4th Edition, pp. 383 — 393.

34 AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES. [INTRO.

atmosphere and sea, and the analogies of geology with the
earth as we see it.
4. But how is this to be attained .? At first it would appear
as if the methods of ice-navigation had been followed by
such success, that their continued application guaranteed still
greater results. The gradual advance by means of ships,
frdm the Polar Circle to 73°, 75°, 79°, or even to 82° N.L., has
been the result and is the reward of the labours of three
centuries. But to reach higher degrees, from 82° to 90°,
depends on other conditions than mere time. That increased
experience and boldness have removed many of the incon
veniences and dangers attendant on Arctic navigation is
undoubtedly true, but it is also as true, that, upon the whole,
the safety and convenience of ice-navigation have more steadily
increased than its successes. Hudson, Baffin, and especially
Scoresby, and even some whalers of the seventeenth century,
reached latitudes which have scarcely been exceeded since,
and in many cases this progress was due, not to greater bold
ness and experience, but rather to chance and the caprices of
the ice, which " to the whaler often permitted glances into its
interior, which were denied to the scientific explorer."
5. The greater perfection of our means enables us to con
duct Polar expeditions with greater facility. Instead of
dissipating our strength by sending out several ships, even
small fleets, amounting sometimes to fifteen ships (often not
larger than the boats of a modern Polar ship), since the days
of Sir John Ross, we equip one or two ships only, strongly
built for their special purpose, provided with steam-power,
and with all that is desirable or requisite ; and instead of
despatching them for short summer cruises, we provision them,
send them out for several years, and, by appropriate nourish
ment and the aid of medical science, protect the crews from
the scourge of scurvy. In those days, when even the wealthy
lived during the winter on sali beef, and English squires were
obliged at the beginning of winter, on account of the scarcity
of food for the cattle, to kill and salt a portion of their herd,
preserved and antiscorbutic victuals were an impossibility to
a Hudson, a James, a Fox, in their winters amid the ice. Those
introduced by Ross— then called "Donkin's meat "—have
been greatly improved since, and through them the scurvy.

CHAP, v.] THE FUTURE OF THE POLAR QUESTION. 35
which used to carry off whole crews of ships, has lost its
former terrors.
6. In this power to extend our expeditions without danger,
and especially in sledge journeys during the autumn and
spring, which are possible only to expeditions prepared to-
winter in the ice, are the grounds why we have not halted at
the barriers " of the bulwarks built for eternity ; " in the
Rennselaer harbour, in the Lancaster-Barrow route, or at the
Pendulum islands. It is only sledge expeditions, as Midden
dorf says, which have been' able to effect results of any
magnitude on the inaccessible coasts of the extreme north ;
and the great extent to which the Russians had used sledge
expeditions evidently served as an example both to the
English and to Kane.
7. In Polar expeditions, therefore, we have probably reached,
so far as the exploration of the highest latitudes by means of
ships is concerned, the limits of possibihty. The extraordi
nary success which fell to the lot of Hall's expedition teaches
us only the possibility of encroaching but a little beyond that
limit, even under the most favourable circumstances.
8. In all cases where the attempt shall be made to reach
the highest latitudes with a ship, I would again recommend
the route through Smith's Sound, because, in the first place, I
beheve that any considerable advance is only to be expected
in coast-water ; and in the second place, because the Grant
Coast offers facilities for sledge expeditions on a large scale.
East Greenland in the higher latitudes, 73°— 75°, may be
regarded as inaccessible ; and the attempt to penetrate north
wards in its coast-water was a delusion of the second German
North-Pole expedirion. In the north of Spitzbergen, and in
Behring's Straits, fifty expeditions and countless whalers have
heard from the ice an imperious ne plus ultra ; and the same
prohibition has been uttered to as many expeditions on the
North-East passage. In both these routes the cause of failure
was the disproportion between what could be reached in one
or two summers, and the vast extent of sea blocked by im
penetrable ice. In like manner, the probability of reaching
the Pole itself with our present resources is so small, and the
attempt to do it is so utterly disproportionate to the sacrifices
exacted and the results achieved, that it would be advisable

36 AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES. [INTRO.
to exclude it from Arctic exploration, unril, instead of the
impotent vessels of the sea, we can send thither those of
the air.
9. Be this as it may, the present English North-Pole Expe
dirion will essenrially 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
Jay 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 convic
tion 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 aerial 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 Geo
graphy, content ourselves with the exploration of those Arctic
lands of which, up to the present moment, we know only the
coast-hne, 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. Lieu
tenant 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 trans
ferred 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.

CHAPTER VI.
POLAR EQUIPMENTS.
I. Every Arctic expedition should be guided by the experi
ence 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 subordi
nate 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, Nordenskjold, 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 century

38 AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES. [intro.

generally 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 weak
lings 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 the
Tegetthoff had 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 configura
tions 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 inde
pendence, 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 expedirion is obedience, and its basis morality. Punish-

CHAP. VI.] POLAR EQUIPMENTS 39
ments are 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 attempt
ing 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 martyr
dom of four years passed in the ice about iTioo 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 the Tegetthoff wa.a, 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 expedi
tion — 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 is

40 AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES. [iNTRO.
respectful. 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 pedes
trians 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 espe
cially 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
parience, for to many of his parients 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 expedirion
starts, although it may have been previously investigated by
medical authorities and declared satisfactory.
8. Since an expedirion, in addition to its scientific functions,
should take up the illustration of Nature at the Pole, the
employment of a photographer, but srill 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 justifica
tion 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 pre
decessor Frobisher having had the saddest experience' of their
barbarism. Other expedirions by the too plentiful distribution
of knives and hatchets among the Eskimos placed them in a

•CHAP. VI.]

POLAR EQUIPMENTS.

41

position 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 pro
portions 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.
II. 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 : —

The Expeditions of

Tonnage OF the Ships.

Willoughby .
Frobisher J)
Pett Jackman
Davis .
,, . . .
Weymoutlr .
Knight . .
Hudson .
tt ' ¦
James Poole
Hudson
Smith . . .
James Poole
Fotherby Baffin .
Fox .
James Wood MoorRoss .
Parry
Liitke .
Hayes
Koldewey

A.D.
155315761577 15801585
2nd expedn.
1604160616071 60S
1609 1610161016111615 1616
1631 1631
167617461818 1819
1821 i8601869

25
180 40 50 10
70
40

70 555050
20 58
80 70
1 80
385 375200 133180

140
252 180

160 10
30 53

Provisioned for

18 months

Mostly for
one year
only.

18 months
18 „
16 „

2^ years

Ik
2

Crew.

IS
42

1015IS

20 19

45 15
29

12. The inspection of this table shows that it was the
practice of the sixteenth century to send out fleets of ships

42 AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES. [intro.
of 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 in
cluded 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 large Fury, had, with a
draught of eighteen feet, provisions for only two and a half
years, whereas the Victory (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 re-
-served 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 Arcric expedition amounts to about two pounds, and in

CHAP. VI.] POLAR EQUIPMENTS. 43
sledge expeditions to 2f 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 farina
ceous 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 indis
pensable ; 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
of chemical wine} since the volume of its constituent parts
without water is only a fifth of real wine; and under all
circumstances chemical wine is 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.
' A decoction prepared by Dr. Kepes, the physician of the Tegetthoff.

44 AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES. [intro.

15. During the winter, residence in the ship itself is pre
ferable 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
and savans occupy 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 water
proof 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 " FuUofen," 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. T-he 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 used
\

CHAP. VI.] POLAR EQUIPMENTS. 45
in 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 hatch
ways, train-oil may be used with advantage, if the lamps are
so constructed that the flame may heat the reservoir contain
ing 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-garraents, knitted woollen
gloves, outer-garments of strong cloth, are in all cases suffi
cient 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
expedirions, 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 instru
ments should be thoroughly cleansed from oil by a practical
optician, and the fire-arms should undergo a like operarion 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 reacned only through a closely-fitting pump.
A very ample supply of alcohol, flannel, buffalo-skins, strong
cloth, water-proof canvas, feh, leather, reindeer shoes, snow
boots, shovels, cramp irons, poles, &c., articles which are too
often overiooked, 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 enor
mous for that day-of .;^6,0OO ; Moor's (1746) cost ^10,000;
while Back's difficult but successful undertaking to explore
the great Fish-river (1833-1835), only ;fS.OOO. The Siberian

46 AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES. [intro.
expedition of Middendorf (1844) — costing only 13,300 rubles
{£1,717) — was a matchless example of extraordinary achieve
ments 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).

THE PIONEER VOYAGE OF THE
ISBJORN.
JUNE 20— OCTOBER 4, 1871.

THE PIONEER VOYAGE OF THE
" I S B J O R N."

I. 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 acrive 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 httle 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 through

50 AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES.
Baffin'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 geo
graphers 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 in.stance, 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 reason
able 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 expedi
tion 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 ex
pedition to explore higher latitudes on this route. At length
Lieutenant Weyprecht and I undertook a voyage of recon
naissance 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 the

PIONEER VOYAGE OF THE "ISBJORN." 51

temperature 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 frora 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 quadupled,
without any adequate advantage. The Isbjorn (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 equip
ment 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 steamer
Albert, 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 prog
nostications 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 pene
trate to that land, first seen in 1707, and regarded by the

52 AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES.

Swedes 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
1 87 1 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 Nor-
v/egian 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 v/as
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.
8. The rocky islands off the coast of Finnmark are sur
rounded 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. The

54 AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES.
numerous islands of a gneiss formation show the same land
scape 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 fertihty
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. Wewere 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 pur
suers 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 inhabitant^
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 the first ice— 2.
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 sailing

PIONEER VOYAGE OF THE "ISBJORN." 55
vessel 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.
The Isbjorn, 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
eccasion. 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 gran
deur. All round us lay the open sea dashing against the ice,
which was itself in wild morion. 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, pre
vented 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 stood

56 AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGE.S.

out 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 loth of July the ship under full sail forced her
way through the floes, which were still somewhat close, and
j-eached 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 con-
-siderably. 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
€ven in the middle of July by severe storms. We were some
times 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 dis
appeared almost entirely at 40° E. Long., which we reached on
the 2 1st of July, after we had followed the ice-barriers from 74°
^o 7S" 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-westerly

PIONEER VOYAGE OF THE " ISBJORN." 57
direction 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 west
ward, 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 saihng in
a fog among icebergs a hundred feet high, the long stretching
plateau of Hope Island. According to Weyprecht's observa
tions, 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
Gilhs' 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 suddenly
6 

S8 AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES.
on 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.
II. 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 down

59

PIONEER VOYAGE OF THE « ISBJORN."
to 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 lOth 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. Accord
ing 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 the Isbjorn escaped
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
unden 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.

6o AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES.
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,
reaching Cape Leigh-Smith in less than a week. Our plan of
and the prevailing winds from the north took away any hope
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
sdme 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. Horn
sundstind (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 httle broken by crevasses. None of these glaciers
are of sufificient size to shed icebergs, properly speaking.
The sea close to the coast is shallow, and the detach
ments 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.

PIONEER VOYAGE OF THE " ISBJORN." 6i

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 ^as
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 mean
while 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. Konig 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 num
ber 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 move
ment 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 came

62 AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES.
close 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. The Isbjorn had, 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 4^° 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 persecurion 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, or cul-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 penetrat
ing further.

PIONEER VOYAGE OF THE " ISBJORN." 63
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 ist 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 tem
perature 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 Medusae (Beroe), 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 to

64 AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES.
75° 52' N. .Lat. and Si''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, j here,
also, to the south of 7'S', 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 object
less, 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 manoeuvre 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 Sth 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-ciirrents 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 com
pletely 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 Novaya

PIONEER VOYAGE OF THE "ISBJORN." 65

Zemlya. 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 the Isbjorn passed 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 con
tradiction 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 :
(i.) 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 con
nected 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 was

66 AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES.

almost impossible to navigate Wyde-Jans Water, and the Sea
of Kara could only be reached through the most southeriy
straits— the Jugorsky Straits. There remains, therefore, only
• the other objecrion, that the accident of favourable winds was
the cause of our penetrating so far. But our meteorological
journal shows North, or at any rate Northeriy 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 prob
ability, 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 present

PIONEER VOYAGE OF THE " ISBJORN." 67
centuries, 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 1 50, 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 un
known 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 characteristic

68

AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES.

of the Gulf Stream, is shown by three series of observations
taken by Weyprecht at different latitudes, with the maximum
and minimum thermometer of Casella : —

72°

30' lat., 44° long.

77°

26' lat., 44° long.

76°

40'

lat., 55° long.

12 to 114'+ 4-8°C.

6' to 30' + 2-2° C.

6' to 39 + z-s^C

144 + 2-5

36 + 1-8

48 + i-o
174 + 2-0
45 + o"3
60 — O'O
204 + 1-5
60 + 03
72 - 0-6
234 + I '3
75 - 0-9
90 — 0-6
264 + i-o
90 — o"8
120 — 13
294 + 0-5
120 — I '6
180 - 1-2
360 + 0-5
180 - 1-8
300 - 1-2
450 + O'O
360 - 1-6
600 — 0'4
800 - 13
24. These inferences rendered the despatch of a well-
equipped expedition to the Novaya Zemlya seas very desir
able, 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 the Isbjorn in 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, pro
duced by the great rivers of Siberia discharging themselves
into a shallow sea, was also supposed to co-operate in pro
ducing 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 of
PIONEER VOYAGE OF THE "ISBJORN." 69
the year always find open water in the Siberian seas. Mid
dendorf, 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 possi
bilities of the venture. Minor details were left to circum
stances. 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, pene
trate into more southern regions. The depot 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 1 874, 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.

VOYAGE OF THE "TEGETTHOFF."
JUNE, T^'12— SEPTEMBER, 1874.
I,
FROM BREMERHAVEN TO KAISER FRANZ-
JOSEF LAND.

CHAPTER I.
FROM BREMERHAVEN TO TROMSOE.
I. He who seeks to penetrate the recesses of the Polar world
chooses a path beset with toils and dangers. The explorer of
that region has to devote every energy of mind and body to
extort a slender fragment of knowledge from the silence and
mystery of the realm of ice. He must be prepared to con
front disappointments and disasters with inexhaustible patience,
and pursue devotedly his object, even when he himself becomes
the sport of accident. That object must not be the admiration
of men, but the extension of the domain of knowledge. He
spends long years in the most dreadful of all banishments,
far from his friends, from all the enjoyments of life, surrounded
by manifold perils, and bearing the burden of utter loneliness.
The grandeur therefore of his object can alone support him,^
for otherwise the dreary void of things without can only be
an image of the void within. How many are the preconcep
tions with which the novice begins the voyage to the rugged,
inclement north ! Books can tell him little of the stern life
to. which he dooms himself, as soon as he crosses the threshold
of the ice, thinking perhaps to measure the evils that await
him by the physical miseries of cold instead of by the moral
deprivations in store for him.
2. In the year 1868, while employed on the survey of the
Orteler Alps, a newspaper with an account of Koldewey's
first expedition one day found its way into my tent on the
mountain side. In the evening I held forth on the North
Pole to the herdsmen and Jdgers of my party as we sat
round the fire, no one more filled with astonishment than
myself, that there should be men endued with such capacity
7

74 AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES. chap.

to endure cold and darkness. No presentiment had I then
that the very next year I should myself have joined an
expedition to the North Pole ; and as little could Haller, one
of my Jdgers at that time, foresee that he would accompany
me on my third expedition. And much the same was it with
the three-and-twenty men who early in the morning of June
13, 1872, came on board the vessel in Bremerhaven, to cast
in their lot with the ship Tegetthoff,vfh.a.tQver that lot might be ;
for we had all bound ourselves by a formal deed, renouncing
every claim to an expedition for our rescue, in case we should
be unable to return. Our ideal aim was the north-east passage,
our immediate and definite object was the exploration of the
seas and lands on the north-east of Novaya Zemlya.
3. A bright day rose with us, and no augur's voice could
have heightened the glad hopes which animated every one of
us. Friends from Austria and Germany had come to bid us a
last farewell ; but, as every venture should be, so our departure
that morning was, quiet and without pretension. About six
o'clock in the morning the Tegetthoff lifted her anchor and
dropped down the Schleusen and the Weser, towed by a
steamer. Down the broad stream we calmly glided, full of
satisfaction at the fulfilment of long-cherished plans. There
lay the same pastures, the same trees and meadows which
had so delighted us on our return from Greenland. Yet un
moved we saw all the charms of nature grow young under the
morning sun and then fade away in the evening twilight — as
the land gradually disappeared behind us, and the coasts of
Germany were lost to view. With the feeling that we were
leaving them for so long a time, our thoughts turned to our
new life in the narrow limits of a ship, and the resolve to live
and labour in harmony animated each breast. How often we
should be liable to casualties which no eye could foresee, we
were soon to find out, when in almost dead calm and without
steam we came on the shallow waters of Heligoland. What
would have become of the expedition, had we not discovered
in time, that we had only a few feet of water under the keel !
4. The vessel, 220 tons burden, was fitted out for two years
and a half, but was over-freighted by about thirty tons, so
that our available space was much curtailed. Yet the cabin,
which Weyprecht Brosch, Orel, Kepes, Krisch, and I occupied.

I.] FROM BREMERHAVEN TO TROMSOE. 75
was far more commodious than the miserable hole in which
eight of us had been crowded together on our Greenland
expedition. Our supply of coals, 130 tons, was large in pro
portion to the size of the ship, being calculated not only for
our daily wants, but to enable us to keep up steam for about
sixty days. But to economise this store we used our sails, as
much as possible, even in the ice. Both ship and engine — of
100 horse power — tested in the trial trip of June 8, sustained
their character during the expedition, and did great credit to
the Tecklenborg firm.
5. The wind being unfavourable, it took us some time to
cross the North Sea and reach the coast of Norway. My
journal describes this part of our voyage. " Light winds from
the south carried the Tegetthoff on her lonely course over the
North Sea. In undimmed brightness the blue sky stretched
overhead, the air was balmy and mild. In the grey distance
frowns the iron rampart of countless cliffs encircling the
barren wastes of Norway. Occasionally a sea-gull comes near
us, or some bird rests on the mast-head ; now and then a sail
is seen on the horizon, — but save this, no life — no event.
Every one feels, though no one utters it that a grave future
hes before him ; each may hope what he wishes, for over the
future there is drawn an impenetrable veil. All, however, are
animated with the consciousness, that while serving science, we
are also serving our Fatherland, and that all our doings will
be watched at home with the liveliest sympathy.
" 6. On board the Tegetthoff are heard all the languages of
our country, German, Italian, Slavonic, and Hungarian ;
Italian, however, is the language in which all orders are given.
The crew is lighthearted and merry : in the evening a gentle
breeze carries the lively songs of the Italians over the blue
sea, glowing under the midnight sun, or the monotonous
cadence ofthe Z?^^w ofthe Dalmatians recalls the sunny home
which they are so soon to exchange for its very opposite,
which remains a sort of mystery to all their powers of fancy.
Thus begins so peacefully our long voyage into the frozen
ocean of the north. In a few weeks the ice will grate on the
bows of the Tegetthoff, the crystal icebergs will surround her,
and with many a strain will the good ship force her way
through the icy wastes, sometimes inclosed on every side.

76 AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES. [chap.
sometimes free in coast-water, or threatened bythe 'ice-blink'
foreboding danger."
7. The officers and crew of the Tegetthoff amounted in all
to twenty-four souls.
Lieutenant Carl Weyprecht, ) „ , ^ , „ ,. .
T . . .TV T> f Commanders ot the Expedition.
Lieutenant Julius rayer, ) ¦' -^
Lieutenant Gustav Brosch,* ) _„ . , „, .
Midshipman Edward Orel, [ ^-^'^^ "f ""' ^'"'i''
Dr. Julius Kepes, Physician to the Expedition.
Otto Krisch, Engineer.
Pietro Lusina, f Boatswain.
Antonio Vecerina, Carpenter.
Josef Pospischill, Stoker.
Johann Orasch, Cook.
Johann Haller, )
Alexander Klotz, \ >^^"' f™"' ^^toI.
Antonio Zaninovich, Seaman.
Antonio Catarinich, ditto.
Antonio Scarpa, ditto.
Antonio Lulcinovich, ditto.
Giuseppe Latkovich, ditto.
Pietro Fallesich, ditto.
George Stiglich, ditto.
Vincenzo Falmich, ditto.
Lorenzo Marola, ditto.
Francesco Lettis, ditto.
Giacomo Sussich, ditto.
Captain Olaf Carlsen, Icemaster and Harpooner.
We had eight dogs on board ; two we got in Lapland, the rest were brought from
Vienna. 8. Stormy weather detained us for some rime among the
Loffoden Isles, so that we made Tromsoe only on July 3.
Here we were received most courteously by the Austro-
Hungarian Consul, Aagaard, who invited us to a banquet
We remained here a week, in order to complete our equip
ment The ship,' which had leaked considerably ever since we
left Bremerhaven, was thoroughly examined by divers, the
stores were landed, the ship repaired and reladen. Our supply
of coals was replenished, a Norwegian whale-boat added to
our equipment, and, lastly, the harpooner. Captain Olaf
* Lieutenant Brosch had the entire care of the victualling department, and
deserved our heartiest thanks for the skill and self-sacrifice with which he ¦per
formed his duty.
+ Formerly Captain in the Austrian Merchant Service.

1.] FROM BREMERHAVEN TO TROMSOE. 77
Carlsen, was taken on board. On July 6 we received our last
news from Austria, letters and newspapers. The Ukase
granted by the Russian Government also arrived, drawn up
both for Weyprecht and myself in case of our being separated,
a document of great importance, if the ship should be lost
and we had to return through Siberia ; an issue only too prob
able when the vast length and enormous difficulties of the
north-east passage were considered. While Lieutenant
Weyprecht was engaged in stopping the leak of the ship,
some of us ascended — a Lapp of the name of Dilkoa being
our guide — a pinnacle of rock, 4,000 feet high, towering over
Tromsoe's labyrinth of fiords, in order to compare our aneroid
and mercurial barometers. From the summit we beheld an
enormous dark column of smoke rising perpendicularly to the
height of about 1,500 feet in the still air — the northern ex
tremity of Tromsoe was in flames. Most gladly would we
have learned something of the state of the ice this year ; but
as yet this was impracticable, for none of the walrus hunters
had returned from their grounds in the north.
9. On the morning of Saturday, July 13, officers and crew
heard mass from a French priest, and bidding adieu to our
Tromsoe friends, we left the quiet little city, the most
northerly of Europe, early on Sunday morning. The pas
sengers of the Hamburg mail steamer, entering the harbour
as we left it, greeted us with loud and long cheers, and steam
ing through the narrow Grotsound, close under the cliffs of
Sandoe and Rysoe we came into the open sea. Captain
Carlsen acting as our pilot. As we issued from the Scheeren,
a mist arose which covered and obscured the huge rock of
Fingloe. Here the engine fires were put out and the sails set,
and the first and last voyage, which the Tegetthoff was des
tined to make, began. On July 15 we steered towards the
north, the Norwegian coast with its many glaciers in full
view, and on the i6th we sighted the North Cape in the blue
distance.

CHAPTER II.
ON THE FROZEN OCEAN.
I. UNFAVOURABLE winds had hindered our progress for some
days ; we now encountered heavy seas. On July 23 a sudden
fall of the temperature and dirty rainy weather told us that we
were close to the ice, which we expected to find later and
much more to the northward, and on the evening of July 25,
lat 74° o' IS" N., we actually sighted it the thermometer
marking 32-5° F., and 34-5° F. in the sea. The northeriy
winds, which had prevailed for some time had broken up the
ice, and it lay before us in long loose lines. Its outer boundary
was consequently the very opposite of those solid walls of ice
which we met with in Greenland in 1869, and two years
afterwards on the east of Spitzbergen. Though surprised at
finding the ice so far to the south, we never imagined that
this was anything but a collection of floes, which had drifted
out perhaps from the Sea of Kara through the Straits of
Matotschkin. But only too soon the conviction was forced
upon us that we were already within the Frozen Ocean, and
that navigation in the year 1872 was to differ widely from
that of the preceding year. Lieutenant Weyprecht had the
day before fastened " the crow's nest " to the mainmast of the
Tegetthoff, and henceforth it became the abode of the officer
of the watch. On July 26, while steering in a north-easterly
direction, the ice became closer, though it was still navigable ;
but we nowhere saw the heavy fields which had astonished us
on the east coast of Greenland, and which Liitke found to be
so dangerous to navigation. The temperature of the air and
the sea fell rapidly, and during the two following weeks it

flit

8o AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES. [chap.
remained below the freezing point almost uniformly, and
without any essential difference between day and night
2. The frozen sea of Novaya Zemlya is characterized by
that inconstancy of weather which in our lower latitudes we
attribute to the month of April ; the same variability is met
with, though in lesser degree, in the Greenland seas during the
summer months. Snowstorms now alternated with the most
glorious blue skies. The black-bulbed thermometer showed
113" F. in the sun, with 39° F. in the shade. The hunting
season began, and the kitchen was well provided with auks.
and seals. Our Dalmatians soon learnt to like the dark flesh
of the latter.
3. The ice gradually became closer ; July 29 (74° 44' N.
Lat., 52° 8' E. Long.) we were able to continue our course
only under steam, and heavy shocks were henceforward inevit
able ; in many cases the vessel could not force a passage
except by charging the ice. In the night a vast, apparently
impenetrable barrier stopped our progress ; but the tactics
of charging under steam again cleared a passage, and we
penetrated into a larger "ice-hole." We now glided along
over the shining surface of its waters, as if we were navi
gating an inland lake, save that no copsewood clothed the
shores, but pale blocks of ice, which the mist, that now
fell and enveloped us, transformed into the most fantastic
shapes, and at last into mere shapelessness itself In all that
surrounded us neither form nor colour was discernible ; faint
shadows floated within the veil of mist, and our path seemed
to lead no whither. A few hours before the glowing fire of
the noonday sun had lain on the mountain wastes of Novaya
Zemlya, while refraction raised its long coast high above the
icy horizon. Nowhere does a sudden change in Nature
exercise so immediate an effect on the mind as in the
Frozen Ocean, where, too, all that brings dehght proceeds
from the sun.
4. For some days we had entered into a world utterly
strange to most of us on board the Tegetthoff. Dense mists
frequently enveloped us, and from out of the mantle of snow
of the distant land the rocks, hke decayed battlements,
frowned on us inhospitably. There is no more melancholy
sound than that which accompanies the decay and waste of

Ii_] ON THE FROZEN OCEAN. 81
the ice, as it is constantly acted on by the sea and thaw, and no
picture more sad and solemn than the continuous procession
of icebergs floating like huge white biers towards the south.
Ever and anon there rises the noise of the ocean swell break
ing amongst the excavations of the ice-floes, while the water
oozing out from their icy walls falls with monotonous sound
into the sea ; or perhaps a mass of snow, deprived of its
support drops into the waves, to disappear in them with a
hissing sound as of a flame. Never for a moment ceases
the crackling and snapping sound produced by the bursting
of the external portions of the ice. Magnificent cascades
of thaw-water precipitaite themselves down the sides of the
icebergs, which sometimes rend with a noise as of thunder as
the beams of the sun play on them. The fall of the titanic
mass raises huge volumes of foam, and the sea-birds, which
had rested on its summit in peaceful confidence, rise with
terrified screams, soon to gather again on another ice-
colossus. 5. But what a change, when the sun, surrounded by glow
ing cirrus clouds, breaks through the mist and the blue of the
heavens gradually widens out ! The masses of vapour, as they
well up, recede to the horizon, and the cold ice-floes become
in the sunhght dark borders to the "leads" which gleam
between them, on the trembling surface of which the midnight
sun is mirrored. Where the rays of the sun do not directly
fall on it, the ice is suffused with a faint ros}^ haze, which
deepens more and more as the source of light nears the
horizon. Then the sunbeams fall drowsily and softly, as
through a veil of orange gauze, all forms lose at a little
distance their definition, the shadows become fainter and
fainter, and all nature assumes a dreamy aspect In calm
nights the air is so mild that we forget we are in the home
of ice and snow. A deep ultramarine sky stretches over all,
and the outlines of the ice and the land tremble on the glassy
surface of the water. If we pull in a boat over the unmoved
mirror of the " ice-holes," close beside us a whale may emerge
from its depths, like a black shining mountain ; if a ship
penetrates into the waste, it looks as weird as the " Flying
Dutchman," and the dense columns of smoke, which rise in
eddies from her funnel, remain fixed for hours until they

82 AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES. [chap.
gradually melt away. When the sun sinks at midnight to
the edge of the horizon, then all life becomes dumb, and the
icebergs, the rocks, the glaciers of the land glow in a rosy
effulgence, so that we are hardly conscious of the desolation.
The sun has reached its lowest point, — after a pause it begins
to rise, and gradually its paler beams are transformed into a
dazzling brightness. Its softly warming light dissolves the
ban under which congelation has placed nature, the icy
streams, which had ceased to run, pour down their crystal
walls. The animal creation only still enjoys its rest ; the
polar-bear continues to repose behind some wall of ice, and
flocks of sea-gulls and divers sit round the edge of a floe,
calmly sleeping, with their heads under their wings. Not a
sound is to be heard, save, ^perhaps, the measured flapping
of the sails of the ship in the dying breeze. At length the
head of a seal rises stealthily for some moments from out the
smooth waters ; lines of auks, with the short quick beat of
their wings, whiz over the islands of ice. The mighty whale
again emerges from the depths, far and wide is heard his
snorting and blowing, which sounds like the murmurs of a
waterfall when it is distant, and like a torrent when it is
near. Day reigns once more with its brilliant light, and the
dreamy character of the spectacle is dissolved.
6. We had sailed over one " ice-hole," and again a dense
barrier of ice frowned on us ; as we forced our way into .it,
the ice closed in all round us— we were " beset." The ship •
was made fast to a floe, the steam blown off, its hot breath
rushing with a loud noise through the cold mist ; every open
mesh in the net of water-ways was closed by the ice, which
soon lay in such thick masses around us, that any one pro
vided with a plank might have wandered for miles in any
direction he liked. July 30, the Tegetthoff remained fast in
her prison ; no current of water, nor any movement among
t'he floes lying close to us was discernible ; a dead calm
prevailed, and mist hung on every side. On the following
day we made vain efforts to break through a floe which lay
on our bows. The calm still prevailed, Aug. i (74° 39' N. L.
53° E. L.), and no change was to be seen in the ice. Aug. 2,
the crew began with hearty good-will the toilsome work of
warping, but with no success, the smallness of the floes hardly

II.] ON THE FROZEN OCEAN. 83
admitting of this manoeuvre. In the evening of the same
day it seemed as if a fresh breeze would set us free ; but after
we had gone on for a few cable-lengths, a great floe once
more barred the route, while at the same time the wind fell.
At length, when the ice became somewhat looser, we got up
the engine fires, and in the following night broke through^
under steam, a broad barrier of ice, which separated us from
the open coast-water of Novaya Zemlya. In the morning of
Aug. 3, we forced oar way into coast-water, twenty miles
broad, to the north of Matotschkin Schar, and steered due
north, the mountainous coasts still in sight A belt of
ice 105 miles broad lay behind us. The country greatly
resembled Spitzbergen, and we observed with pleasure its
picturesque glaciers and mountains rising to the height of
nearly 3,000 feet though inconsiderable compared with the-
mountains of Greenland. Far and wide not a fragment of
ice was to be seen ; there was a heavy swell on, the air was
unusually warm (41° F.), in the evening rain fell, and on Aug. 4
we had dense mists and driving snow-storms, which forced us
to keep to the west of Admiralty Peninsula. During the night
of Aug. 6, the snow-storms were heavier than before, and the
deck was quite covered. Towards the north and west very close
ice was seen, and since the temperature of the air, even with
the winds in the south-west remained constantly below zero,
it was evident that the ice must stretch far in that direction
also. Aug. 7, we ran on the white barriers to the west of
Admiralty Peninsula, and far to the north, beyond a broad
field of ice, refraction indicated open- water and showed the
forms of " Tschorny Nos " floating in the air. In the after
noon of Aug. 8 the ice in 75° 22' N. L. became so thick
around us that we were compelled to have recourse to steam-
power ; but the Tegetthoff, even with this auxiliary was unable
against a head-wind to penetrate a broad strip of close ice,
and banking up our fires, we determined to wait its breaking
up. Close under the coast open water was again observed,
and in it — a Schooner! Every one now hastened to write
letters to his friends and relations, but the schooner, to which
we meant to give our letters and despatches, by running into
the heart of Gwosdarew Bay escaped the duty we had in
store for it About half-past ten P.M. the wind had fallen and

84

AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES. [chap.

the ice began to open out, and we were able to continue our
voyage under steam in a north-westeriy direction. The sun
lay before us, the clear mirror of distant " leads " glowed with
a glorious carmine, the barriers of ice which lay between these
" leads " appeared as stripes of violet and only our immediate
neighbourhood was pale and cold. The Tegetthoff laboured
through the dense accumularion of floes and about midnight
reached open water, and the steam was again blown off.
Aug. 9, we sailed in coast-water perfectly free from ice,

GWOSDAREW INLET.

excepting the icebergs we encountered, some about forty
feet high. These, generally, were so numerous and so small
in size, that they were at once seen to be offshoots from
the small glaciers of Novaya Zemlya . as they plunge into
the sea. Their surface was frequently covered with debris.
Loose drift-ice showed itself, Aug. lo, but the ship continued
to steer between the floes towards the north. In the fore
noon of that day we were again nearly " beset," but happily
escaped that fate after four hours' warping. Aug. il, our
course was continued without impediment in a northerly
direction through the loose drift-ice. The land, from which

II.] ON THE FROZEN OCEAN. 85
we had hitherto remained distant about eight or twelve
nautical miles, now declined in height from three thousand
to fifteen hundred or a thousand feet, and quickly lost its
picturesque character. On the noon of August 12, on
account of a thick mist, we made fast to a great floe, and
were able to commence on it the training of the dogs to
drag the sledges.
7. In the neighbourhood of the Pankratjew Islands, a
ship suddenly and unexpectedly appeared on the horizon,
and endeavoured to gain our attention by discharges from
a mortar, and by the hoisting of flags. How great was our
astonishment and our joy when we beheld the Austro-Hun
garian flag at the peak of the Isbjorn, and were able to greet
Count Wilczek, Commodore Baron Sterneck, Dr. Hofer, and
Mr. Burger half an hour afterwards on board the Tegetthoff.
Coming from Spitzbergen in the Isbjorn (the ship of our pre
cursory expedition of 187 1) they had sighted us two days before.
That in a sailing vessel, and without any sufficient equipment,
they had succeeded in following and overtaking the Tegetthoff,
which had penetrated so far with difficulty and by the aid of
steam was a proof both of skill and resolution. Their object
was to establish a dep6t of provisions at Cape Nassau, at what
ever personal risk to themselves. About two o'clock in the
morning our guests returned to the Isbjorn, and both ships now
sailed in company, and without raeeting any hindrance in the
ice-free coast-water, in a northerly direction. In the forenoon
of Aug. 13, in 76° 18' N. Lat. and 61" 17' E. Long., we came
upon closer ice, amid mist and stormy weather, and the two
ships anchored to some firm land-ice two cable-lengths from
each other, about a mile from the land. Close to the south
of us lay the Barentz Isles with their singularly formed hills,
which the walrus-hunters call by the somewhat gloomy name
of " The Three Coffins." On our north an enormous iceberg
rose in dazzling whiteness above a faintly glimmering field
of ice, a harbinger of new countries — for its size forbade us
to think that it owed its origin to the glaciers of Novaya
Zemlya. Continuous winds from the W.S.W., close ice,
mist downfalls of snow, the necessity of determining the
geographical position of the dep6t of provisions which we
had established, compelled us to lie for eight days before the

86 AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES. [CHAP
Barentz Islands. The opportunity we thus had of putting
our feet once more on the land was exceedingly agreeable.
We made repeated visits to the shore with two dog-sledges^
in company with Professor Hofer ; and as his observations
on the phenomena of the country are those of a distin
guished geologist, I here insert those he has kindly placed at
my disposal.
8. " The Barentz Isles are flat, girt with cliffs, and separated
by narrow straits from the coast, which rises up terrace .on
terrace. Its rocks consist of a black, very friable slate, fre
quently alternating with strata of mountain limestone of
the carboniferous period, varying in breadth from one to
ten metres. These strata are filled with a countless number of
fossilized inhabitants ofthe sea, trilobites, mussels, brachiopodes,
crinoides, corals, &c., which are utterly foreign to the Frozen
Ocean as it now is, and whose cognates live only in warm
seas. 9. " The animal world, therefore, buried in the limestone
of these islands, is an indisputable proof that there was once,
in these high latitudes, a warm sea, which could not possibly
co-exist with such great glaciers as those which now immerse
themselves in the seas of Novaya Zemlya. That portion
of the earth, now completely dead and buried in ice, once
knew a period of luxuriant life. In its sea there revelled a
world of life, manifold and beautiful in its forms, while the
land, as the discoveries on Bear Island and Spitzbergen
prove, was crowded with gigantic palm-like ferns. This age of
the earth's history is called the carboniferous period ; it was
the rich and fertile youth of the high north, which lived out
its time more rapidly than the southern zones, now in all their
vigour and variety. If we compare the Fauna buried in the
chalk formations of the Barentz Isles, with the contempo
raneous Fauna which we know from the carboniferous forma
tion of Russia, specially that of the Ural, we find a very
remarkable agreement, not only in their general character,
but also in particular organisms. Many of the fossils of the
carboniferous limestone of these high degrees of latitude
{^&'-77°) are found in analogous strata of the Ural, and are
proved by the researches of Russian geologists to exist there
as far as tbe fiftieth degree of latitude. Without stopping to

II.] ON THE FROZEN OCEAN. 87
insist on the great similarity between the stratification of
Novaya Zemlya and the Ural — the former being the real
- continuation of the latter — we dwell here on the fact that in
the carboniferous period there was a sea which stretched
from the fiftieth to the seventy-seventh degree of north lati
tude, i.e. twenty-seven degrees, or 405 geographical miles, which
was animated by the same Fauna, and which consequently
must have presented the same relations, especially a like
warm temperature. F"rom these signs it would appear that
the zones of climate now so decisively marked on the surface
of the earth did not exist at the carboniferous period. The
horizontal surface of the land leads us at the first to infer
horizontal stratification ; but we find the contrary to be the
case ; the marine deposits once horizontal, have been so
raised at a later period that they are now vertical. Since the
friable slate degrades rapidly, and the limestone layers very
gradually, it may be assumed that the former wasting away
leaves the limestone layers standing like walls between them
— a thing which, in a small scale, may often be elsewhere
observed. If a glance at these buried fossils awakens in us
an image, as in a dream, of a creation rich in organic forms, a
glance at the present state of the Barentz Isles impresses us
with the gloomiest feelings.
10. " Before us lies this small greyish brown fragment of
the earth. T he cold, level ground is covered with sharp-edged
pieces of rock, which appear to be as it were macadamised,
so closely are they rammed together. Here and there, about
a fathom's length from each other, lie brownish green masses.
like mole-hills. When we examine them more closely, each
mass resolves itself into a vast number of small plants of the
same species {Saxifraga opposiiifolia), whose little stalks are
covered with dark green leaves, which are alive, and also with
brown leaves, which have been dead for years and years, but
wither in the cold much more gradually than with us. From
this small heap, tender rosy blooms raise their little heads,
bidding defiance to the bitter snowy weather which sweeps
over the miserable plain. Another species of saxifrage {Saxi
fraga ccespitosa), with shorter stalks and yellowish-white
flowers, growing in thick clumps, forms, together with the first-
named variety and the more rarely appearing Saxifraga

88 AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES. [cHAP.
rivularis, the hardiest representatives of this family of plants
so frequently found in the Polar regions. If to these we add
Draba arctica with its little yellow flowers, forming in valleys
large patches of sward, the yellow flowering poppy {Papaver
nudicaiile), and a rare willow {Salix polar is), which with some
few leaves peeps forth from the soil, we have described the
whole Flora of that desolate waste, in which a mere passing
glance would scarce detect the existence of vegetable life
among the debris of rocks and the heaps of snow. Mosses
are found here and there in the moister fissures of rocks, and
especially on the coast, where old drift-wood, or the bones of
whales or other animals, afford the nourishment they need,
and in some places the mosses spread themselves out into
small carpets. Lichens love to shelter under the clusters of
the different kinds of saxifrage, though sometimes they are
found by themselves. Of this class we will mention merely the
so-called Iceland moss {Cetraria islandica), and a reindeer lichen
{Cladonia pyxidata) ; the few other forms are nearly related
to those mentioned, and belong to the so-called creeping
lichens. One peculiarity of the Flora of the far north, which
we have already mentioned, is their growth in clumps. Only
thus can these tender organisms maintain their existence
against the stern elements ; and this indeed is a charac
teristic of all Arctic creation, which is seen in the animal
world also, when its means of nourishment are hard to find.
We will point only to the herds of reindeer, of lemmings, of
walruses, of seals, &c., lastly to the vast flocks of birds ; all
of which illustrate the principle : common danger begets common
defetice." II. Our involuntary leisure at the Barentz Isles enabled us
to make some precautionary preparations for our future con
tests with the ice ; for a ship may be crushed by the ice and
sink in a few minutes, as had happened some days previously,
not far from us, to the yachts Valborg and Iceland. Provisions
and ammunition for four weeks were got ready, and each man
was entrusted with a special service, if it should ever come to
this extremity. To guard against the dreaded pressures of
the ice, heavy beams were hung round the hull of the vessel, .
so that the pressure on the ship might be distributed over a
larger surface, and the vessel itself be raised instead of crushed.

II.]

ON THE FROZEN OCEAN.

89

Our space on deck, somewhat limited at first, had been con
siderably enlarged, although our numerous sledges, our stock
of drift-wood, and the rudder which had been unshipped,
formed inconvenient obstacles, while the chained-up dogs
occasioned some unpleasant surprises to those who had not
succeeded in gaining their affections. These poor animals,
without protection, suffered much from the cold rough weather
which now prevailed, though subsequently some provision was
made for their comfort. Sumbu and Pekel, the two Lapland
dogs, were the most hardy, and slept without stirring, even
when they were completely covered with snow. It was only
after a long and stout resistance that the dogs became accus
tomed to the flesh of seals ; at first they growled at every
one who offered it to them.

-^^.-CXys,

FORMATION OF THE DEPOT AT "THE THREE COFFINS.

12. Aug. 14, we were threatened by the advance of an
enormous line of pack-ice, which inclosed us in the little
" docks " of the land-ice, and caused the Isbjorn to heel over.
In the evening a bear came near this vessel, which was shot
by Professor Hofer and Captain Kjelsen. On the following
day, with the help of the dogs and sledges, we removed over
the land-ice to " The Three Coffins " the provisions which were
to form the depot : 2,000 lbs. of rye-bread in casks, 1,000 lbs.
of pease-sausages in tin cases. These were deposited in the
crevice of a rock and secured against the depredations of

go

AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES.

[chap.

bears. We felt assured of the conscientiousness of Russian or
Norwegian fishermen, that they would make use of these
provisions only under the pressure of urgent necessity. This
depot was intended to be the first place of refuge, in the event
of the ship being lost.
13. Both ships were dressed with flags, and round one
common table we celebrated the birthday, Aug. 18, of the
Emperor and King, Francis Joseph I. On Aug. 19 we fetched
some drift-wood from the land, and saw from a height an

THE "tegetthoff" AND " ISBJORN " SEPARATE.
" ice-hole " stretching to the north at no great distance from
the coast As we returned to the ship we came across a bear,
which, being assailed by so many hunters at once, took to
flight Aug. 20, some changes in the ice seemed to make
navigation possible, and we forthwith went on board the
Isbjorn to bid adieu to our friends. It was no common fare
well. A separation to those who are themselves separated
from the worid moves the heart to its depths. But besides
this, in bidding adieu to Count Wilczek, we felt how much we

II.] ON THE FROZEN OCEAN. 91
were indebted to him, as the man who had fostered the work
we were about to undertake, who dreaded no danger while
providing for our safety in the event of a catastrophe to the
expedition. Our high-minded friend was at this moment the
embodiment of our country, which, honouring us with its
confidence and trust, demanded that we should devote all our
energies to the high objects of the expedition. Often after
wards did this adieu return to our memories. With a fresh
wind from the north-east we passed the Isbjorn as we steamed
towards the north, while this vessel, veiled in mist, soon
disappeared from our eyes.

THE " TEGETTHOFF " FINALLY BESET.
14 Our prospects, so far as the object of our expedition
was concerned, had meantime not improved. To cross the
Frozen Sea to Cape Tscheljuskin in the present year was not
to be dreamt of, and yet the thought of wintering in the
north of Novaya Zemlya was positively intolerable. The
navigable water was becoming narrower every day, and the
ice seemed to increase in solidity, especially in the neighbour
hood of the coast. In the afternoon of this day we ran into
an " ice-hole," but in the night barriers of ice stopped our

92

AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES. [CHAP. II.

further progress. As usual, the ship was made fast to a floe,
the steam blown off, and we awaited the parring asunder of
the ice.^ Five walruses who had been watching us from a
rock as we entered that ill-starred " ice-hole," sprang into the
water and disappeared.
15. Ominous were the events of that day, for immediately
after we had made fast the Tegetthoff to that floe, the ice closed
in upon us from all sides and we became close prisoners in its
grasp. No water was to be seen around us, and never again
were we destined to see our vessel in water. Happy is it for
men that inextinguishable hope enables them to endure all
the vicissitudes of fate, which are to test their powers of endur
ance, and that they can never see, as at a glance, the long
series of disappointments in store for them ! We must have
been filled with despair, had we known that evening that we
were henceforward doomed to obey the caprices of the ice, that
the ship would never again float on the waters of the sea, that
all the expectations with which our friends, but a few hours
before, saw the Tegetthoff steam away to the north, were now
crushed ; that we were in fact no longer discoverers, but passen
gers against our will on the ice. From day to day we hoped
for the hour of our deliverance ! At first we expected it
hourly, then daily, then from week to week ; then at the seasons
of the year and changes of the weather, then in the chances
of new years ! But that hour never came, yet the light of hope,
which supports man in all his sufferings, and raises him. above
them all, never forsook us, amid all the depressing influence
of expectations cherished only to be disappointed.
¦ Our position was then in 76° 22' N. Lat., 63° 3' E. Long.

CHAPTER in.
DRIFTING IN THE NOVAYA ZEMLYA SEAS.
I. At the end of August the temperature in the Frozen
Ocean is generally at the freezing point of the Centigrade
thermometer, but this year (1872) it was constantly six degrees
below it A cold bleak air enveloped us, there was abundance
of snow, the sun showed himself rarely, and for some days he
had sunk, at midnight, under the horizon. The ship and her
rigging were stiff with ice, and everything indicated that for us
winter had begun. As the masses of ice which inclosed us
consisted only of small floes, we were led to hope that the
strong east winds would soon disperse them. But the very
contrary really happened, for the low temperatures, the calms,
and falls of snow, bound the floes of ice only the more closely
together, and within a few days congealed them into one
single fleld, in the midst of which the ship remained fast and
immovable. Our surroundings were monotonous beyond
description, — one vast unattractive white surface, and even the
high-lands of Novaya Zemlya were covered with freshy fallen
snow. 2. To reach the coast of Siberia under these circumstances
had become an impossibility, and even in the event of our
being liberated, the search for a winter harbour in Novaya
Zemlya would be a matter of peril and difficulty. Yet we
calculated confidently on this contingency and employed our
enforced inactivity in completing our preparations for sledge
journeys during the autumn, although we could not but feel,
that their importance must be of secondary interest and value
in a country so well known as Novaya Zemlya. Meantime
we drifted slowly along the coast in a northerly direction and

94

AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES.

[CHAP.

apparently under the influence of a current, which has been
often observed on the northern coasts of Novaya Zemlya
But the gloom of our situation, as we became conscious of
our captivity, was more distinctly and painfully felt. On the
1st of September the temperature sank nine degrees below
zero (i2° F.), and the few and limited spaces of open water
round our floe disappeared. The sun now remained six hours
below the horizon, and the formation of young ice in a single
night often reached such a thickness, that we soon perceived
that our last hope for this year lay in the setting-in of heavy
equinoctial storms to break up the ice-fields.

ATTEMPTS TO GET FREE IN SEPTEMBER.

3. On the 2nd of September a fissure running through our
floe reached the after-part of the Tegetthoff and opened into
a " lead," and even our floe partially broke up ; but this
availed us nothing, for the ship itself remained fast on a huge
fragment During the night of Sept. 3, the after-part of the
legetthoff was gentiy raised for the first time by the pressure
and driving from beneath of the ice ; yet of the formidable
nature of such pressure we had as yet no presentiment

III.] DRIFTING IN THE NOVAYA ZEMLYA SEAS. 95
Though our situation seemed desperate, it was not attended
by immediate danger, and, condemned as we were to inactivity,
we found the amusement and occupation we needed in skating
on the young ice, which covered many of the newly-formed
ice-holes between the ice-floes. Besides the duty of making
and recording meteorological observations, the training of the
dogs, the bringing ice to the kitchen to be transformed into
water, the manufacture of oil, expeditions on foot to explore
the country, were the only forms in which our energies could
be exerted. Absolute loneliness surrounded us ; even the
Arctic sea-gull {Larus glaucus) and the grey stormy petrel
{Procellaria glacialis, L.) of the polar regions, were but rarely
seen, and a bear, which, Sept. S> came within forty paces of
the ship, was driven away by the awkwardness of our hunters.
The cold became more and more intense and the weather
more gloomy. Sept. 2, the cabin lamp had to be lit for the
first time about half-past nine o'clock, and on the 3rd we
began to heat the interior parts of the ship, the temper
ature of which had been for some time at zero ; and on
the nth, the first fiery belts of the Aurora flamed in the
northern heavens. On the 9th and loth, there was a very
heavy storm from the north-east which drove us back for- a
short time towards the west, and partially broke up our floe,
but all the efforts of the next week to destroy the connection
of what remained by sawing and blasting proved unsuccessful.
Blasting with powder, whether above or below the surface-ice,
proved ineffectual. Even old fissures in the ice appeared to
defy further disruption, segments which had been laboriously
made by sawing, froze again almost immediately, and even
the application of steam was powerless to set our floe in
motion and force the breaking-up of the parts which had
been sawn through. It was of no avail that up to Oct 7, we
kept open a trench round the ship, by destroying in the day
the ice which had been formed during the night : the expected
disruption of our ice-field never happened. Dark streaks in
the heavens still proclaimed that we were in the neighbour
hood of open water, and though they seemed only to indicate
"leads" of no great breadth or extent, they helped to sustain
our hopes. But these were soon doomed to be disappointed,
for even these "leads" closed up, and at the same time the

96

AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES.

[CHAE.

temperature fell to an unusually low degree. On the 15th of
September we had 15 degrees of cold, and on the 19th
the temperature fell i8-6 degrees below zero (C). To add to
this, there were frequent falls of drifting snow. As long as
fissures remained we had opportunities of seal-hunting, but
by the end of the month the " ice-holes " were overspread with
spongy ice, which hindered the movements of our boats within
them. The alternate openings and closings of the water-ways
around us seemed in our monotonous life a harmless spectacle,
for the lofty walls of piled-up ice had not as yet for us the
language of imminent and threatening dangers.

SEAL-HUNTING — SEPTEMBER 1872.

4. Sept. 22, there was a fissure in the ice about thirty paces
from the ship, and we quickly put on board all the materials
which were lying on the floe, believing that the moment of
our deliverance had come. But no such moment came, nor
did the equinoctial storms which we expected set in ; we con
tinued to drift still further to the north ; and on Oct. 2, we had
passed the seventy-seventh degree of north latitude. In the
beginning of this month a storm, which lasted but a short
time, opened up a large " ice-hole " near the after-part of the

III.]

DRIFTING IN THE NOVAYA ZEMLYA SEAS.

97

ship, and forthwith we set to work to open a passage through
our floe in order to reach it, but two days afterwards this
."ice-hole" also closed up. Yet amid all our mishaps we
forgot not on October the 4th — the name-day of his Majesty
the Emperor Francis Joseph I. — the homage which was due
to our noble and gracious Sovereign. The ship was gaily
dressed with flags, and a rifle-match, in which watches and
pipes were the prizes, scared away for a short afternoon the
sad impressions of the moment.

SHOOTING AT rt TARGET, OCTOBER 1872.
5. Encounters with polar bears afforded us much excitement
On the 6th of October our first bear was killed and divided
among the dogs, for as yet we had not learnt to regard the
flesh of these animals as the most precious part of our pro
visions. A fox also, the first seen during this expedition,
showed himself during the previous night He had evidently
come from Novaya Zemlya, and his curiosity had led him
close to the ship, from whence he was driven by the dogs.
It now became indispensable for everyone who left the imme
diate neighbourhood of the ship to carry arms with him, and

98 AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES. [CHAP.
the neglect of this precaution had sometimes rather ludicrous,
at other times somewhat serious, consequences. On the nth
of October I left the ship unarmed, and with no other com
panion than our Lapland dog, Pekel, to employ myself in the
harmless occupation of piling up a tower of ice. Working as
I was in a stooping position, I was unconscious of what was
immediately around me, when on a sudden the loud barking
of Pekel caused me to raise myself, and I saw a bear quite
close before me. Shaking his head and making a snuffling
noise, he came on towards me. In the expectation that
some of the people engaged on deck would see my critical
position, I contented myself with shaking my fist at him,
unwilling to reveal any weakness to my enemy. As this,
however, seemed to produce no effect, I cried out repeatedly,
" A bear ! " At last I saw Klotz, who was on deck, go to the
stand of arms, but with such stoical composure, that I ceased
to trust to others, and left to the bear, who had now advanced
to a distance of about fifteen paces from me, the glory of
forcing his enemy to take to flight.
6. In the first days of October the temperature rose con
siderably, the thermometer standing a little below zero (C).
This was due to south-west winds, and to the temporary exten
sion of the " ice-holes " in our immediate neighbourhood.
The days now became shorter, the sun surrounded with red
masses of clouds set behind barriers of blackish-blue ice, and
an ever-deepening twilight followed his disappearance. Sept.
29, a " snowfinch " flew from the coast of Novaj'^a Zemlya to
the ship, hopped about the deck for a little time, and after
delighting us all by his little song, again left us. Some few
sea-gulls still wended their flight to the spaces of water in our
neighbourhood. Skimming over the top of the mast, they
seemed to gaze down upon us, and then with a shrill cry darted
away like arrows towards the south. There was something
melancholy in this departure of the birds ; it seemed as if all
creatures were retiring from the long reign of night which was
before us. In order to divert our attention from the dreadful
monotony of our captivity by some occupation in the open
air, we fell on the plan of building houses of ice round the
ship. The activity of a building-yard reigned on our ice-floe ;
heavy ice-tables were broken or sawed through, the dogs in

III.]

DRIFTING IN THE NOVAYA ZEMLYA SEAS.

99

the sledges carried the fragments to their appointed places,
and with these blocks we raised crystal walls and towers.
Snow, mixed with sea-water, furnished an inexhaustible
source of the most excellent mortar ; and v/hile we worked
laboriously at these meaningless erections, we earned at least
by our labour the reward of sleep free from care.
7. As we drifted helplessly northward, the coasts of Novaya
Zemlya receded gradually from our gaze. Hitherto we had
lain close to the land, which with its rounded mountains and

PARHELIA ON THE COAST OF NOVAYA ZEMLYA.

valleys filled with glaciers seemed a miniature of Alpine
scenery. Daily almost the gigantic luminous arcs of parhelia
stood above it the usual precursors of stormy weather or
heavy falls of snow. Towards the north and north-east the
country becomes flatter, and runs into glacier-wastes littie
raised above the level of the sea. The topography bf the
northern parts of Novaya Zemlya is complete confusion. The
only survey which exists — that of Liitke— extends no further
than Cape Nassau. The maps of the Barentz Isles are
frequently in contradiction with fact, and their correction is
extremely desirable. Though this land • was of no value for
our object, yet it was still land, and it seemed also to us.

loo AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES. [CHAP. ni.
drifting as we did, the symbol of the stable and immovable.
But now it was gradually disappearing from our eyes. During
September we had moved slowly, but with October we drifted
at a greater rate, so that by the i2th of this month we saw
nothing but a line of heights some thirty miles off, towards
the south. At last every trace of land disappeared from our
gaze ; a hopeless waste received us, in which no man could
tell how long we should be, or how far we should penetrate.

CHAPTER IV.
THE "TEGETTHOFF" FAST BESET IN THE ICE.
I. Autumn was passing away, the days were getting shorter,
and in our immediate neighbourhood no movement in the ice
was perceptible, save that we had drifted continuously towards
the north-east ; sometimes, though rarely, a fissure in the ice
grew to the proportions of an "ice-hole," only, however, to
be quickly frozen over and present a surface for our skates.
There lay the frozen sea, the picture of dull, hopeless mono
tony ; shelter there was none. Our floe, though it seemed
to combine the conveniences of a winter harbour, could not
stand the test of closer observation, the illusion of such a
notion must be short-lived. But many signs now indicated
the insecurity of our position. Fields of ice in our neigh
bourhood cracked and split asunder, and piled-up masses
floated round us, silent preachers, as it were, of the destruc
tion which ice-pressure could produce.
2. A change, however, was soon to come over the scene.
On the evening of October 12 we imagined that the cabin
lamp oscillated, and consequently that our floe was in motion.
On the same night we were conscious of a violent movement
in the ice. A dreadful day was the 13th of October, — a
Sunday ; it was decisive of the fate of the expedition. To
the superstitious amongst us the number 13 was clothed
with a profound significance : the committee of the expedition
had been constituted on February 13; on the 13th of January
the keel of the Tegetthoff had been laid down ; on the 13th
of April she was launched; on the 13th of June we left

102 AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES. [chap.
Bremerhaven; on the 13th of July, Tromsoe ; after a voyage
of 13 days we had arrived at the ice, and on the 13th of
October the temperature marked 16 degrees below zero (C).
In the morning of that day, as we sat at breakfast, our floe
burst across immediately under the ship. Rushing on deck
we discovered that we were surrounded and squeezed by the
ice ; the after-part of the ship was already nipped and pressed,
and the rudder, which was the first to encounter its assault,
shook and groaned ; but as its great weight did not admit
of its being shipped, we were content to lash it firmly. We
next sprang on the ice, the tossing tremulous motion of which
literally filled the air with noises as of shrieks and howls, and
we quickly got on board all the materials which were lying
on the floe, and bound the fissures of the ice hastily together
by ice-anchors and cables, filling them up with snow, in the
hope that frost would complete our work, though we felt that
a single heave might shatter our labours. But, just as in the
risings of a people the wave of revolt spreads on every side,
so now the ice uprose against us. Mountains threateningly
reared themselves from out the level fields of ice, and the low
groan which issued from its depths grew into a deep rumbling
sound, and at last rose into a furious howl as of myriads of
voices. Noise and confusion reigned supreme, and step by
step destruction drew nigh in the crashing together of the
fields of ice. Our floe was now crushed, and its blocks, piled
up into mountains, drove hither and thither. Here, they
towered fathoms high above the ship, and forced the protect
ing timbers of massive oak, as if in mockery of their purpose,
against the hull of the vessel ; there, masses of ice fell down
as into an abyss under the ship, to be engulfed in the rushing
waters, so that the quantity of ice beneath the ship was con
tinually increased, and at last it began to raise her quite above
the level of the sea. About 11.30 in the forenoon, according
to our usual custom, a portion of the Bible was read on deck,
and this day, quite accidentally, the portion read was the
history of Joshua : but if in his day the sun stood still, it was
more than the ice now showed any inclination to do;
3. The terrible commotion going on around us prevented
us from seeing anything distinctly. The sky too was over
cast, the sun's place could only be conjectured. In all haste

IV.] THE "TEGETTHOFF" FAST BESET IN THE ICE. 103,
we began to make ready to abandon the ship, in case it
should be crushed, a fate which seemed inevitable, if she
were not sufficiently raised through the pressure of the ice.
About 12.30 the pressure reached a frightful height, every
part of the vessel strained and groaned ; the crew, who had
been sent down to dine, rushed on deck. The Tegetthoff ha.d
heeled over on her side, and huge piles of ice threatened to
precipitate themselves upon her. But the pressure abated,
and the ship righted herself; and about one o'clock, when
the danger was in some degree over, the crew went below to
dine. But again a strain was felt through the vessel, every
thing which hung freely began to oscillate violently, and all
hastened on deck, some with the unfinished dinner in their
hands, others stuffing it into their pockets. Calmly and
silently, amid the loud sounds emitted by the ice in its violent
movement, the officers assumed and carried out the special
duty which had been assigned to each in the contemplated
abandonment of the ship. Lieutenant Weyprecht got ready
the boats, Brosch and Orel cleared out the supply of pro
vision to be taken in them ; Kepes, our doctor, had an eye to
his drugs ; the Tyrolese opened the magazine, and got out the
rifles and ammunition — I myself attended to the sledges, the
tents, and the sacks for sleeping in, and distributed to the
crew their fur coats. We now stood ready to start, each with
a bundle — whither, no one pretended to know ! For not a
fragment of the ice around us had remained whole ; nowhere
could the eye discover a still perfect and uninjured floe to
serve as a place of refuge, as a vast floe had before been to
the crew of the Hansa. Nay, not a block, not a table of ice
was at rest, all shapes and sizes of it were in active motion,
some rearing up, some turning and twisting, none on the level.
A sledge would at once have been swallov/ed up, and in this
very circumstance lay the horror of our situation. For, if
the ship should sink, whither should we go, even with the
smallest stock of provisions ? — amid this confusion, how reach
the land, thirty miles distant, without the most indispensable
necessaries .'
4. The dogs, too, demanded our attention. They had sprung
on chests, and stared on the waves of ice as they rose and
roared. Every trace of his fox-nature had disappeared from

104 AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES. [chap.
"Sumbu." His look, at other times so full of cunning, had
assumed an expression of timidity and humility, and, unbidden,
he offered his paw to all passers by. The Lapland dog, little
Pekel, sprang upon me, licked my hand, and looked out on
the ice as if he meant to ask me what all this meant The
large Newfoundlands stood motionless, like scared chamois,
on the piles of chests.
5. About 4 P.M. the pressure moderated ; an hour after
wards there was a calm, and with more composure we could
now survey our position. The carpenter shovelled away the
snow from the deck in order to inspect the seams. They
were still uninjured. The knees and cross-beams still held,
and no very great quantity of water .was found in the hold.
This result we owed solely to the st. _ngth of our ship and to
her fine hnes, which enabled her to rise when nipped and
pressed, while her interior, so weU laden as to become a sohd
body, increased her powers of resistance. Everything was
again restored to its place, so that it was possible to go up
and down the cabin stairs without great difficulty, and in the
evening the water in the hold, which had risen 13 inches, was
pumped out to its normal depth of 6 inches. We went down
into the cabin to rest, but though thankful and joyful for the
issue, our minds were clouded ^yith care and anxiety. . Hence
forth we regarded every noise with suspicious apprehensions,
like a population which lives within an area of earthquakes.
The long winter nights and their fearful cold were before us ;
we were drifting into unknown regions, utterly uncertain of
the end. When night came, we fell asleep with bur clothes
on, though our sleep was disturbed every now and then by
onsets of the ice, recurring less frequently and in diminished
force ; but daily — and for one hundred and thirty days — we
went through the same experiences in greater or lesser
measure, almost always in sunless darkness. It was, however,
a fortunate circumstance for us that we encountered the first
assaults of the ice at a time when we were still able to see ;
for instead of the calm preparations we were able to make,
hurry and confusion would have been inevitable had these
assaults surprised lis amid the Polar darkness.
6. Eariy in the morning of Oct. 14 we all met at breakfast
but on every face there lay an expression of grave thoughtful-

Ilfp

I*

¦Ml" 111 111,1 iiiiiii'iiiiit iin 1 tiiiiii 1 iimiinMiKiiMi. I
1

..VjAI* gat, // ///

lo6 AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES. [CHAP.
ness, for each of us was contemplating the long perspective of
those dreary nights, in which we should drift without a goal
in the awful wastes of the Frozen Sea. The speedy restora
tion of our floe was now our most earnest desire. -It was only
severe frost and heavy falls of snow — as we vainly imagined
— which could cement the chaos of broken fragments around
us and form from them a new floe ; for as yet we had not
learnt by experience, that severe cold in itself, unaccompanied
with wind, is sufficient to break up the fields of ice, from the
contraction which it causes. We deluded ourselves with
another consolation — we imagined that the ice-pressures
would cease as soon as we passed the eastern extremity of
Novaya Zemlya, and that in the Sea of Kara we should drift
without encountering the pressures, due, as we conceived, to.
our nearness to land. But vain also was this hope, for we
were drifting not into the Sea of Kara, but towards the north
east. We should have found, even in that sea, that pressures
from the ice may occur within the Frozen Ocean, however,
as well as at its coasts. The masses of ice which caused our
disasters probably came from that sea.
7. The time subsequent to this crisis was full of painful and
anxious moments, but a chronological description of the
events of each day, involving a mere repetition of our sad
impressions, would be wearisome to the reader. I will, there
fore, transfer from my journal such porrions of it as most
forcibly express the thoughts that passed through the minds
of the handful of men on board the Tegetthoff during those
terrible days : —
" October 14. — About half-past eight o'clock in the evening
a new fissure in the ice appeared astern of the ship ; a Strain
was felt throughout her timbers ; in a moment every one in
his fur dress and with his bundle in his hand was on deck : so
will it be, perhaps, throughout the winter — what a life !
" October 1 5 .—All had slept in their clothes. Fresh pressures
from the ice were felt about eight o'clock in the morning, not
so powerful as on the 13th, but of such force that all sprang
from their berths and within a minute again stood ready on
the deck. Much ice had been forced under the after-part of
the ship, which was raised up by the pressure. When all was
calm every one set to work to make a bag to contain the gear

IV.] THE "TEGETTHOFF" FAST BESET IN THE ICE. 107
he meant to take if the ship should be crushed. Mine con
tained the following articles : one pair of fur gloves, one pair
of woollen gloves, a pair of snow spectacles, six pencils, a
rubber, three note-books, the journal of my Greenland expedi
tion, a book of drawings, ten ball-cartridges, two pairs of
stockings, a knife, a case of needles and thread. On the 13th
we had neglected to provide ourselves with maps of Novaya
Zemlya ; two of these I now included among my stock of
necessaries. ' Six Lefaucheux rifles, four Werndl-rifles, two
thousand cartridges, two large and two smaller sledges, a tent
for ten, one for six men, two great sleeping sacks, each for
eight, and a smaller one for six men, were placed in the boats.
Although all these preparations would have been quite vain
if the ship had sunk with the ice in motion to crush us, we
must, for our mutual encouragement, keep up the appearance
of believing in them. About six o'clock in the evening the
full moon rose, like a copper coin fresh from the mint, above
our horizon on the deep blue of the heavens. In the evening
the ice was at rest, and for the first time for some days we
ventured to undress on going to bed.
" October 16. — Slept without care or disturbance till two
o'clock in the morning, when pressure from the ice again set
in, and all rushed on deck. Some of the crew threw out on
the ice the antlers of a reindeer of Novaya Zemlya, — for
according to a superstition of the seamen the horns of a rein
deer are the generators of mischief ! The ice again calm, and
I fell asleep from exhaustion ; but about half-past five in the
morning there was a new pressure of about twenty minutes'
duration, and almost as fearful as on the 13th of the month.
The exceeding haste with which every one rushes up from
below as soon as the ship begins to strain, shows the effect
which the noise makes on us ; it is impossible to become
accustomed to it ; every one runs on deck. Again the ice
rests, but about half-past seven in the morning, another
pressure, which almost tore away the beams protecting the
hull and the davits to which they were fastened. The ship,
however, rights herself. To-day the ice which overhung our
bulwarks was dug away to prevent masses of it falling on
the deck. In the evening, diminished pressure from the
ice ; at night, glorious moonlight scenery ; nothing more

io8 AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES. [CHAP.

peaceful, but nothing more illusive, than such a scene at such
an hour.
" October 17.— All quiet during the night till Lusina came
to announce, with a voice as from the grave, that the ship wag
making more , water, sixteen inches in the forepart eleven
inches amidships. East wind, with heavy drifring snow-storms
— during the day once only a strain of short duration was
felt in the ship, as a new fissure opened in the piled-up ice on
our starboard quarter.
" October 18. — Our anxieties somewhat abate and our watch
ful state of preparation to leave the ship relaxes, and most
of us determine once more to undress for the night After
several weeks the sun, which had been obscured by the
weather, becomes visible, rising 2° 25' above the horizon ; the
temperature stands at - 20° F., and our latitude is 77" 48'.
" October 19. — Straining in the ship ; the sun rose about a
quarter past eight, but was soon veiled in frosty vapours.
'¦ October 20. — The hull of the ship is still without its
necessary protection of ice and snow, while we are wrapt in
furs and wear reindeer-shoes and felt-boots. In the evening
a faint mock moon was visible.
" October 21. — At night we were alarmed by a loud sound,
and in few minutes all were on deck with their fur clothes on
— a fissure had opened on the starboard side of the ship, con
necting itself with that which ,had been formed astern of the
ship. In an hour this fissure had widened about four feet,
and we worked for some hours by the light of lamps to fill it
up with snow and pieces of ice. The low temperature ( — 21°
F.) led us to expect that this chasm would be bridged over
without further effort on our part. The moon stood surrounded
by a vast halo in the heavens and illuminated the awful loneli
ness of our abode. Once more a calm ! When any one comes
down from the . deck into the cabin, the eyes of all are
involuntarily turned upon him to read in the expression of
his face what is going on above, and each dreads to hear it
said, that the ice is in motion. In the afternoon, when the
fissure closed, we heard the old dull sound from the ice, and
the ship strained violently, and all were on deck ready to
leave. About nine o'clock in the evening the motion of the
ice was again felt. Uncertain and full of fears as to what the

'vv

THE MOON WITH ITS HALO.

no AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES. [chap.
night might bring forth, we go early to rest ; no one knows
how short that rest may be. Even Klotz lays aside his stoical
calmness, and the philosophical dignity of his remarks departs
when his comrades spring from their berths and rush on deck
with their bundles. The frozen pumps are daily thawed by
boihng water ; to-day the shaft of one of them broke, through
the excessive strain put upon it.
" October 22. — During the night, motion in the ice. At
9.30 A.M. the sun rose, and attains its meridian altitude at
1° 41'. In the evening the fissure in the ice again opens.
Rents and small ' ice-holes ' are all round us, and frosty
vapour fills the air. To-day the skull of a bear was thrown
out on the ice, the crew asserting that mischief comes from
the possession of it !
" October 2^. — During the night violent movement in the ice;
the sound produced resembles the noise of a fleet of paddle-
wheel steam-ships, steaming now with full, now with half
power. The height of the sun to-day above the horizon was
a little above one degree, its form was distorted by refrac
tion into an egg-like shape, and its edges were in constant
vibration. " October 24. — The daylight is now so feeble that the lamps
have to be lighted during the day, with the exception of two
or three hours in the forenoon. Many of the crew are suffer
ing from frost-bites on their hands, in consequence of their
exposure in removing the unnecessary rigging, and in the
preparations to facilitate the removal of our stock of provisions
in the event of our being forced to abandon the vessel.
October 25. — In the afternoon we made an attempt to drive
the dog sledges, but the snow, in spite of the low temperature,
lay in such masses between the small hummocks and on the
few level places, that they sank deep into it. It is storms of
wind only that harden the snow, and for some time we have
had calms or light breezes. In the evening there was a move
ment in the ice astern of the ship, accompanied with the
highest soprano tones. The noise the ice makes in its pres
sure very much resembles the piping and howling of a storm
among rocky cliffs or through the rigging of a ship. About
half-past ten at night the oscillating movements of the ice,
occurring at definite intervals, made it appear as if they arose

IV.] THE "TEGETTHOFF" FAST BESET IN THE ICE. iii
from a swell of the ocean. The ship groans and creaks con
stantly ; indeed, creaking and groaning are weak expressions
for such a noise. Once more all are ready. We begin to fear
that the ice will never rest.
" October 26. — Pressure throughout the whole night. Armed
and provided with lanterns, we used the sledges to remove
two boats, 150 logs of wood, fifty planks, and a supply of
coals, to the port side of the vessel, and chose a stronger floe,
on which to build a house of refuge. Tired and exhausted,
we fell asleep, in spite of the straining and creaking of the
vessel. " October 27. — The sun at noon was scarcely visible above
the horizon. At night of the same day a strong wind from
the south-east opened a fissure on the starboard side of the

\

^^ ^^pfer

OUR COAL-IIOUSE ON THE FLOE.

vessel and about 150 paces from it, which grew into the
dimensions of an 'ice-hole.'
" October 28. — To-day the sun took leave of us. Only with
its upper edge had it appeared above the horizon, and sent
towards us its mild beams like the consoling glance of a
departing friend. The coal-house is finished. But what
rehance can be placed on such an abode in such a position ?
A storm may carry away the planks which form its roof;
sparks from a fire may set fire to its walls and consume it ;
and at any moment, through a pressure opening up an abyss
beneath, it may sink and be engulfed. Two o'clock in the

112 AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES. [chap.
afternoon, the groaning sound comes from the piles of ice
around us; our floe appears to twist somewhat, and the
pressure of the ice will probably soon begin.
" October 29. — During the night a noise in the ice, which,
though it did not further disturb us, was yet witness enough
that it is ever ready to disturb us. The sun no longer
appears; only a rosy light at noon in the heavens.
" October 30. — At half-past three o'clock in the morning there
was a dreadful straining and creaking in the ship : at once
we sprang out of our berths, and stood on deck with our fur
garments on, and with our bags as before. New fissures had
appeared which rapidly enlarge themselves ; the two boats
and the coal-house are now surrounded by up-forced masses
of ice and separated from us. Then a pause ! There is how
ever no real repose, and the least sound on deck, the falling
of anything heavy. — at other times quite unnoticed— alarms
us into the expectation of new onsets. At noon, as we sate
at dinner, there was renewed and excessive straining in the
ship, and even in the cabin we heard such a rushing sound in
the ice without, that it seemed as if the whole frozen sea
would the next moment boil and rise in vapour. During all
the afternoon the noise continues, and all the fissures send
forth dense vapours, like hot springs. During the day no
quiet for reading or working, and every night almost our
sleep is disturbed by a horrible awaking within a great
creaking, groaning coffin. Men can accustom themselves to
almost anything ; but to these daily recurring shocks, and
the constantly renewed question as to the end and issue of
it all, we cannot grow accustomed."
8. There is however such an intolerable monotony in my
diary, that, to spare my readers, I thus, in a few words,
resuming its contents, describe our situation : — " One of us,
to-day, remarked very truly, that he saw perfectly well how
one might lose his reason with the continuance of these
sudden and incessant assaults. It is not dangers that we fear,
but worse far ; we are kept in a constant state of readiness
to meet destruction, and know not whether it will come
to-day, or to-morrow, or in a year. Every night we are
startied out of sleep, and, like hunted animals, up we spring
to await amid an awful darkness the end of an enterprise

IV.] THE "TEGETTHOFF" FAST BESET IN THE ICE. 113,
from which all hope of success has departed. It becomes at
last a mere mechanical process to seize our rifles and our bag
of necessaries and rush on deck. In the daytime, leaning
over the bulwarks of the ship, which trembles, yea, almost
quivers the while, we look out on a continual work of destruc-
¦ tion going on, and at night, as we listen to the loud and
ever-increasing noises of the ice, we gather that the forces of
our enemy are increasing."

CHAPTER V.
OUR FIRST WINTER (1872) IN THE ICE.
I. In the beginning of November we were already environed
by a deep twilight; but our dreary waste had become of
magical beauty ; the rigging, white with frost, stood out,
spectre-like, against the grey-blue of the heavens ; the ice,
broken into a thousand forms and overspread with a covering
of snow, had now assumed the cold pure aspect of alabaster
shaded with the tender hues of arragonite. Southward at
noon we saw veils of frosty vapour rise into the carmine-
coloured sky out of the fissures and " ice-holes,'' in which the
water seemed to boil.
2. All our preparations for wintering had now been
completed. Lieutenant Weyprecht struck the top-masts to
diminish pressure from the wind ; some sails were still kept
set, in order that the ship, in the event of her being set free,
might at once get under weigh. The fore-part of the ship
only could be covered in as a tent, for the preparations to
abandon her in case of need compelled us to leave her after-
part uncovered. There, in perfect order, lay all the materials
we meant to take with us, our provisions, ammunition, tents,
sledges, &c. The ship was surrounded with a wall of snow
and ice, which we constantly restored, whenever it was injured
by pressure from without, and her deck was gradually over
spread with a mantle of snow, which contributed, however, to
maintain an equable warmth in the ship. Our distance from
land rendered it impossible to cover the deck with a layer of
sand, which would have prevented the melting of the snow
from the warmth of the ship.

chap, v.] OUR FIRST WINTER IN THE ICE.

115

3. The temperature of November rose once only — about
the middle of the month — considerably ; but except on that
occasion, the thermometer stood with tolerable regularity
below — 13° F., and on the 20th of the month it reached its
minimum at — 33° F. Winds, from whatever quarter they
might blow, constantly raised the temperature, because the
colder air was thus modified by the warmer which lay above

THE TWILIGHT IN NOVEMBER, 1872.
the open spaces of sea-water ; calms were accompanied by
a rapid intensification of cold. Wind, increased drifting,
pressure, and the formation of fissures — all these are naturally
connected. New openings were quickly covered with young
ice, which presented a smooth surface when formed by ' less
intense cold, but when the temperature fell lower, its saline
contents were exuded in a moist, tough layer, which lay on
its surface about an inch thick. In this state of the ice, sledge-

ii6 AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES. [chap. v.
*
travelling was rendered more difficult, and even walkirig was
far from easy ; for it is only under a temperature ranging
from — 4° F. to — 13° F. that this layer is frozen. The inces
sant rending of the ice-sheet by exposing the warmer surface
of the sea, tends to mitigate the cold, while, on the other
hand, the freezing of these fissures augments the quantity
of ice.
4. In the beginning of the month our nights were dark,
and it was only occasionally that the light of the aurora and
meteors visited us with their fleeting splendours. Although

SJMBU CHAi-tiD FOR .\ I-OX.

in clear weather day was still distinguishable from night, yet
the darkness, even at noon, was so great, that mists could not
be seen, but felt only, and it was no longer possible, without
the light of a lantern, to make even the slightest sketch, or to
take aim with the rifle. Hence, when we met with bears we
could not be certain of our aim, if they were at any distance
from us, and, on one occasion, Sumbu was mistaken for a fox,
chased, and but for my coming up would have been shot

1X8 AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES. [CHAP.

S. The first days of November passed away without any
new disturbance from the movement of the masses of ice,
and our feeling of security grew apace, and with it our hopes
revived, never again to leave us entirely, not even when the
pressures returned, as they did too soon. Once more the
fields of ice, firmly pressed together, were rent asunder;
fissures opened out, and shone in the moonlight like rivers
of silver. The night of Nov. 20 was one of extreme anxiety.
A mountain formed of piles of broken ice bore down on us
amid a fearful din, threatening to bury the ship. Silent, and
conscious of our utter helplessness, we watched this gigantic
heap of crashing ice-tables drifting nearer and nearer, crush
ing as it advanced the heaviest pieces of ice with a noise which
echoed through our ship. Escape seemed impossible : and
Providence alone arrested its career. This night the crew
received each an extra glass of grog to obliterate the impres
sion of this terrible crisis.
6. With the exception of books, we had no other amuse
ment than short expeditions, never extending beyond a mile
from the ship, in which we were accompanied by all the dogs.
We generally set out with two small sledges, and, when the
moon was not shining, with our rifles ready to fire, for the
darkness and the utter absence of open spaces on the ice
imposed the utmost caution against bears. At a very short
distance we could see nothing of the ship, and only by our
footsteps on the snow could we make out where we were and
find the way back. In these expeditions we were exposed to
another danger— the risk of being cut off from the ship by the
breaking-up of one of the drifting floes. Even the dogs felt
the insecurity of recentiy-formed ice, and put their feet on it
with fear and hesitation, and only by compulsion. There
seemed to be a cunning agreement among them to shirk
the work altogether ; for they often rushed away into the coal-
house, and threw the harness of the sledges into inextricable
confusion. 7. December came, but it brought no change in our situa-
rion. Our life became more and more monotonous; one
day differed in no respect from another, it was but a' mere
succession of dates, and rime was reckoned merely by the
.hours for eating and sleeping. The ice, however, did not

v.] OUR FIRST WINTER IN THE ICE. 119.
share in the universal repose. It was never weary of threat
ening ; no day elapsed without movement on its part. My
journal records December I, 8, 9, 19, 20, 21, 24, 26, 28, 29, 30,
and 31, as days of special disturbance and agitation. On the
20th, as we were talking in the coal-house of the approaching
festival of Christmas, a sudden violent movement of the ice
surprised us, and rushing out we found that the floe on which
the house stood was breaking up. With all haste we endea
voured to save as much as possible of the coal and iriaterials,
and moved them close to the ship. The minimum tem
perature of December was — 26° F. ; the mean of the whole
month amounted to — 22° F. ; and the extreme of cold,
— 33° F., was reached on the 26th. A few days before
Christmas the temperature rose to a little below — 13° F.
It may be observed that the lower temperatures were
registered during the prevalence of winds from the south
east, and the higher during winds from the north.
8. When the moon returned in the middle of December,
our sledge expeditions were extended to a distance of i^ miles
from the ship, over snow and hummocks, to recently frozen
ice-holes, the lonely beauty of which, edged with dark masses
of ice, in the distance, and lying under the clear silver light of
the moon, filled us with feelings of profound melancholy. On
returning from one of these expeditions to our vessel, after
we had unharnessed the dogs, we heard loud barks from
Sumbu, and looking round saw a bear close beside him, which
Orel managed to shoot dead when he was not above five
paces from the rope-ladder on the port side of the vessel.
He was at once cut up, the dogs meanwhile looking on with
profound attention; and in reward for his watchfulness,
Sumbu was indulged with an extra good feast — the heart
and tongue of the bear, which, as yet, we ourselves had not
learnt to eat and enjoy. On the i8th, however, he en
countered our heavy displeasure for the offence of frightening:
off a fox, which had ventured to come very near the vessel.
9. When there was no moon it was perfectly dark, even
during the day; but on December 14, in a very clear fore
noon, we saw in the south a tender orange segment of light,
three or four degrees above the horizon, edged with green,
sharply defined against the dark sky, and when the moon.

120

AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES.

[CHAP.. V.

high in the heavens, faced this arch of light, a peculiar faint
twilight was observable. But generally there was no difference
between the light of midday and the light of midnight The
heavens were usually overcast and the light of the aurora,
during the few minutes of its greatest intensity, seldom ex
ceeded that of the moon in its first quarter. But how deep
would be the night of the Polar regions, if the land, instead
of being white with snow, were covered, with forests ! On
December 20 we were unable, even at noon, to read anything
but the titles of books of the largest type ; a man's eyes were

ENCOUNTER WITH A POLAR BEAR.

invisible at the distance of a few paces, and at fifty even the
stoutest ropes of the ship were scarcely discernible. The
effect of the long Polar night — when the range of the light.
of a lamp is the whole world for man — is most oppressive to,
the feelings ; nor can habit ever reconcile those who have
lived under the influences of civilization to its gloom and
solitude. It can be a home only to men who spend their
existence in eating and drinking and sleeping, without. any
disturbing recollection of a better existence. The depression

#.«?

Il*

1. ^

'TW™W|

i'-

10

I
iHii

122 AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES. [CHAP.
was made more intense by the consciousness that we had
been driven into an utterly unknown region and with our eyes
bound. Work, incessant work, was the only resource in these
circumstances. IO. Again from my journal I reproduce some passages
which express the feelings which passed through our minds —
through mine at least — during this season of the Tegetthoff' s
first winter in the ice: — ^'December 21 — The middle of the
long night. It is noon, and, though nothing can be lighter
than the colour of all that surrounds us — of the snow — ^yet it
is as dark as midnight. Nothing but a pale yellow sheen
hovers over the south. The sun has sunk telow the horizon
1 1° 40', and we should have to ascend a mountain eighteen
and a half (German) miles high in order to behold it. Nothing
is to be seen, neither bears nor men, and we only hear the
steps of those who are near us. We see but the confused
outline even of the ship, as she drifts hither and thither with
the floe, a prisoner in the fetters of the ice, the sport of winds
and currents, carrying her further and further into the still and
silent realm of death. A definite object, with hope to inspire
them, raises men above toils and troubles of every kind ; but
exile like ours, when the sacrifice seems useless, is hard to be
borne. An inexorable ' No ' lays its ban on every hope, and
daily struggle for self-preservation is our lot. If we attempt
to fathom destiny, our utmost hopes are liberation from our
icy captivity some time next summer, and the reaching the
coast of Siberia. Siberia a hope ! And yet how changeable
are the feelings when the reign of monotony is interrupted !
The moon is up — darkness exists no more. In the North the
moon is an event — it is life, everything almost ; it is the only
hnk which connects us with the far-distant home. As its
beams fall on the meanest forms, diamonds blaze forth in its
light from the snow and the frost, and the soul feels the beauty
of the transformation. She looks down on us like a returning
friend that watches over us, and unfolds bewitching forms and
magic images to cheer us. Two weeks ago she rose above the
horizon, first as a blood-red disk, then paled as she climbed
higher and higher, till she stands out the clear, silver-bright,
full moon."
ri. Christmas had come ; the season when in the forests of

v.] OUR FIRST WINTER IN THE ICE. 123

our far-distant home the branches of the -pine-trees are heavy
laden with snow, and which ever comes back with the memories
of the days of our youth, and with the remembrances of our
famihes and absent friends. Only for a short time, about
noon, we were made uneasy by a movement and pressure of
the ice. But the alarm passed away, and we gathered to
gether for a choice and gorgeous feast both on Christmas Eve
and Christmas Day, and each of the cabin-mess had a bottle
of good wine to himself Carlsen and Lusina were our guests.
Each of the crew received half a bottle of wine, together with
a quarter of a bottle bf " artificial wine," ^ and in addition an
allowance of grog, so weak, however, that even a baby might
have drunk it without harm. Dried fish, roast bear well kept
and seasoned, nuts and the like, contributed in their way
to heighten the joyous feelings which, this day at least
animate even the most miserable of men. The dogs, at other
times so insatiable, had for once enough and to spare, and
carried off the fragments to bury them in the snow. The
contents of a chest full of presents, which we had brought
with us, were distributed by lot find great was the delight of
those who won a bottle of rum or a few cigars.
12. The last day of the year 1872 afforded us no very
happy thoughts as we looked back on its events ; it had been
to us a year of disappointments. The comparison drawn
between our actual condition and the expectations we had so
ardently cherished seemed full of the bitterest irony. This
day also, about noon, a pressure from the iqe, which lasted but
a short time, alarmed us all, and we rushed on deck to make
our usual preparations. The enemy, however, passed away
without further disturbance, and cheerfully and socially we
awaited the first hour of the new year. With a bottle of
champagne, one of the two still left, we meant to greet its
coming in with that hopefulness of mind which seems inex
tinguishable in all the changes and chances of life. But the
champagne, alas ! proved a delusion. Klotz, the Tyrolese, in
one of his brown studies exposed this precious bottle for four
hours to a temperature of — 19° F., and when he produced it
the bottle had burst and the wine was thoroughly frozen. At
midnight the crew serenaded us, and we afterwards marched
1 A decoction prepared b.y Kepes.

J 24

AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES.

[CHAP.

forth in a body with torches, and walked round the ship, whose
rigging glowed in the light of the tarred torches. The frosted
fur garments of the men seemed edged with shining light, and
a red glare fell on the masses of ice.
13. To-day, too, we allowed the dogs to descend into our
cabin, — the constant object of their longings. The poor
animals were so dazzled by looking at our lamp, that they
almost took it for the sun itself; but by and by their attention

CARLSEN MAKES THE ENTRY IN THE LOG.

was directed exclusively to the rich remains of our dinner, the
sight of which appeared completely to satisfy their notions of
the wonders of the cabin. After behaving themselves with
great propriety, they again quietly withdrew, all except
Jubinal, who appeared to be indignant at the deceitfulness of
our conduct, inasmuch as we had allowed him to starve so
long on dried horse-flesh and on crushed bear's head, while
we revelled in luxury. He accordingly made his way into
Lieutenant Brosch's cabin, where, discovering a mountain of
macaroni, he immediately attacked it, and warned us off from
every attempt to rescue it by growling fiercely till he had

v.] OUR FIRST WINTER IN THE ICE. 125
finished it all. Sumbu, however, with much levity, suffered
himself to be made drunk by the sailors with rum, and every
thing which he had scraped together for weeks and buried in
the snow and so carefully watched, was stolen from him by
the other dogs in one night
14. Another year had now glided away. Looking anxiously
into the future, we shortsighted mortals saw the fulfilment
of our highest wishes in being liberated from the floe. In the
pious manner of the whalers of the Arctic Ocean, Carlsen
wrote this day in the log : " Onsker at Gud maa vere med os
i det nye aar, da kan intet vare imod os — ]}/Iay God be with
us in the new year and nothing can be against tis." In this new
year, with its happier issues, was verified again the eternal
truth, that Providence acts in ways not to be fathomed, and
that it is folly in man to mark out his own path beforehand
according to his own mind. . The sun of this new year, whose
beams were to light us to new lands and discoveries, was still
low beneath the horizon.

CHAPTER VI.
LIFE ON -BOARD THE "TEGETTHOFF."
I . Like a spectre in white, the ship stretches out her arms, as
if in silent complaint, towards the heaven, and rests, in cruel
mockery of her destiny, on a mountain, not of water, but of
ice, and seems like a building ready to fall jn. A wall of
snow and ice surrounds her hull, snow lies thick on her deck,
and her rigging is stiffened in icy lines. Could we see through
her sides, we should then behold four-and-twenty men parted
off in two spaces under the suns of two lamps. Let us inspect
them, and first the cabin of the officers in the after-part of the
ship. 2. Neither few nor slight were our struggles to remedy the
various inconveniences which we encountered ; their enumera
tion here is meant to aid the experience of future adventurers.
Though our arrangements were far from complete or perfect,
we had never to complain of the discomforts which previous
expeditions, even the second German expedition to Greenland,
had to endure from the excessive condensation of moisture.
Against this enemy we protected ourselves by the snow wall
which we raised round the ship, by covering in the deck
windows of the cabin, by lining our quarters with vulcanized
india-rubber, by sheds built over the cabin stairs, all acting as
condensers. Before, however, I enter on the unavoidable in
conveniences to which we were exposed by the formation of
ice, or by damp and the sudden change of temperature, I
would preface my remarks by observing, that all these dis
comforts and inconveniences are to be endured far more easily
than would seem possible to the reader, and that life on board
a ship of a North Pole expedition, under normal circumstances^
is free from annoyances worthy of mention.

CHAP. Vl.J LIFE ON BOARD THE "TEGETTHOFF." 127
3. It is a matter of the last importance to keep tne air pure
and wholesome, and to maintain an equable warmth in the
quarters of the officers and crew. The accumulation of
moisture and consequent congelation in them is an incon
venience which requires incessant watchfulness to avert.^
The destruction of the snow wall which surrounded the ship
increased the condensation ; for that snow covering was
nothing but a greatcoat for the ship and those on board. In
the beginning of November 1872 the frost on the bulk-heads
of the berths, and on those parts of the cabins which were

THE TEGETTHOFF IN THE FULL MOON.

impervious to warmer air, was very perceptible. The bed
clothes were frozen at night to the sides of the ship, the iron
knees of the beams — not, alas ! covered with felt-^gleamed
like stalactites, small glaciers were formed under the berths,
and even in October the skylight was frozen, inches thick.
Every rise in the temperature caused this formation of ice
to fall down like a " douche," and with the opening of a
door a white vapour, even in October, streamed along the
deck. We prevented the increase of moisture by cutting the
openings in the deck, over which we placed two chimneys,
each a foot high and covered with a thin metal cap. We
boarded up the skylight, leaving a lid by which to air the
^ Parry mentions, as a fact illustrative of the increase of moisture and its con
densation into ice, that about a hundred hundredweights of ice were once removed
from the lower quarters of the Hecla, which had accumulated there from the breath,
the steam caused by cooking, and the moisture brought down by the clothes of
the men.

128 AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES. [chap.
cabin. But in spite of all this the variations of temperature
within our quarters were extraordinary. If the heat of the
air in the middle of the cabin and on a level with our heads
rose from ^2° F. to 76° F. — our usual mean temperature —
it amounted on the floor to a little above 34° F., and fell
during the night not unfrequently below freezing-point.
4. But the greatest inconvenience perhaps with which we had
to contend, arose from the removal of the protection of the
tent roof, which was stretched over the after-part of the ship.
The want of this prevented our walking on the deck in bad
weather, and it also hindered perfect ventilation, which could
only be secured, with the constant heat which was maintained
below, by keeping the deck windows open. Warming the air
from underneath the floor of the cabin would possibly be
preferable to the best stove. We had the stove of Meidingen
of Carlsruhe, the excellence of which had been tested on the
Germania. This stove consumed only 20 lbs. of coals daily,
with a thermometer at — 13° F., and after the adoption of
certain arrangements to save the fuel, its consumption
amounted to only 12 lbs. Even in the coldest period of the
winter we never consumed more than 4\ cwt. in a month.
The lighting of the messroom and quarters of the men was
effected by petroleum, the daily consumption of which
amounted to about 2f lbs. Altogether there were in the ship
two large and two small lamps, besides the deck-lantern,
which were burning day and night. The berths were lighted
with train-oil ; for special purposes, such as drawing, candles
were used.
5. The stove had one troublesome enemy in the shape of a
hole, as big as a man's head, in the door of the mess-room,
through which a cold stream of air poured itself ; and as the
ship dipped forward considerably, and the hearth was only
about a foot above the floor of the mess-room, this stream
filled the whole space with a lake of cold air from three to
four feet deep. Hence, while in the berth close by the stove
there was a temperature ranging between 100" F. and 131° F.,
in the other, there was one which would have sufficed for the
North Pole itself. In the former a hippopotamus would have
felt himself quite comfortable, and Orel, the unhappy occu
pant of it, was often compelled to rush on deck, when the

VI.] LIFE ON BOARD THE "TEGETTHOFF." 129
ice-pressures alarmed us, experiencing in passing from his
berth to the deck a difference of temperature amounting to
189° F. In the other berth of the mess-room, water, lemon-
juice, and vinegar froze on the floor. Those who occupied it,
as they lay in beds, or those who sat at the table to read, were
in a cold bath reaching up to their neck. But the hole was
an indispensable necessity, for it was better to endure the dis
comfort even of such a draught than to impede ventilation.
Other causes, too, disturbed the equilibrium of temperature.
At night the stove was sometimes, from sanitary considera
tions, not lighted, and then all had to sleep in that cold bath.
With the increase of cold and wind, our inconveniences often
assumed somewhat ludicrous forms. Some passages from my
journal will make this clear: — "When any come below the
temperature falls. If the door be opened there rolls in a
mass of white vapour ; if any one opens a book which he has
brought with him, it smokes as if it were on fire. A cloud
surrounds those that enter, and if a drop of water falls on
their clothes, it is at once converted into ice, even at the stove.
Frequently the upper stratum of air in the mess-room becomes
so heated, that the deck light has to be opened, and then it
rises up, like smoke out of a chimney, to blend itself with the
cold air without."
6. The arrangements of the officers' mess-room are -simple
and in harmony with its purpose. Here stands a large table^
used for study and for meals ; the smaller berths, where the
officers .sleep, are round the sides of the mess-room — ^just
large enough to enable a man to breathe in. There, in a
recess between two pillars, an untold resource, the library (of
about 400 volumes, chiefly scientific) ; close beside it the
chronometers ; and lastly, the inevitable evils, the medical
stores, ranged round the mast By the side of scientific
works stand Petermann's Mittheilungen; and between Milton's
Paradise Lost and Shakespeare's immortal works, a whole
tribe of romances, which were read with never-tiring delight.
Our instruments, too, frosted with ice, are here, and a chest
containing our journals. Once a month a cask, filled with
wine — the chemical wine — concocted of snow, alcohol, tannin,
sugar, and glycerine, was placed there. Dr. Kepes was not
only our physician, but our wine brewer. One thing more we

I30 AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES. [chap,
have to mention, which, alas ! incommoded us much too little
— wine ; that is, wine made in Austria, from grapes. As we
have already mentioned, the want of room in the cabin pre
vented our laying in a large stock, and the supplies we had
were frozen in a cellar below the mess-room, about the middle
of December, for the temperature of even this place was
about i6° F. or 14° F. Each, however, had a bottle of rum
as an allowance for eighteen days. But quite inexhaustible
was the supply of our common drink — melted snow — a great
jar of which, filled to the brim, stood always on the table.
Under the cabin were our supplies of alcohol and petroleum,
accessible only by well-fitting pipes, but possible volcanoes as
far as our safety was concerned. From the accumulation of
so manji combustible materials, together with 20,000 cart
ridges, and with several lamps constantly burning, it is clear
that the danger of fire was great. But once only had we an
alarm from this source — when Carlsen caused us much trepi
dation by accidentally discharging a rifle in the cartridge
magazine. 7. Let us now turn to the persons who occupied this mess-
room. Marola, the steward, lights the lamp, and kindles
the fire, and awakens those who were not already awoke
by the smoke from the stove, with the cry, " Signori, le sette
e tre quarti, prego d'alzarsi ; " and after a pause of a quarter
of an hour, during which the sleepers seem carefully to deny
their existence, he startles this silence of indifference by
the second call : " Colazion' in tavola." Out of every berth
now comes forth its occupant, each in picturesque costume ;
costumes teach us how superficial after all is civilization in
man !
8. The day's work begins. The watch, as ever, walks the
deck, lest the ice should slip away from the world unobserved ;
in the mess-room m.eanwhile calculations or drawing or writing
are in full operation. Our daily meals consist of a break
fast of cocoa, biscuit, and butter ; of a dinner of soup, boiled
beef, preserved vegetables, and cafe noir ; and of tea in the
evening, with hard biscuit, butter, cheese, and ham. I would
recommend potage instead of tea for the evening meal to all
future expeditions. Many of the articles of food must be
thawed before the process of cooking begins, the greater part

VI.] LIFE ON BOARD THE "TEGETTHOFF." 131

of the provisions being frozen as hard as iron. The tins witti
preserved meat stand for hours in boiling water, and the
things for supper on the cabin stove, in order to be thawed.
A plate of cheese that steams, butter as hard as a stone,
which has thrown off the salt it contained in great lumps
from the action of frost, a ham as hard as the never-thawed
ground of the Tundra of Siberia, form an icy repast, specially
if we use knives-, which are so cold that they often break
with the least exertion of force. I will here notice the
sanitary importance — insisted on by Parry and Ross — of
fresh bread, which the cook in an Arctic ship should be
able to bake about twice a week. On board the Tegetthoff

DIVINE SERVICE ON DECK.

we used at first Liebig's "baking-powder," but this from
being kept too long gave such a disagreeable taste to the
bread, that we gave it up and contented ourselves with a
defective leaven.
9. Every Sunday at noon we celebrated Divine Service.
Under the shelter of the deck-tent, the Gospel was read
to the little band of Christians gathered together by the
sound of the ship's bell, in all that grave simplicity which

132 AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES. [chap.

ttiarked the worship of the early Christian Church. The
Service over, we then sat down to the Sunday dinner, which
was graced by a glass of wine and cake. Carlsen and
Lusina were our guests by turns. Carlsen always appeared
in his wig, trimmed with extra care, and on the high festivals
of the Church decorated also with the cross of the order
of St Olaf Lusina, our excellent boatswain, was ready to
talk with enthusiasm on any subject whatever, prefacing his
stream of words with some sententious remark or with some
far-fetched introduction. During our meals the conversation
turned on our plans for the future ; we talked of Polar bears ;
we discussed the question of the existence of Gillis' Land
and the possibility of our reaching Siberia ; but very seldom
did we venture to speak of what filled the minds of all —
our captivity in the ice. Political combinations formed a
favourite theme; and as we had some old numbers of the
Neue Frei Presse on board, they furnished an inexhaustible
source of topics for conversation. The events of the year
1 870 were related as the latest news, and we thought anxiously
of the issue of the war between Germany and France,
and feared lest Austria should be compelled to take part
in it.
10. After dinner came the hour for contemplation ; in our
lonely berths and by the side of our beds we sat down to
brood — to listen to our watches beating seconds. The
English Arctic expeditions, during the long period of their
enforced leisure, found a great source of amusement and
distraction in theatricals. But the ships of these expeditions
had far larger crews than the Tegetthoff, and the men could
be more easily spared for these recrearions. But there were
other reasons why we could not think of following the ex
ample of the English. Our situation during the first winter
was far too serious for such things, and no other place for the
theatre was at our disposal except the barricaded deck;
and we should have had to sit there with a thermometer
marking from 25° to 37" of cold, on the cenrigrade scale,
and see how the actors and the audience suddenly rubbed
their frost-bitten feet with snow! There was one other
potent reason for this renunciation— our performances must
have been in four different languages.

VI.] LIFE ON BOARD THE "TEGETTHOFF." 133
II. Monotonous beyond all monotony is hfe inthe long
night of a Polar winter, and exile can never on earth be so
entire as here under the dreadful triumvirate — darkness, cold,
and solitude. In such a life, the man who surrenders himself
to idleness, or even to sleeping during the day, must neces
sarily be utterly demoralized. In fact, nothing can be more
destructive to an expedition wintering in the Arctic regions
than the indulgence of mental or bodily lassitude. The real
ground of the failure of the attempts made in earlier times
to winter in Jan Mayen and other places in the far North was
probably the utter want of discipline. There is, however,
a widely spread, though mistaken view, that the long day
of Polar lands is oppressive to man. Nothing is more
untrue ; for not continual light, but constant darkness, is
distressing. Continual daylight heightens the energies and
vital powers ; and yet, in our own first winter, it was less
the darkness which wore us than the perpetual anxiety ;
when our greatest consolation was found in the Arabic
proverb, "In niz beguzared" {This too will pass away), in
scribed on our cabin wall.
12. After supper, before going to bed, we smoked our
cigars in the shed over the cabin steps, with a thermometer
from 25° to 37'= below zero C, and talked pleasantly over
bygone days, though our thoughts were not unmixed with
gloomy forebodings, as we heard ever and anon the ominous ,
sounds that issued from the moving ice. Existence on board
a straining and groaning ship resembles life over a volcano.
It was only after we had been some time in this ice-covered
wooden grotto that the temperature rose, through our own
heat, a few degrees, and it was certainly some testimony to
the excellence of my down-quilted clothes that I could
wear them in the cabin without being distressed by the heat,
and yet I was able to sit the whole evening in this freezing
hole without sufferimg from cold. A train-oil lamp sends
out almost more smoke than light, and when the snow drifted,
we had to contend with the importunities of the dogs, who
seemed to regard the deck shed as a great dog-kennel.
With a sudden rise of the outer temperature this shed became
utterly uninhabitable, for its coating of ice then melted and
fell down like rain.

134 AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES. [chap.

13. The effect of the long winter night is even greater
on the body than on the mind, because of the insufficient
opportiinities for exercise. Middendorf contrasting the in
fluence of climate on men remarks : — " I consider travels in
cold regions, even in the most unfavourable conditions of
climate, to be far less dangerous to life than travels under
the tropics. The former certainly are unutterably more
miserable, but as certainly less deadly. I say this notwith
standing the danger which threatens ships when they
penetrate far within the realms of ice. We are never secure
from sudden and deadly attacks of illness in tropical countries,
but the longer we remain in them the less is the danger ;
whereas the high North deteriorates the constitution of the
blood, and after three winters, very few can stand a fourth."
To the influences of Polar hfe detrimental to health must be
added the constant hindrance to perspiration from wearing
an extra quantity of woollen clothing — more or less hurtful as
it is more or less waterproof — the v/ant of fresh animal and
vegetable food, and last but not least, the periodic departure
of light and warmth.
14. Our sanitary condition during the two winters we
spent on board the Tegetthoff was not altogether satisfactory.
Scorbutic affections of the mouth and diseases of the lungs
appeared sometimes in distressing shapes, and scarcely a day
passed in which we had not one or two on the sick-list. I
believe, however, that our trying situation had far more to do
with these evils than the southern blood and breeding of
our people. The incessant watchfulness and care of Dr.
Kepes left nothing undone which would counteract the evil
influences to which we were exposed. The berths of the crew
were changed in rotation, and those which were exposed'
to the greatest accumulation of ice were dried by warm
air conveyed through movable pipes. Want of exercise,
constant change of temperature, depression of mind, the
periodic scarcity of fresh meat, were the causes of the
scurvy. In our first winter it appeared only in the more
crowded quarters of the crew. It was then also that the
first symptoms of lung-disease appeared in Krisch, the
engineer, which he probably contracted from " catching cold."
From that time he liked to sit bythe stove and always

VI.] LIFE ON BOARD THE "TEGETTHOFF." 135
complained of cold. Our supplies of preservatives against,
and remedies for scurvy were rather limited, although we had
at our disposal several hundred tins of preserved vegetables,
a cask of cloud-berries {Rubus chamamorus), which we had
brought from Tromsoe, and above a hundred bottles of lime-
juice. Wine also is an important preservative; we therefore
served out to the crew, notwithstanding our small supply,
twice a week, not Kepes' artificial, but real wine — at the rate
of two bottles for eighteen men. No doubt scorbutic
symptoms would have been far more general and severe,
had we not been fortunate enough to shoot no less than
sixty-seven Polar bears, a larger number than had fallen
to any previous expedition. It was more a sign of our good
intentions to leave nothing undone or untried in our efforts
against this malady, than any actual service it was to us, that
we sowed cress and cabbage — radishes did not succeed — in
a bed which we suspended over the stove. It was interest
ing, however, to observe how the little plants of cress, with
every change of position, always turned to the light of the
lamp, growing to the height of three inches, and in spite
of their brimstone colour retaining the true cress flavour.
15. The use of the bath tends greatly to promote health,
for without it the skin of the body has no other stimulant ;
but the insecurity of our position rendered bathing sometimes
a somewhat doubtful enjoyment. I remember many cases,
when some of us, while bathing in the cold dark washing
place in lukewarm water an inch deep, were alarmed by a
sudden pressure of ice. Ultimately we gave up this practice,
finding that it produced a troublesome amount of damp.
16. To a stranger, who should have visited us during this
winter, nothing in the ship would have been so. surprising
and interesting as a visit to the quarters of the crew. Except
for an hour, from five to six o'clock in the evening, when they
were encouraged to take exercise in the open air, the rest of
their time was spent in school, or in the duties of the watch,
or in the work of the ship. Our supply of Slavonic books
was unfortunately not very ample, and besides, not all the
crew were able to read ; the greater therefore was then-
tendency, like men of southern climes, to harmless noise,
and I beheve that some of our people, during the whole

136 AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES. [chap.
expedition, never ceased to speak. Here I beg to insert
some passages from my journal : — " Passing by the steaming
kitchen, we enter their messroom. Here in a narrow space
we find the toilers of the sea and the mountains — eighteen
in number. A little band of Dalmatians who for the first
time encounter darkness and cold, the horrors of which are
increased tenfold to men born and bred in the sunny South.
Truly it could be no little thing to such men to be torn from
sleep almost every night by the movement of the ice, to sit
day after day in the long night of winter without any real
intellectual occupation, and yet not to become demoralized,
but remain calm and composed, and ever ready to obey and
oblige. Can anything higher be said in their praise ? Those
men slept, each by himself, in a double row of berths ; only
Lusina the boatswain, and Carlsen the harpooner, who had
circumnavigated Spitzbergen and Novaya Zemlya, occupied
a separate partition. The clatter of the tongues of so many
vehement Southerners was like the sound made by the smaller
wheels of a machine, while the naive simplicity of the grave
Tyrolese came in between times, like the steady beat of a
great cog-wheel. It was a miniature reproduction of the
confusion of tongues of Babel. Lusina speaks Itahan to
the occupants of the officers' cabin, English with Carlsen,
French with Dr. Kepes, and Slavonic with the crew. Carlsen
had adopted for the ' Slavonians,' as he called our people, a
kind of speech compounded of Norwegian, English, German,
Italian, and Slavonic. The crew, with the exception of the
two Italians, speak Slavonic among themselves. The head
of the little German colony is the cook, a Styrian ; his heart
is better than his culinary skill, for only too readily he leaves
his work to be done by the stove. There is also among them
a Moravian, Pospischill, the Vulcan of the ship ; but we must
return to the predominant race — the Slavonic. There is
Lukinovich, a very Harpagon, always collecting, finding
treasures in nails, empty bottles, lamp wicks, and searching
even under the snow for articles wherewith to fill his sack —
the sack which he was one day to leave behind him, much
against the grain, when we abandoned the ship. There is
Marola, the steward, and Fallesich, who had worked at the
Suez Canal ; these are our great singers. Then Palmich with

VI.] LIFE ON BOARD THE "TEGETTHOFF." 137
his lance, the man whose zeal never bated, and whose very
glance transfixed everything ; Vecerina, the Job of the party,
and the merry Titans, Sussich and Catarinich ; Latkovich
and Lettis, ' the philosophers ; ' Stiglich, the immovable con
fessor of passive obedience and the unlawfulness of resistance ;
Zaninovich, the 'pearl;' Haller the herdsman and Klotz
the prophet. Five of these men had run away from their
wives. Klotz the prophet was under all circumstances, not
indeed the most useful, but the most interesting person of this
little community. A lofty calm worthy of an Evangelist
graced his outer man ; of still greater stature than Andreas
Hofer, he wore, like him, a large black beard. As a hunter,
a guide, a collector of stones, and a lonely enthusiast, he had
moved about the mountains of his home, leading a life of
visions. At home he was regarded as an incomparably bold
mountaineer, and the ropes of the ship were to him so many
convenient foot-paths. His reputarion as a physician in his
native land was great, and on board ship he failed not with
his good offices. Haller, his fellow-countryman, shared with
Klotz the office of armourer, and the duties of hunter and
driver of the sledge-dogs ; and when we began our sledge
journeys, both of them were ready to relieve others in
dragging. Both had served in the army, Klotz on the Tonale,
Haller on the Stelvio, and in 1868 the latter had been my
useful companion when I was engaged in the survey of the
Order and Adamello Alps. 'The philosophers' of our
party, Latkovich and Lettis, had drawn a fine distincrion
between the different layers of ice, according as they con
tained a greater or less amount of saline matter : Ghiaccio
della prima and Ghiaccio della seconda qualitd!'
17. To obviate as far as possible the evils of too much
leisure among the men, a school was instituted at the
beginning of the January of the second year ; Lieutenant
Weyprecht, Brosch, and Orel undertook the Italians and
Slavonians, and I the Tyrolese. To avoid all confusion I
retired with my smaller body of pupils to the shed on deck.
Here, with the thermometer at 25° to 37° below zero C, the
seed of wisdom was sown in the hearts of these sons of
nature; but alas! the climate was not favourable to its
growth. After many painful disillusions, the Pole was
11

138 AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES. [chap. VI.
ascertained to be the intersection of lines in a point, of which
nothing was to be seen in reality. If in this little lecture-
room an exercise had to be examined, and the scholars were
obliged to hold in their breath, in order that the teacher, who
spoke out of a cloud, might be able to see the slate ; or when
the pupils engaged in a division sum had suddenly to stop to
rub their hands with snow, was it a matter of wonder if the
school did not flourish exceedingly ?
1 8. The food ofthe crew consisted principally of preserved
meats, different kinds of pulse, and the products of the chase,
amounting on an average to two bears a week. Bear-flesh,
roasted, was liked by all ; the seal was at first despised, till
necessity corrected taste. Besides artificial wine, water was
their strongest drink.

CHAPTER VII.
ICE-PRESSURES.
I. When compared with the tortures we endured from the
thought that we were captives in the ice, little to us seemed
the dangers which threatened our existence, though these
assumed the appalling form of ice-pressures. Daily almost
the ship had to sustain the attacks of our old enemy, and
when the ice seemed to repose, threatening indications were
not wanting to warn us how short that repose might be. My
journal records a long series of commotions in the ice on
almost every day of January 1873, and even during the pauses
the timbers of the ship continually shook and trembled and
creaked. The pressures accompanied by a low grumbling
noise were very great on the 3rd, and lasted till the oldest ice
was shattered, during which our hatchways were displaced.
On the 4th the pressures continued without intermission
during the whole day. But on the 22nd they exceeded all
we had hitherto experienced. When we awoke in the morn
ing, the crashing of the masses of ice was dreadful. In the
messroom we heard a deep, grumbling, rumbling noise — the
ship trembled like a steam-vessel under very high pressure.
When we hastened on deck we were greeted by the long
howls which issued from the ice, and we were soon convinced
of the exceedingly formidable character of this special onset !
Ten paces astern of the ship, the ice had been heaved up in a
moment into mountains. With the greatest difficulty, amid
the profound darkness that prevailed, the boats were got on
board, and many stores re-shipped, though some of our coals
had to be sacrificed. A tent formed of sails was engulfed.

140

AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES.

[chap.

and our water -hole utterly displaced by the pressures ; it was
only after many attempts that we succeeded in finding a
thinner ice-table, which we pierced till we found water.
January 26, again tremendous pressures roused us from sleep.
In half an hour every preparation was made to leave the
ship, and I believe that many of us, while waiting the issue
amid the fearful din heard from the deck, longed that the
ship might be crushed, in order to escape from the torture of
continually preparing to depart.

ICE-PEESSUEE IN THE POLAR NIGHT.

2. I will not however, fatigue the reader with the mono
tonous rehearsal of our ever-recurring daily dangers, but will
here insert a few passages from my journal of that date, which
will suffice to explain our position : —
" Scarcely asleep after the exhaustion and cares of the
day, the timbers of the ship begin to moan and groan close
by our ear, and we awake and lie listening to the onset of the
ice. We hear the step of the watch on deck crackling on the
ice as he paces to and fro ; as long as it is measured and

VII.] ICE-PRESSURES. 141

steady we know there is nothing to be feared. Again that
uncanny creaking in the timbers, and the watch comes to
announce to those below that the terrible movement in the ice
has begun, and once more we all spring from our beds, put
on our fur clothes, seize our ready-filled bags, and amid the
darkness stand ready on deck, and listen to the war between
the ice and the elements. In autumn, when the ice-fields
were not nearly so large as in the winter, their collision was
accompanied by a deep dull sound ; but now, rendered hard
and brittle by the extreme cold, a sound as of a howl of
rage^ was emitted as they crashed together. Ever nearer
come the rushing, rattling sounds, as if a thousand heavy
waggons were driving over a plain. Close under us the ice
begins to tremble, to moan and wail in every key ; — as the
fury of the conflict increases, the grumbling becomes deeper
and deeper, concentric fissures open themselves round the
ship, and the shattered portions of the floes are rolled up into
heaps. The intermitting howls become fearfully rapid,
announcing the acme of the conflict, and anxiously we listen
to the sound which we know too well. Then follows a crash
and crack, and many dark lines wander over the ice : these
are for a moment narrow fissures, the next moment they
yawn asunder like abysses. Often with such a crash the force
of the pressure seems broken ; the piles of ice collapse, like
the undermined walls of a fortress, and calm is again restored.
But to-day this was but the commencement, and with renewed
violence a second assault of the ice begins, — then a third, yea
a fourth. Tables of ice broken off from the floes around us
rise perpendicularly from the sea ; some are bent under the
enormous pressure, and their curved shapes attest the elasticity
of ice. Like a giant in the conflict, a veteran floe, many
winters old, crushes in its rotations its feeble neighbours, and
in turn succumbs to the mighty iceberg — the leviathan of all
ice-forms, which forces its way through a phalanx of opposing
masses, crushing them to pieces as it -advances. And in this
wild and fearful tumult a ship — squeezed, pressed, all but
crushed, by the ice ; her crew on deck, ready to leave her at
a moment's notice. Boats and sledges, tents, provisions,
arms and ammunition, everything prepared, if the ship should
^ The noise produced by such collisions cannot be more f itingly expressed.

142 AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VO\AGES. [cHAP. vil.
at last be destroyed — but for what .' — for an escape ? No one
really thought this possible, though all were ready for the
attempt. But again the conflict ceases, and once more we
breathe freely, and can contemplate the wonderful change that
has come on everything round us. A few minutes have
sufficed to create a maze of mountain chains from a plain
of ice. The flat surfaces covered with snow, which we saw
yesterday, are gone. Ice ruins are visible on every side.
Abysses gape between the shattered masses, and show the
dark sea beneath. Gradually a calm has crept over all ;
equilibrium is reinstated in the desolate realm of ice ; new
' leads ' and ' ice-holes ' have been opened up, but for the
Tegetthoff, no liberation."

CHAPTER VIII.
THE WANE OF THE LONG FOLAR NIGHT.
I. Although the sun was mounting higher, there was no
essential change in the gloom and darkness which surrounded
us. In fact we were drifting during the whole of January
towards the north, and were wintering nearer the Pole than
any who had ever preceded us.^ On gloomy days, noon was
not distinguishable. We were now four hundred miles within
the Frozen Ocean, and had been for five months the sport
and play of winds and currents, and nothing indicated any
change in our situation. Yet, in spite of our desperate posi
tion, the first, ever so faint, indications of the return of light
filled us with joy. With a clear atmosphere, January lo, we
observed for the first time at noon a decided brightness, and
on the 19th a brilliant carmine was seen in the sky, an hour
before noon on the southern horizon. After a long obscura
tion from cloudy weather, the morning twilight increased
gradually, and by the end of the month it was discernible in
the forenoon. As the light increased, the signs of the con
vulsions were more distinctly seen. Round us there rose
piles of craggy ice, which, hurled up, as from a crater, by the
ice-pressure of the 22 nd, kept us in a state of constant fear,
lest the ice-walls would break up and fall in upon us. At a
little distance off, nothing was to be seen of the ship but the
tops of its masts : the rest of it was hidden behind a lofty
wall of ice. The ship itself, raised seven feet above the level
of the sea, rested on a protuberance of ice, and, removed from
its natural element looked a truly miserable object. This
ice protuberance had been formed from a floe which had
been often rent asunder and frozen again, and had been
rounded in a singular manner from the under-driving of the
ice and the lateral pressure in its recent movements. In
other respects, also, our environment had been completely
changed. Before the movement in the ice on the 22nd, a
' Hall's contemporaneous expedition excepted.

144 AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES. [CHAP. viii.
narrow strip of level ice wound like a river through a maze of
hummocks, and throughout the winter this had been diligently
used for exercising the dogs. Of this nothing was now to be
seen : walls of ice rose, where a fortnight before our coal-
house had stood : fissures gaped on every side. In every
respect the weather during this month was capricious and
unaccountable. In the first two weeks, the temperature fell
several times below — 35° F., and on January 8, 13 and 14,
quicksilver, exposed to the cold, froze to a sohd mass ; gin
also froze, and alcohol only maintained its fluid state. Yet,
notwithstanding this low temperature, the snow was always
soft ; ¦ and it continued to be so, amid all the variations of
temperature and the high winds of this month. January 22
and 23, the temperature rose for a short time to 26° F. ; every
thing in the ship then began to thaw, and a disagreeable
moisture penetrated both our clothes and our quarters. The
mean temperature of this month, in consequence of these
abnormal variations, did not exceed — 8° F., and was therefore
about ten degrees higher than might have been expected.
2. The bears had in these last weeks kept at a regretable .
distance from us. On the 12th, however, a very large fellow
ventured to come within ten paces of the rope-ladder on the
starboard side. We fired at him with explosive balls and he
fell; but his strength was so great, that even after these
terrible wounds he was able to get up and run. Explosive
bullets, however, are to be recommended for encounters with
bears, though their flight is rather uncertain. A bear-hunt,
on the 29th and 30th, had a somewhat tragical result About
ten o'clock at night, when it was quite dark, a bear approached
the ship, and with the agility of a tiger fell on Sumbu, who
got away very cleverly, and by his loud barking summoned
Krisch, who was then on watch, to his aid. When he was not
more than ten feet from the deck Krisch fired at him and
wounded him. The noise brought some of us at once, and
though it was exceedingly dark and the snow very deep, a
useless chase, in which I joined, forthwith began. The pur
suit through the midst of driving snow became weaker ; until
at last I found myself alone with Palmich. We could see
nothing, and heard only an occasional howl of pain. We
hastened our steps through the whirling snow, till we saw, by

iiHiSll^^

146 AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES. [CHAP.
the dim light of our lantern, Matoschkin lying howling on
the ground, and the bear a few steps from hirn, vigorously
assailed by Sumbu, who seized him by the foot whenever he
began to retreat. As Matoschkin incautiously approached
too near, the bear turned, seized him, and carried him off-
To fire with effect was impossible ; we were too far off to
take aim with our rifles. The bear continued to drag the dog
along, and at last a puff of wind put out our lantern, and we
soon discovered our inability to keep up with our enemy.
Bitterly as we lamented the fate of the poor dog, whose
howls were brought to our ears by the wind, we had nothing
for it but to return to the ship. About noon next day when
it was sufficiently clear, Brosch, the two Tyrolese, and I set
out to ascertain the fate of the dog. The snow was drifting
heavily, and we constantly sank into it as we advanced. After
a toilsome walk we came on traces of blood, which Sumbu
followed up, while Gillis timidly stuck to us. At last, after we
had gone on for the third of a mile, Sumbu came back in a
great state of excitement, and then ran on before us till he
stopped at an ice-hummock, where he renewed his angry barks-
We advanced with quickened steps and with our rifles cocked,
and when we were about twenty paces from it the bear came
out from behind, apparently in great astonishment. After
several shots the bear fell, but again gathering himself up he
dragged himself along like a walrus, in spite of his broken
spine, with extraordinary activity towards an " ice-hole "
covered with young ice. Two other shots with explosive
bullets terminated his career, and Matoschkin, whose body we
afterwards found behind the ice-hillock, was avenged.
3. The cold set in with great intensity with the month of
February and maintained itself throughout it : the mean
monthly temperature being — 31° F. Repeatedly the quick
silver froze, and in the last eight days it remained solid.
Even the petroleum was frozen on the 17th at — 49° F. in
the globe of the lamp, though it was throwing out a con
siderable heat The lowest temperature we experienced was
on the last day of the month, — S 1° F. Notwithstanding the
extreme cold, the light had increased so much that a ther
mometer, in which the degrees were strongly marked, could
be read off, even on the 3rd of the month, at ten o'clock in the

VIII.]

THE WANE OF THE LONG POLAR NIGHT.

147

forenoon without the aid of lamplight ; and on the 20th we
were able to carry on our meteorological observations, with
out any artificial light at six o'clock in the evening. The
ruddiness we observed at noon in the south grew more and
more decided. On clear days we could discern, about seven
o'clock in the morning, a faint twilight, and at noon of
February 14 the near approach of the sun was distinctly to
be traced by a bright cloud that was resting over it, though it
was still below the horizon. About the middle of the month
there was light enough to cause the different forms and groups
of ice to cast shadows. In spite of the low temperature, we
remained for hours in the open air, though previously to
this period we had ventured on deck for a few minutes only
at a time — the watch of course excepted. But as the day
light increased, we saw also what a dark, gloomy grave had
been our abode for so long a period. All our thoughts and
conversations were concentrated on the returning light of
the sun. The movements of the ice ceased to be a source
of dread, though for several days during the month they
had been exceedingly formidable. In the course of our
drifting we had penetrated into a region where never ship had
been before. The following table exhibits the course of the
Tegetthoff, as she drifted from August 21, 1872, to February
27, 1873 :—

Time.

Aug. 21, 1872, day
when the ship was
beset 
Sept. I, 1872 
., 4
., n
„ 14
„ 21
„ 262728 I
23
1718
2231 S

¦^ct.

Nov,

N. Lat.

E. Lon.

76-22

0 /
62-3

76-25

62-50

76-23

62-49

76-35

60-18

76-37

60-50

76-28

63-9

76-36

64-8

7638

64-4

76-37

64TO

76-50

65-22

7659

65-48

77-4

66-1

77-50

69-22

77-48

69-8

77-46

69-26

77-53

69-12

77-53

69-30

Time.

1872.,

Nov. 9,
„ 14
„ i8
,, 28
Dec. 4
„ 8
„ 12
„ l6

„ 19 ,. ¦
,, 26 „ .
Jan. 2, 1873.
,, 19 .. •
„ 26 ,, .
Feb. 2 ,, .
,. 14 ., •
,, 19 ., ¦
„ 23 „ .,
,. 27 „ ..

N. Lat. E. Lon.

78-15 78-8
78-1078-13 78-19
78-2178-2578-2278-13 78-1078-3778-4378-5078-4578-12
78-1579-11
79-12

69-4271-16 70-31
69-4869-169-268-5767-42 67-1168-19
66-5669-32 71-47
73-772-2071-38

148 AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES. [chap. viii.
4. The inspection of this table shows that the movement
of the ship was retarded as the increasing cold closed the
open places of the sea, and when we fell under the influence
of the Siberian ice-drift from east to west It may be
remarked, too, that we drifted generally straight before the
wind, and that we and our floe during the first four months
turned only one degree in azimuth. By the end of January
all the open places of the sea were closed ; and the masses of
ice were thus driven one over the other from their mutual
pressure, and pile thus rose upon pile. It seems probable
also, that wind was the main cause of our drifting, while sea
currents were only of secondary moment From the begin
ning of the month of February we drifted constantly toward
the north-west, and from this deviation in our course we
indulged in the hope that we were approaching the mysterious
Gillis' Land. But at this time the liberation of the ship in
the summer was the sum of our expectations and desires. In
fact there was not one of us who doubted this eventuality.
Fully convinced, as we were, that our floes, firmly attached to
each other, would ultimately break up and drift southwards,
we determined to make them the bearers of the record of
what had befallen us. Hence we threw out, February 14th,
round the ship a number of bottles, inclosing a narrative of
the main events of the expedition from the departure of
Count Wilczek up to that date.

CHAPTER IX.
THE RETURN OF LIGHT. — THE SPRING OF 1 873.
r. Though the sun did not return to our latitude (78° 15', 71°
38' E. long.) till the 19th of February, we were able to greet
his beams three days previous to that date, owing to the strong
refraction of 1° 40', which accompanied a temperature of — 35
(F.). To the Polar navigator the return of the sun is an event
of indescribable joy and magnificence. In those dreadful
wastes he feels the force of the superstitions of past ages,
and becomes almost a worshipper of the eternal luminary.
As of old the worshippers of Belus watched its approach on
the luxuriant shores of the Euphrates, we, too, standing on
mountains of ice or perched on the masts of the ship, waited
to hail the advent of the source of light. At last it came !
A wave of light rolled through the vast expanse of heaven,
and then — up rose the sun-god, surrounded with purple clouds,
and poured his beams over the world of ice. No one spoke
for a time. Who indeed could have found words to embody
the feelings of relief which beamed on the faces of all, and
which found a kind of expression in the scarcely audible ex
clamation of one of the simplest and least cultured of the
crew, " Benedetto giorno ! " The sun had risen with but half
his disk, as if reluctant to shine on a world unworthy of his
beams. A rosy hue suffused the whole scene, and the cold
Memnon pillars of ice gave forth mysterious whispers in the
flood of heat and light. Now indeed with the sun had a new
year begun — what was it to bring forth for us and our pros
pects ? But alas, his stay was short — he remained above the
horizon for a lew minutes only ; again his light was quenched,
and a hazy violet colour lay over distant objects, and the
twinkling stars shone in the heavens.

MT^-^

CHAP. IX.] THE RETURN OF LIGHT. 15,
2. While we watched the sun's return, we had also an oppor
tunity of looking on each other. How shocked and surprised
were we with the change which had been wrought on us in
the long Polar night ! Our sunken cheeks were overspread
with pallor ; we had all the signs of convalescence after a
long illness — the sharp-pointed nose, the sunken eye. The
eyes of all had suffered from the light of lamps which had
burnt for months ; those especially who had used them for
hard work. But all these consequences were of short dura
tion under the beneficent influence of the daylight and the
spring sun, which soon brought colour into our faces. Cheer
fulness gradually returned to all on board the Tegetthoff, as
we revelled in the warm beams of the sun. We built a house
without a roof, and open to the south, and thither the healthy
and the sick on calm fine days used to repair from the dreary
ship, and sun themselves like lizards. But within the ship it
was still night.
' 3. The visits of bears again became numerous. February
17th one of about five feet long was shot very close to the ship,
and two days afterwards a second came near us, but was
scared away by the awkwardness of the hunters. The dogs
however pursued him, and we were compelled from fears for
their safety to follow up the chase. The temperature of- 33° F.,
and a pretty strong wind against which we had to run in
the pursuit, brought on in some of our party palpitation of
the heart and spitting of blood, and our return to the ship
was a matter of some difficulty. On the morning of the
20th another bear came close to the ship, was fired at, but
missed, and got away. Palmich, Haller, and Klotz imme
diately gave chase, though the temperature was - 40° F, and
the wind high. After a short time Palmich returned with
his face frost-bitten, and the Tyrolese after several hours,
without any success, but with their feet so frost-bitten that
they had lost all feeling in them. The second stage of the
malady had begun,- which renders amputation almost a neces
sity. For several hours their feet had to be rubbed with
snow till sensation returned, and with returning sensation
much suffering ; large swellings as big as a man's fist rose on
their feet which Were reduced only after the application of
ice for several days. A^ain, in the grey of the morning of

152

AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES.

[chap.

February 22nd a bear came within eighty paces of the ship,
which Sussich, the watch on deck, after several shots, which
the animal seemed not in the least to regard, at last hit and
killed. By a wound on his right forepaw we recognised our
friend whom we had hotly chased a few days before. He
was six feet in length, and in his stomach there was nothing
but a small piece of the skin of a seal. Sussich was over
joyed with his success, and for the whole day tried to drag
everyone outside the ship to show the result of his prowess,
" Se mi non era, il copava tutti," he added, with a look of
contempt on those who had not been so successful as himself

THE CARNIVAL ON THE ICE.

4. Although at the end of February the sun rose with a
carmine light which imparted an indescribable charm to the
fields of snow and ice, we were doomed to disappointment in
our expectation of bright and clear weather in the after-part
of the day. Soon after sun-rise, white frosty mists gathered
over the ice-fields, making the sun as he shone through them
a mere ball of light, or completely concealing him. On
February 24th we enjoyed the peculiar spectacle of seeing

153

IX.] THE RETURN OF LIGHT.
the sun appear, the temperature being - 44° F., distorted by
refraction, through the thick mists on the horizon, as if he
were quite flat beamless, and of a coppery red. The end of
February reminded us of the carnival time of the land of the
South, and the crew appeared in such masques as they could
command ; but their masquerading formed a sad and mock
ing contrast with the gravity of our position. The men
bestowed all their art on " Sumbu," who was dressed up as the
demon " Lindwurm," and deported himself in a manner highly
becoming his costume.
5. With the month of March the spring had, in name at
least begun ; but in our sense of the word no spring as yet
appeared. Instead of the joyous gleams of early vegetation,
a blinding white waste environed us ; instead of the perfumed
breath of flowers and the soft air of spring, there rose driving
clouds of iee-needles; and parhelia of almost daily occur
rence shone in a heavy sleepy fashion through white frosty
mists. The atmosphere was filled with snow ; to be con
vinced of this w.e had only to look at the sun when the
weather seemed clear and bright. This continual fall of snow
as fine as dust was the cause of the retardation of the eva
poration of the ice. The influence of the sun was so great,
that on March 3 the black-bulb thermometer indicated the
unusual temperature of 45° F., and a layer of snow on the
bows of the vessel showed evident signs of diminution. The
thermometer, in the sun, rose eight degrees March 6, and
nine degrees two days after. The weather was calm and
clear, and the increasing influence of the sun was a most
joyful sensation. A cube of ice freely suspended showed
during the second half of March a daily diminution of xro of its
weight from evaporation ; while in the sea itself'its behaviour
was the very opposite ; the cube of ice, which was submerged
to a depth of ten feet from P'ebruary 19th to March 5th,
showed at the latter date an increase of its mass, amounting
to f of an inch round its surface. In the beginning and end
of March the cold was so severe, that the thermometer every
day for three weeks marked —35° F. Calms and clear
weather, however, characterized this period of the spring, and
snow-drifting and a clouded sky were rare. On the 13th of
March the full moon again appeared in the azure twilight of
12

154 AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES. [CHAP.

the western heavens, and its soft light fringed with silver the
dark ranges of ice. The days became longer, and the
shadows cast by the masses of ice were shorter and more
marked, and every one who remained long in the open air
was forced to use snow-spectacles. Small avalanches began
to fall from the rigging, and the masts, spars, and ropes lost
their white frosted aspect On the 22nd the fore-part of the
ship's hull facing the south was completely free from snow
and its dark colour was visible. On the 29th the temperature
in the sun exceeded the temperature at 9.30 A.M. by 34° F. ;
and on the 30th we could for the first time observe the melting
of the snow on the seams of the timber of the ship's hull.
The enumeration of these events, insignificant as they may
appear, will serve to show with what attention the Polar
navigator notes the minutest occurrence due to the influence
of the sun.
6. Welcome, though illusive, harbingers of the returning
summer were the first birds, whose arrival we greeted on
the 19th. These were httle divers, which flew over the ship
to the open spaces of water amid the ice, there to seek
their food in the countless crustacese which abound in them.
Magnificent auroras continued to illuminate our nights ; and
although the duration of their intensity was much too brief
to serve as a source of light there was a charm in these
phenomena which their daily recurrence could not weaken.
7. While under these various influences the health of all on
board the Tegetthoff greatly improved, we were threatened
with the serious calamity of losing our excellent physician,
Dr. Kepes, who fell ill on the 13th of the month. For two
weeks we were kept in a state of anxious fear for him ; and
our anxieties'were increased as we had to treat his malady
without the necessary knowledge and experience. To our
great joy, however, he was spared to us ; and our supply of
fresh bear's-flesh was henceforth reserved for him.
8. For some time the bears had observed a very distressing
reserve and shyness in their visits. On the i Sth one came
near us, and as Pekel had for some time announced his ap
proach, he found a long front of rifles drawn up behind some
masses of ice to give him a warm reception. He, as usual,
came on under the wind, showing considerable interest in our

IX.]

THE RETURN OF LIGHT.

155

edifices. He then ascended a small ice-crag, and, after
balancing himself carefully, sat down on the top of it, with his
snout uplifted, snuffing all round. This seemed so ludicrous
to some of our party that they burst out into a laugh so loud,
that the bear came down from his pinnacle in evident astonish
ment, and with much circumspection drew nearer and nearer
till at a short distance from us he fell mortally wounded. He
was, alas ! a very small animal, about 5^ feet long, and his
stomach was absolutely empty. On the 30th of March
another came close to the ship ; the watch on shore fired

THE "tegetthoff" DRIFTING IN PACK-ICE.— MARCH 1873.

at, but missed him, whereupon both the watch and the bear
took to flight.
9. April at last arrived, and with it the time of icicles, which
hung down from every yard of the ship, and from every rope
of the rigging, from every icy ridge and crag. The melting
and decaying of the ice, though always a source of satisfaction
when the question of its breaking up is discussed, went on,
to our impatient desires, with intolerable slowness. What was

IS6 AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES. [chap.
it to us that we were able to read even at midnight on the
2nd of April ; that the number of divers and sek-gulls con
stantly increased ; that on the 6th the difference of tem
perature between sun and shade was i8° ; that the black-bulb
thermometer on the 20th showed 43° F. ; that the sun on
the nth rose about two o'clock in the morning, and from the
i6th remained constantly in the heavens .¦' What did all this
matter.? The constant light notwithstanding, we were still
environed with the signs of deepest winter, and the forms and
masses of ice collapsed with a slow deliberation that tortured
us. We were no longer to be satisfied and amused with the
spectacle of parhelia, even though the phenomenon should
appear, as it did on the 1st of April, with eight suns. Months
of weary waiting still lay before us ; daily we had to arm
ourselves with patience, as, when we came on deck, we dis
covered the apparently unchangeable character of our en
vironment, with all its forms, which had become familiar to us
down to the smallest details. Reluctantly "condemned to
almost total idleness, we filled up our time with such occupa
tions as fancy suggested. Some of our people built a tower
of ice on a level part of our floe ; others tried their rifles —
tried often enough before — at empty bottles a s targets. Along
with the Tyrolese I constructed a road through hills of ice,
over passes and ridges, going up and down in serpentine paths,
making a circuit of about three miles round the ship. The
labour of weeks with picks and shovels was expended in
making and preserving it ; after each downfall of snow this
road had to be dug out afresh. Our passing and repassing
along it through a maze of ice not only beneficially exercised
our bodies, but furnished opportunities for training our dogs
to drag heavy-laden sledges. I continued also to fill my
portfolio with studies of scenery in the ice, and I accustomed
myself, whenever there was no wind, whatever might be the
temperature, to draw for hours together with no other pro
tection to my hands than light gloves.
10. April had begun with a temperature of — 38° F. ; as
the month advanced it steadily increased. At the end of
the month the extreme of cold was but — 20° F. But the
weather had now lost the clearness of the early spring ; and
constant calms, together with the frequent falls of snow.

IX.] THE RETURN OF LIGHT. 157
undid the work of the few hours of the day on which the sun
shone. The ice was covered with deep snow ; on the level
we sank ankle deep, while among the hummocks it was up to
our knees. Sledging would have been impracticable. Among
the changes produced by the softening of the weather, none
was greater or more agreeable than the return of daylight to
the cabin, when we took off the covering of the skylight and
removed the tent-roof from the fore-part of the ship. Once
more to be able to read without the dull glimmer of arti
ficial light was an extraordinary event in our monotonous life.
For five months our lamps had been burning in our mess-room,
so that the walls were black with smoke, and it was a work of
no small labour to make them clean and pleasant. The
unloading-of the ship's hold was, however, a far heavier, though
necessary task ; the thick crusts of ice which had accumulated
on its sides must be removed, lest the provisions should be
damaged by their thawing ; and there was no time to lose,
for the temperature in the hold was only i" below zero. The
provisions, which had been left out on the ice, were again
stowed in the ship, the cessation of the ice-pressures render
ing this precautionary measure useless.
II. Round a ship which has wintered in the ice there is
gradually accumulated a mass of rubbish of all kinds, of
which cinders form a considerable constituent. These, when
thrown put in small quantities, sink at once into the snow,
while larger quantities act as a non-conducting layer. Hence
we were surrounded jpy a maze of holes, big and little, alter
nating with plateaus, under which winter still continued to
linger. When thaw-water made its appearance, all this was
transformed into a succession of lakes and islands, which we
bridged over by planks.
12. Meantime we began our labours of digging out the
ship. We removed the wall of snow, which had served as an
outer garment and protection during the winter, and the hard-
trodden layer which covered the deck a foot thick. In clear
ing away from the after-part of the ship, we discovered that
the machinery protecting the screw had been torn away
by the ice-pressures. The mischief done, however, v/as not
considerable ; and as the ship made no water, we consoled
ourselves with the thought, that she had sustained no material

158 AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES. [chap.
injury, though she had lain so long out of water perched on
the floe.
13. The continued cessation of movements in the ice in
duced Weyprecht to erect a tent at no great distance from
the ship, to carry on in it observations of the magnetic con
stants, which were taken on certain appointed days. On the
night of one of such days, Orel, who conducted these obser
vations, was surprised by the visit of a bear. His shouts for
help brought us on deck, but before we could actually reach
him, the seaman on the watch had killed the bear with an
explosive bullet Hitherto these animals had shown little
courage in the neighbourhood of the ship, and to shoot
them from the deck exposed no one to any danger ; but this
incident showed us that we could not count securely on their
actions. Soon after this we had another surprise. Stiglich,
the seaman on watch on shore, suddenly found himself con
fronted with a bear about eight paces oft'. Throwing his cap
to the bear, he made a rush for the rope-ladders of the ship,
but fell in his hurry and confusion, Carlsen, hearing his cries
for help, hastened to the rescue, and dexterously shot the
pursuer. A glorious event for Carlsen ! who used to tell us
strange stories of his encounters with bears : how he had
scared them away with the glance of his eye ; and how once
in Novaya Zemlya he had frightened away a whole pack of
them by the magic of his glance. All doubts in the prowess
of his eye were silenced to-day by the more unquestionable
prowess of his rifle On the 28th of Mjiy a bear clambering
over the wall of ice close astern of the ship was shot dead
with an explosive bullet His stomach was empty, but not
withstanding his leanness, he furnished more meat than many
others, for he was fully seven feet long.
14. At the end of April the force of the winds so loosened
the compactness of the ice, that dark strips hanging above the
horizon in all directions announced the existence of numerous
fissures, although they were invisible even from the masts of
the ship. We counted on these signs with such unshaken
confidence, that when on the 2nd of May we heard in the
distance the now famihar sound of the ice-pressures, we
heard them not only without dismay, but as the voice of a
joyous message. Three-quarters of a year had passed away

IX.] THE RETURN OF LIGHT. 159

since we were first caught in the ice — a time laden to us with
bitter disappointments to our hopes, and great dangers to our
lives. The hour of our long and ardently desired liberation
seemed at hand. If once we got free, it lay -within the bounds
of possibility that we might reach, if not the somewhat
mythical Gilhs' Land, then at least the uninhabited Arctic
coasts of Siberia. Siberia had, in fact, become the rosiest of
our hopes. Somq, indeed, still indulged in extravagant ex
pectations and counted on the discovery of new lands, even
while they drifted with the. ice. But our wishes for the most
part had become so subdued, that the discovery of the small
est cliff would have satisfied our ambition as discoverers.
15. But Nature's laws held their own course, undisturbed
by our desires. Snow continued to fall in abundance, and
spread its mantle over the ice. The constant round of down
falls and evaporation was a sad bar to our hopes. In the
beginning of May the snow began to thaw on the surface, and
became soft and sticky. Even in the depth of winter it was
never hard, but like the fine dry grains of driving sand. This
change in the snow, which occurs a fortnight earlier than in
Greenland, compelled us to substitute our black leather boots
for those of sailcloth, which we had hitherto worn. On the
2nd of May the temperature fdMo — 8° F., but it now began
to rise gradually, so that it sometimes reached the freezing
point about the end of the month, and on the 29th rose
five degrees above it. The mean temperature of the month,
however, was not above 16° F. But the difference of tem
perature in the sun and the shade became greater and greater.
The thermometer marked — 18° F. at 6 P.M. of the ist of May,
and on the nth the black-bulb thermometer showed 90° F.
at 3 P.M., while the common instrument gave only 14° F.
In the middle of the month, after the heavy winds fell,
we were enveloped with dark fog banks ; stray beams of the
sun broke through the warm misty atmosphere, and dark
skies were succeeded by masses of -white vapour illuminated
by the sun. Just as in our happier clime, the Arctic April
has her alternations of cloud and sunshine.
16. Hitherto the only birds which had visited us were
divers and gulls. Once only a snow-bunting flew among us,
and fearlessly settled on the ship. On the 24th of May the

l6o AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES. [CHAP,
auks made their appearance, and from that date we were con
stantly entertained by the whirring sounds of their flight As
they keep one direction in their flight, we could shoot those
only which passed over the ship ; they were a useful addition
to our table, though they had to be steeped in vinegar to
make them palatable. The majestic Burgomaster Gull ap
peared somewhat later, and later still the " Ice-birds " fre
quented the shores of the lakes around us, and hovered round
the remains of the bears we had shot. These birds settled
with the greatest boldness in the immediate neighbourhood
of the ship, and day and night filled the air wdth their wild
shrill cries.
17. By the middle of March, Krisch, the engineer, had put
the steam machinery in working, order, but another month
elapsed before the screw-propeller, which had been frozen
fast, was set free ; our fears lest it should refuse to act proved
to be groundless. As, however, there was no prospect of our
being able to use steam for some time, it was thought
advisable to dig out and raise the rudder in order to secure it.
18. On the 26th of May a partial eclipse of the sun was
visible in our latitude ; but from an error in our calculations
we had ante-dated the commencement of the observation by
about two hours and a half Everyone on board who had an
instrument at his command stood ready to observe the pas
sage of the moon over the sun's disk. After waiting for some
time in vain, we discovered the error we had committed as to
the time of the beginning of the eclipse, but in order that the
dignity of astronomical observation might not be degraded in
the eye of the crew, we still held our ground with the tele
scopes in our hands. Two hours of such suspense enabled us
to feel that there could be no more perfect fulfilment of the
punishment of Sisyphus than being condemned to wait for an
eclipse ofthe sun which would not come off! At last the
eclipse took place, but not until great disgust had been excited
in the minds of men who were too much inclined to regard
the whole thing as a piece of humbug. At the height of the
eclipse about one-third only of the sun's disk was obscured,
and the sun was so covered with mist that we could look at
it without the use of coloured glasses. The whole duration
of the eclipse was one hour and fifty-six minutes.

IX.] THE RETURN OF LIGHT. i6i
19. From the 1st of the month the number of living
creatures belonging to the expedition had been increased by
the birth of four Newfoundland puppies, who passed the
earliest days of their youth in a tent erected on the ice, and
artificially heated to the temperature of a European May.
But all our care in rearing this litter was frustrated by one of
these little Polar wretches, who, after sucking his mother till
he was as round as a drum, lay on his brothers as they slept,
and stifled them. This little criminal received the name of
Torossy, and soon became the pet of the crew, and a favourite
with all the other dogs. The fame which he afterwards gained
made him an important member of the expedition. All the
dogs had become sc hardy during the past winter, that they
now slept outside their kennels, finding the inside too warm
for them.

CHAPTER X.
THE SUMMER OF 1 873.
I. The time crept away with indescribable monotony. The
¦crew performed their heavy labours, but of events there were
none. The only change in our position was the constant
decay of the buttresses and walls of ice, until the frozen sea
lay like a snowy chaos before us. Pure sharp-edged ice was
nowhere to be seen; the edges were no longer transparent;
evaporation had transformed the surface into a kind of
glacier-snow. June i, we had the greatest degree of cold of
the month, the thermometer marking 13" F. ; but on the
last day it rose to 32-2° F. ; the mean temperature being
3i-i° F. Every week brought us promises of summer. On
the 1st the black-bulb thermometer reached 98° F. ; on the
14th rain fell for the first time ; on the i6th the temperature
at 9 o'clock A.M., was 41-5° F., on the 26th 46-4° F., and on
the 29th even 50-2° F. On these days the air seemed to
have the pleasant mildness of southern climes, and when there
was no wind we felt an oppressive sultriness. Wreaths of
mist moved along the icy wastes which glowed with sunlight,
while the long dark lines of ice-wall lay in deep shadow.
The air was filled with flocks of birds ; day and night we
heard the shrill cries of the Robber-gulls, ever and anon
mingled with the barking of the dogs in full pursuit of them.
Flocks of rotges congregated without fear in the narrow
basins of distant " leads ; " and the " great gulls," shunning

chap. X.] the SUMMER OF 1873. • 163
companionship, sat for hours on the top of an ice-chff, or in
the middle of a floe.
2. No one who has not actually seen it, can imagine the
blaze of light in the Arctic regions on clear days, or the glow
which floats sometimes over the cold white ice-floes, with
their outlines in constant vibration, while refraction transforms
the icebergs into a variety of shapes. The sun's power is
sometimes so great as to blister the skin in a few hours, and
the glare from snow and ice produces snow-blindness, if the
eyes be not carefully protected. At a little distance the sea
appears to be of a deep black colour, though it still preserves
its ultramarine hues in the narrow " leads ; " even the pure
blue of the heavens may be called almost black when
compared with the dazzling sheen of the ice. In the middle
of June there was an incessant dripping and oozing in the
ice-world, and streams of thaw-water flowed into the open
fissures. By the end of the month the surface of the ice
resembled snow ; and even at some depth it was viscous,
instead of brittle and hard as glass, as it is during the colder
season. Streams of thaw-water ran through the softened and
saturated snow. Small lakes were formed on the levels, and
swamps of snow, wearing a traitorous exterior, surrounded
their borders. In the summer of 1873 we observed a vertical
decrease of five or six feet in the thickness of the ice ; but
this diminution in thickness was from the surface downwards,
while in the sea itself there was little or no thawing, because
the temperature of its surface was still below zero. The
moisture, from which there was no escape, became exceedingly
troublesome. In spite of our stout leather boots we had
never the comfort of dry feet during the whole of the
summer, and this we felt the more, as our labours to free the
.ship, which we had commenced at the beginning of May,
necessitated our being constantly amid the snow and ice.
3. At the end of May the ship began slowly to settle, and
the water rose between the ice and the hull on the fore-part
of the ship. But we soon discovered that these small changes
would not suffice to free us from our prison-house, but that
we must ourselves endeavour to loosen the fetters which held
us fast, if it were only to banish gloomy thoughts of the

i64 AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES. [CHAP.
future by action of some kind or other. Hence constant
digging, sawing, and blasting on our floe, through May, June,
July, and August — labours in which the whole crew of the
ship, with the exception of the sick and of the cook, took
part ; labours, alas ! which admonished us of the impotence
of man when he contends against the power of Nature.
Only on the port side of the ship were our efforts to dig
through the floe at all successful ; on the starboard side the
floe had been so enormously increased by the tables of ice
forced upon one another, that we had not pierced through the
ice after sinking a shaft eighteen feet deep ; and at last the
water, forcing itself through the pores of the ice, compelled
us to desist from the labour of sinking deeper. The process
of sawing was possible only where we had broken through
the ice — that is, on the port side ; yet even there the great
thickness of the floe necessitated the construction of longer
instruments, for which the iron casing of the engine-room had
to furnish the material. The difficulty of sawing increases
with the thickness of the ice in an almost incredible manner.
It is easy enough to cut through a floe, four or five feet thick,
but to break up one, eight or ten feet thick, is a matter
of great difficulty. Our saws too, even when they were
lengthened, permitted a play of only a foot ; and their
twisting, as they cut deep, proved a great hindrance. Besides,
when we had cut to the depth of a fathom, the saws were
always frozen fast, and when we attempted to free them by
blasting they were very often broken in pieces. But even the
sections, made with so much difficulty, often proved to be
quite useless, as they were frozen together again by broken ice
left in the cut. Blasting with gunpowder proved as ineffectual
as in the previous year ; in fact, the process was only applicable
to ice-blocks which had been loosened by sawing, and which
could not be broken up by the crow-bar alone.
4. By the middle of June we were at last convinced that
the thickness of the ice rendered it impossible to join together,
by sawing, the two-and-twenty holes which we had dug out
round the ship. Henceforward our labours were confined to
the formation of a basin at the fore-part of the ship. Although
we saw the impossibility of liberating the vessel, as long as

X.] THE SUMMER OF 1873. ,65
she rested on a mountain of ice, we hoped that the basin
would help to break up the floe, and that the Tegetthoff vfo\i\6.
of itself return to its normal position. The gliding down of
the ship, raised as it was, to its natural water-line might
indeed easily end in a catastrophe, but we braved this peril
when we thought of the vain attempts we had made to free
her. Though the ship sunk so much in the course of the
summer, that its height above the water-line was a little more
than two feet in the fore-part of the ship, and three feet in
the after-part, this circumstance in our favour was outweighed
by the disadvantage of the rapid melting away of the ice at
its sides. The ship, freed from its covering of ice, stood so
high above it, that in order to guard against the danger of its
overturning we were obliged, in the second half of the
summer, to shore it up by strong timbers fastened to its masts.
It looked no longer like a .ship, but like a building ready to
fall in ! In the middle of July Lieutenant Weyprecht ordered
Krisch, the engineer, to construct heavy chisels and borers to
ascertain the thickness of the ice. After long and hard
labour, we found that after boring through several ice-tables,
to a depth of twenty-seven fept, we still struck on ice !
Every attempt, therefore, to break through this accumulation
had to be given up, and we contented ourselves with leading
the basin we had. formed on the fore-part round the larboard
side of the ship. On the 27th of the month, twenty tons of
coal were removed to the ice, in order to lighten the ship as
much as possible, and every day we had to look to the props
which steadied the ship, as the melting of the ice rendered
them unsafe. In the following weeks, the bows continued to
sink into the water, while the after-part as a natural conse
quence was raised up.
5. Even in the month of July, the weather was generally
gloomy and unsettled. We had several times two or three
inches of snow, and the showers were mingled with mist rain,
and snow, as had been the case in June. The winds were
generally from the west ; the mean temperature of the month
was 34-7° F. ; on the 8th of July, the black-bulb thermometer
marked 108° F., and the temperature in the shade at
the same date amounted to 34° F. But neither wind nor

l66 AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES. [CHAP.
temperature made any change in our position. The sun on
which our liberation depended was seldom visible ; and the
winds on which he had counted failed to blow. For weeks
we watched for the formation of fissures round the ship.
Fissures indeed were formed, but at such a distance that they
were utterly useless to us. On the i6th of June, one
opened towards the south-east ; but it was at least two miles
distant, and in the middle of July it was only half a mile
nearer to us. Nothing, absolutely nothing, was to be seen
from the deck but ice, and Klotz, coming down one day from
the top-sail yard, described our position with a melancholy
laconic brevity : " Nix als Eisch, und nix als Eisch, und nit a
bisserl a Wosser. {Nothing but ice, ice everywhere, and not a
patch of water)" Amid such impressions all hope gradually
left us. The drifting of the ice ceased to animate our hopes.
Even the approach of a fissure on the 29th of July to the
distance of three-quarters of a mile, in consequence of heavy
gales from the south and west, ended in miserable disappoint
ment. A movement in the ice which began a little way off on
the 6th of August resulted only in the diminishing of our floe.
There was no essential change in the remainder of this
month, except that the monthly mean temperature fell to
32-7° F. We had the greatest extreme of heat on the 4th
of August 41-9° F- ; but on the last day of the month we
had 5-7 degrees of cold.
6. For some time we had been surprised by the appear
ance of a dark mass of ice, the distance of which prevented
us from making a closer acquaintance with it Our life on
the narrow space of our floe had quite assumed the character
of that of mere insects, who dwell on the leaf of a tree and
care not to know its edges. Excursions of one or two miles
were regarded as displaying an extraordinary amount of the
spirit of enterprise and discovery. On the 14th some of
us pushed on for about four miles to the group of ice just
mentioned, and discovered it to be a very large iceberg. Two
moraines lay on its broad back. These were the first stones
and pieces of rock we had seen for a long time, and so- great
was our joy at these messengers of land, that we rummaged
about among the heaps of rubbish, with as much zeal as if

,X.] THE SUMMER OF 1873. 167
we had found ourselves among the treasures of India. Some
of the party found what they fancied to be gold (pyrites), and
gravely considered whether they would be able to take a
quantity of it back to Dalmatia. Although the glaciers of
Novaya Zemlya could not shed icebergs of such magnitude
as that on which we now stood, we all held it for certain that
it had come from thence. Not one of us had the least presenti
ment that it could belong to new lands, to which at that time
we were near. Even the other icebergs which we discovered in
increasing numbers on the following days, did not as yet
speak to us the language of a message to fill us with hope
and ardour. Our walk to the " dirt iceberg '' was an event
in our monotonous life, and was often repeated. These expedi
tions enabled us also to form some conception of the size of
our floe, the diameter of which could not be less than six or
seven miles.
7. August 18 — the birthday of his Majesty our Emperor,
— the ship was dressed with flags, the only form left to us of
expressing our loyalty. Our dinner was as sumptuous as the
circumstances permitted, though fasting would have been more
appropriate, as the third day after this was the anniversary
of that sad and gloomy day on which we were inclosed in
the ice. In order to visit an iceberg which lay to the north
west of us, we ventured beyond our floe for the first time, and
passed over a fissure to some drifting ice-floes which lay in
the way. A seal lying on the ice was immediately attacked
by our dogs, but succeeded after many efforts in reaching its
hole. From the top of the iceberg, which was about sixty feet
high, we discovered that the few openings in the ice were not
navigable " leads," but isolated holes titterly unconnected, and
theref6re useless for navigation.
8. We had continually drifted, since the beginning of
February, first to the north-west and then to the north, with
few modifications ; at that date, we had reached our greatest
East Longitude, and winds appeared as before to be the main
cause of this drifting. At the end of that month there was
a succession of calms, and we lay almost motionless in
latitude 79°, and longitude 71°. The subjoined table shows
our change of place in the following months.

i68

AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES.

[CHAP.

Time.

Latitude.

Longitude.

Time.

Latitude.

Longitude.

March

3- 1873

79° 13'

69° 32'

Tune 27, 1873

79° 13-7'

59° 46-0'

9 )>

79 19

68 28

28 „

79 15-S

59 35-4

14 t!

79 20

68 28

July 3 ..

79 15-2

59 14-8

20 ,,

79 33

68 52

4 ,.

79 14-8

59 13-3
59 5-8

25 „
79 23
67 17
8 „
79 15-2
27 >,
79 15
67 29
10 „
79 13-2
59 9-0
29 ,,
79 14
67 35
15 ..
79 9-8
59 52-6
April
2 I,
79 5
66 49
,, 18 ,,
79 7-3
59 50-4
3 >.
79 5
66 42
19 •,
79 7-6
59 35-1
7 „
79 4
—
„ 20 ,,
79 8-7
59 33-6
10 ,,
79 12
68 I
21 ,,
79 9-2
59 33-1
12 ,,
79 19
67 43
22 „
79 9-0
59 34-1
13 „
79 20
67 40
23 „
79 6-6
59 34-2
15
79 14
67 0
24 „
79 71
59 29-5
19 .-,
79 18
65 SI
25 „
79 6-6
59 27-3
20
79 19
65 37
31 ..
78 58-5
60 25-5
27 ..
79 13-5
64 37 -o
August I ,,
78 56-9
60 40-6
28 „
79 12-2
64 41 -8
4 ,.
79 0-4
61 6-2
May
I ,,
79 15-8
64 58-8
13 ..
79 25-4
61 6-6
2 ,,
79 17-1
65 3-9
14 ,.
79 24-5
61 16-3
6 „
79 16-0
65 0-5
„ 16 „
79 27-8
61 7-6
10 ,,
79 20-4
65 41-9
19 ..
79 29-1
61 31-0
II ,,
79 20 -2
65 32 4
21 „
79 31-3
61 44-8
13 ..
79 19-7
65 15-8
30 ..
79 43-0
60 23-7
14 „
79 '9-8
64 45-6
3' ,.
79 42-5
60 5-6
16 ,,
79 15 -5
63 39-0
Sept. 2
79 40-2
60 32-9
17 „
79 13-1
63 21-7
„ 5 ,,
79 41 -3
60 12-5
22 „
79 9-2
62 3-5
J, 0 ,,
79 34-2
59 47-3
29 ,.
79 2-4
62 55-5
9 ..
79 33-6
59 45-9
30 „
79 2-5
62 54-2
,, 10 ,,
79 32-2
59 53-1
31 >.
.79 2-5
62 53-9
16 „
79 45-6
61 30-5
June
I ,,
79 2-4
62 43-2
„ 23 „
79 49-0
61 58-1
3 tt
79 0-4
62 29-7
30 ..
79 58-3
60 41 -I
5 ,t
79 1-3
62 24-8
Oct. 16 „
79 54-6
60 34-7
6 „
79 I -I
62 20-2
19 ,.
79 53-9
60 40-6
9 „
79 5-4
61 31-4
23 „
79 44-5
60 7-9
10 ,,
79 5-3
61 23 -6
26 „
79 44-3
59 17-1
II ,,
79 4-3
61 21-3
27 „
79 44-0
59 14-1
18 „
79 66
61 5-2
28 „
79 43-8
59 &-6
20 „
79 8-6
61 2-8
29 „
79 44-8
59 9-8
22 „
79 92
60 54-9
30 ,.
79 49-0
58 59-9
24 ,.
79 8-4
60 31-8
31 ,.
79 50-6
58 53-7
25 „
79 11-2
60 14-6
Ship in
26 „
79 13-3
59 55-3
Land ice
79 51 -I
58 56-0
9. The meteorological observations of the expedition, and
the course of the Tegetthoff, have been ably analysed by Vice-
Admiral Baron von Wiillersdorf-Urbair in the Jf^2V^/^«7z^«!^i?« of
the Imperial Academy of Sciences of Vienna, and while I refer
the curious reader to these reports for a fuller discussion of
these questions, I subjoin the most important paragraphs of
X.] THE SUMMER OF 1873. 169
the Admiral's report which concern the course of the
Tegetthoff: —
"Under ordinary circumstances a ship drifts on with the
floe ; is imprisoned, and necessarily obeys the force of the
wind and the sea-currents. Its course, consequently, corre
sponds to the combined effect of these forces. But, inasmuch
as the Tegetthoff vfd.s not in the free sea, but was driven along
for the greater part of the time in close pack-ice, the ship not
only obeyed the general movement of the ice, which was
dependent on the direction of the winds and currents of the
sea, but was also influenced by its vicinity to coasts and by
the greater or lesser accumulation of ice.
" In so far as the Tegetthoff with her hull and masts presented
a greater surface to the wind, the floe, on which it was
imprisoned, would necessarily receive an excess of movement
in the direction of the wind. If this excess formed an angle
with the direction of the movement of the ice, the ship's floe
would deviate to the side of the least resistance, and drift
according to the resultant between wind and resistance. Thus
it might be that the ship's course deviated from the wind, even
in a direction opposed tb it. But these anomahes certainly
were not great, and could not well be estimated, because the
deviations which thus arose depended on the direction of the
wind, on the density and mass of the ice, on causes, in fact,
which could not be exhibited under numerical relations.
" If we compare the statements, as given in the Meteoro
logical Journal} concerning the ice-drift and ice-pressures, it
is seen that the maximum of both occurred in those parts of
the sea in which the ship was within the action of the ice
coming from the Sea of Kara, and that the greatest deviations
in the ship's course necessarily happened there.
" With respect to another abnormal deviation in the ship's
course, it cannot be doubted that this depended on the vicinity
of Franz-Josef Land, towards which the masses of ice drifted
under the action of continuous south-west winds ; and were
again driven back, thus forming a circle in their movement. It
would seem natural to assume the existence of a sea-current
in order to explain this peculiarity ; but the configuration of
that land and its coasts, or the greater or lesser amount of
^ See Appendix.
n

I70 . AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES. [chap.
immovable ice, or, lastly, the prevailing winds in those regions,
may have influenced the direction of the movement of the ice,
and consequently of the ship's course.
"If we consider the prevalence of winds, as furnished by
Weyprecht's observations for more than two years, we find
south-west winds prevailing in the southern part of the seas
that were navigated, and north-east winds in the northern part
of those seas.
" If the sea to the east of Franz-Josef Land should not
be broken by larger groups of islands,- or by masses of
land, but be a vast range of ocean, the winds would be free
from the influence of land, and blow in a north-easterly direc
tion, and exhibit, so to speak, the phenomenon of a Polar
north-east trade wind. If it should be the case that north
east winds prevail to the north of the 78th or 79th degree
of north latitude, and, at the same time, south-west winds to
the south of that same degree, the notion of a sea-current
must be dismissed, and a revolving movement in the ice
assumed, in the opposite direction to the hands of a clock.
The observations of Weyprecht on these winds establish their
circulatory character. The curve of deviation in the course of
the Tegetthoff zeevr^s, to be in harmony with this assumption.
But these suppositions cannot be accepted, until observations
be made on the winds to the south of 79° N. L. at the same
season of the year with those which were so successfully made
by Weyprecht to the north of this degree.
" The following arguments, however, would seem to favour
the supposition of the existence of a sea-current. The curve
at the commencement of its deviation corresponds pretty
nearly with the direction which the Gulf Stream would
take after passing round Norway, and in its further course
with that current, which comes out of the Sea of Kara
between Novaya Zemlya and Cape Taimyr, and which un
doubtedly exists, though its course has to be more accurately
determined. " However small may be the value we assign to the winds
in explanation of the deviation in the Tegetthoff' s course, it is
at any rate impossible to ascribe those phenomena to the
influence of the coast formation. We must, therefore, assume
either, that the different directions of the wind produce a

THE SUMMER OF 1873.

171

constant circulation of the ice in the sea to the north of 79° ;
or that currents known to exist in this and contiguous seas
cannot be excluded from the small part of the ocean lying
between Novaya Zemlya and Franz-Josef Land,"
From these and other grounds the Vice-Admiral Baron von
Wiillersdorf draws the following conclusions : —
" It is probable that there exists a sea-current in the seas
between Novaya Zemlya and Franz-Josef Land ; that at any
rate, its existence cannot positively be denied, although the
prevailing winds may produce similar phenomena.
"That there is a great probability that the Ocean stretches
far to the north and east beyond the eastern end of Novaya
Zemlya."

SOUNDING IN THE FROZEN OCEAN.

10. During the summer Orel took soundings of the depth
of the sea, which he was prevented from continuing in the
winter by the frost. These show its shallowness on the north
of Novaya Zemlya, especially towards Franz-Josef Land. A
bank, over which we drifted in the summer of 1873, and which
we explored with a drag-net, was the principal source of the
collection of marine fauna, which we shall speak of in a later
chapter. These soundings also enabled Orel to prove the
small increase of the temperature of the sea at any consider
able depth. He used in his experiments the maximum and
minimum thermometer of Casella. The specimens we col-

172

AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES.

[chap. x.

lected showed, that the bottom of the sea consists of layers
of mud and shells. The soundings are exhibited in the
following table : —

Time.

Metres.

Time.

1 Metres, 186

Time.

Metres.

July 20, 1872

400

June 19, 1873

Aug

¦ 9, 1873

244

„ 28 „

"5

„ 20 ,,

220

,,

10 „

225

., 31 ,.

250

,, 21 „

195

It

II .,

209

Aug. 3 „

130

t, 22 ,,

200

,,

12 ,,

214

4 ,.

80

.. 23 „

169

,,

13 „

189

„ 22 „

36

,. 24 „

178

,,

14 .,

177

„ 30 ,,

170

„ 25 „

195

IS „

170

Sept. 16 „

100

.. 26 „

220

)>

16 „

170

„ 25 „

90

., 27 „

227

17 „

174

., 29 ,,

85

„ 28 „

233

18 „

148

„ 30 „

190

,. 29 „

240

19 „
152
Oct. 2 „
170
.. 30 .,
240
20 ,,
138
9 „
450
July I ,,
240
21 ,,
130
Nov. 14 ,,
345
3 .,
245
22 „
131
Jan. 28,1873
510
4 „
250
23 ..
128
Mar. 27 „
450
5 ,.
235
24 .,
145
April 28 ,,
350
„ 6 „
23s
25 ,.
140
May 17 ,,
230
7 „
274
26 „
185
„ 18 „
187
., 8 „
266
27 ,.
219
,. 19 ..
172
9 »
250
28 „
180
,, 20 ,,
163
., 10 „
250
29 .,
132
,, 21. ,,
138
„ II „
236
30 ..
211
.-. 22 „
186
12 ,,
265
31 ..
197
t, 23 „
162
.. 13 ..
247
Sept
I .,
260
.. 25 „
177
.. 14 „
215
2 „
142
„ 25 „
182
„ 15 ,t
195
3 ..
212
„ 26 „
186
.. 16 „
184
4 „
215
.. 27 „
249
.. 17 „
200
5 ..
178
,. 28 „
251
„ 18 „
240
6 „
188
.. 29 „
254
„ 19 „
232
7 „
204
.. 30 „
.. 31 „
253256
., 20 „
., 21 „
231
231
8 „
9 .,
250240
June I ,,
238
.. 22 „
226
10 ..
218
2 „
210
.. 23 „
198
11 »
168
3 „
183
>. 24 „
205
12 „
127
4 „
207
,. 25 „
216
13 ..
132
;; 1 ;;
200 198
,. 26 „
.. 27 „
218218
14 ..
IS ,.
137in
7 „
190
„ 28 „
236
16 „
134
.. 8 „
215
,. 29 „
260
17 ..
178
9 ..
231
.. 30 „
236
18 „
175
.. 10 „
203
„ 31 „
234
19 ..
275
,, II ,,
240
Aug. I „
225
20 „
300
.. 12 „
2l8
,, 2 „
219
21 „
220
>. 13 »
211
3 „
173
22 ,,
188
.. 14 „
161
184
4 „
188
24 „
237
" 15 ,.
,. 16 „
;: 1 ;;
210 107
Oct.
25 ,,
28 „
325 165
210
" 17 „
„ 18 „
222200
7 „
8 „
216 184
>>
31 ..
CHAPTER XL
NEW LANDS.
I. We spent the latter half of August in seal-hunting, for it
was only by the use of fresh meat that we were able to
contend with, if not prevent, cases of scurvy. Day after day
lines of hunters lay in wait before the fissures at the edge of
our floe, and in the evening our dogs generally had to drag in
the sledges several seals to the ship. Many of these creatures
which we wounded sank and disappeared. All these seals
belonged to the class Phoca Groenlandica. Walruses were
never to be seen, and once only in an " ice-hole " we came
across a shoal of white whales, which however seemed to be
moving on. In the capture of seals we sometimes used a
light boat, made of water-proof sailcloth, which two men
could easily drag out of the water. Some of our people too
had learnt the use of the harpoon. By the end of September
we had killed in one way or another some forty seals, and as
we shot many of the birds which flew rotind us, and on an
average one bear a week, we were seldom without fresh meat.
With the exception of Krisch, the engineer, who suffered
from lung disease, and of the carpenter, who had become
lame from a scorbutic contraction of the joints, all on the sick
list recovered under the influence of work in the open air and
of the improved diet.
2. The covering of deep soft snow, which had been so
troublesome, almost disappeared at the beginning of autumn,
and the surface of the ice had been transformed by evapora
tion into a firm mass like the congealed snow of a glacier, so
that we were able to walk on its hard surface without sinking ;

174 AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES. [chap.
only the numerous small ice-lakes, on the floes, impeded our
excursions. In all these signs, we were reminded of the near
approach of winter, and it seemed that, drifting as we were
constantly towards the north, we should spend it nearer to
the Pole than any other expedition had ever done. On the
25th the sun set at midnight. The period intervening be
tween this and the time when the sun ceases to reappear
may be regarded as the autumn of the Arctic region. For
some time the light had so diminished, that our quarters again
became dark at night, and from the 19th of July we were
obliged to use a light in order to read at midnight. On the
29th of August, after falls of rain and snow succeeded by
north winds, the ship was stiffened in a coating of ice. The
rigging was covered with an incrustation of ice of an inch
thick, and pieces of ice of a pound weight sometimes fell
on the deck, rendering walking on it neither comfortable nor
safe. After a succession of frosts and thaws, complete con
gelation at last set in, and when the moon was up, the masts
and rigging shone like burnished silver.
3. The second summer was gone. It had come in with the
hope and promise of liberation, and patiently had we awaited
this result. With sad resignation we now looked forward to
another winter. But once more it was to be seen, in our case,
how great is the power of men to endure dangers and hard
ships, when these come upon them not suddenly but gradually.
A few months ago, the thought that we should be prisoners
on the ice, bound to our floe, for a second winter, would have
been unendurable. But now that the intolerable thought had
become a stern fact, we accepted and endured it. But often
as we went on deck and cast our eyes over the wastes, from
which there was no escape, the despairing thought recurred,
that next year we should have to return home — without
having achieved anything, or at most with a narrative of a
long drift on the ice. Not a man among us believed in the
possibility of discoveries, though discoveries beyond our
utmost hopes lay immediately before us.
4. A memorable day was the 30th August 1873, in 79° 43'
Lat. and 59° 33' E. Long. That day brought a surprise, such
as only the awakening to a new life can produce. About
midday, as we were leaning on the bulwarks of the ship and

XI.] NEW LANDS. 175

scanning the gliding mists, through which the rays of the sun
broke ever and anon, a wall of mist, lifting itself up suddenly,
revealed to us, afar off in the north-west, the outlines of bold
rocks, which in a few minutes seemed to grow into a radiant
Alpine land ! At first we all stood transfixed and hardly
believing what we saw. Then, carried away by the reality of
our good fortune, we burst forth into shouts of joy — " Land,
Land, Land at last ! " There was now not a sick man on
board the Tegetthoff. The news of the discovery spread in
an instant. Every one rushed on deck, to convince himself
with his own eyes, that the expedition was not after all a
failure — there before us lay the prize that could not be
snatched from us. Yet not by our own action, but through
the happy caprice of our floe and as in a dream had we won
it, but when we thought of the floe, drifting without inter
mission, we felt with redoubled pain, that we were at the
mercy of its movements. As yet we had secured no winter
harbour, from which the exploration of the strange land
could be successfully undertaken. For the present, too, it
was not .within the verge of possibility to reach and visit it.
If we had left our floe, we should have been cut off and lost.
It was only under the influence of the first excitement that
we made a rush over our ice-field, although we knew that
numberless fissures made it impossible to reach the land.
But, difficulties notwithstanding, when we ran to the edge of
our floe, we beheld ffom a ridge of ice the mountains and
glaciers of the mysterious land. Its valleys seemed to our
fond imagination clothed with green pastures, over which
herds of reindeer roamed in undisturbed enjoyment of their
liberty, and far from all foes.
5. For thousands of years this land had lain buried from
the knowledge of men, and now its discovery had fallen into
the lap of a small band, themselves almost lost to the world,
who far from their home remembered the homage due to
their sovereign, and gave to the newly-discovered territory the
name KAISER FRANZ-JOSEF'S LAND.
With loud hurrahs we drank to the health of our Emperor
in grog hastily made on deck in an iron coffee-pot, and then

176 AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES. [chap.
dressed the Tegetthoff with flags. All cares, for the present
at least, disappeared, and with them the passive monotony
of our lives. There was not a day, there was hardly an hour,
in which this mysterious land did not henceforth occupy our
thoughts and attention. We discussed whether this or that
elevation in the grey and misty distance were a mountain, or
an island, or a glacier. All our attempts to solve the question
of the extent of the land lying before us were of course still
more fruitles.s. From the headland which we had first seen
(Cape Tegetthoff^, to its hazy outline, in the north-east, it
seemed to extend nearly a degree; but as even its southern
most parts were at a great distance from us, it was impossible
to arrive at anything more definite than a mere approxima
tion to its configuration. The size and number of the ice
bergs which we had recently fallen in with were now amply
explained, — they were indisputable witnesses of its great
extent and its vast glaciation.
6. At the end of August and the beginning of September
north winds drove us somewhat towards the south, so that
the outiines of the land were still more faintly defined. But
at the end of September we were again driven towards the
north-west and reached 79° 58', the highest degree of latitude
to which the Tegetthoff and its floe drifted. We now saw an
island at some distance off— afterwards called Hochstetter
island— lying before us. Its rocky outlines were disrinctly
visible, and the opportunity of reaching the land by a forced
march seemed more favourable than any which had been pre
sented. It might also be the last chance offered to us, for our
fears lest we might drift out of sight of this land were well
founded. Six of her crew now left the Tegetthoff and com
mitted themselves to the destiny which the movement of the
ice had in store for them. The east winds, which had pre
vailed during the last days, had forced the ice * landward, and
the pressures had crushed in the edges of our floe, and greatly
diminished its size. We rushed over the grinding, groaning
broken walls of drifting ice, and so great was our ardour, that
we took no notice when some one or other of the party
tripped and fell. Each panted to reach the land. We had
already gone half way, the ship having long disappeared from
our eyes, when there arose a mist which enveloped everything,

XL] NEW LANDS. 177
so that the masses of ice looked like high mountains through
the hazy atmosphere. Of the land itself we could see nothing,
and no choice was left to us but to return to the ship through
the mist. The compass was little help, and within the barriers
of recently broken ice the traces of our steps were lost. We
took at last a wrong direction and were following it up, in
spite of Jubinal's loud barks to divert us. As he ran back
wards and forwards, magnified in the mist he ran many risks
of being mistaken for a bear. What the sagacity of six men
could not do, this the instinct of the animal effected. Ex
hausted by our own exertions, we yielded ourselves to his
guidance, and he actually brought us into the right track —
and back to the ship.

CHAPTER XII.
THE AUTUMN OF 1 873. — THE STRANGE LAND VISITED.
I. The autumn was unusually mild, though stormy and
gloomy. The thermometer up to the 20th of September fell
daily some degrees below zero (C), and occasionally we had
rain. At the end of the month the minimum temperature
ranged from 14° to 5° F., and the mean temperature of
the month was as low as 24-5° F. The mildness of the
season was, perhaps, connected with the unusual recession of
the ice-barrier in the south ; though it might have been a con
sequence of the open water which had been formed under the
land during the drifting of the floes. The land itself was but
seldom visible, and heavy masses of dark-blue clouds, which
are peculiar to southern latitudes, generally hung over it.
Frequent falls of snow again covered everything around us.
Parhelia were sometimes visible, and these were generally the
precursors of driving snow, which reared deep drifts round
the ship. The numerous little lakes on the ice-floes were
frozen over in the night even in the earlier part of August,
and at the end of the m.onth these bore us during the day.
The clear mirror of their surface cracked whenever the tem
perature fell suddenly some degrees, while the effect of con
traction in the ship was followed by the noises which we
called " Schiisse." The " ice-holes " were overspread with a
viscous ropy ice, which was strong enough to bear us at
their edges. The ship now stood out from the ice ; her
hull was about fourteen feet above the surrounding surface of
snow. To facilitate egress and ingress, we constructed steps
of ice on each side of the vessel. After the 7th of September
our efforts to free the ship were given up. The little basin at

chap, xii.] the AUTUMN OF 1873.

179

the fore-part of the ship — the result of the toil of many
months — was completely frozen over, and afforded us the
.recreation of skating as a reward for our labours.
2, The experience of the past greatly strengthened all the
grounds and motives which so readily presented themselves
to abandon our helpless vessel in the following summer and
attempt the return to Europe by means of sledges and
boats. If there had been no other reason for this resolu
tion, regard for our health would have dictated the step.
Our supply of lemon-juice was so reduced, as to leave scarcely
' a doubt as to the necessity of attempting to return. But
amid these prudential considerations, we were filled with fear
lest we should be unable to explore the mysterious land we
had discovered.
3. The daylight now began to fail. On the 9th of Sep
tember the sun set at 8.30 and the stars were visible at night.
About the middle of the month lamps were kept burning all
the night through in our quarters below, and our environment,
never very 'animated, again wore the aspect of the dark realm
of ice. The visits of birds became rarer, although they did
not quite leave us as long as there was any open water near.
The divers and auks had already disappeared. They flew in
long lines southward, and as they whizzed past us through
the rigging of the ship, we acknowledged the superiority of
these little creatures to us and to our ship, which was never
to hoist its sails again. The ice-birds, and the robber-gulls
still remained with us. We once shot a rose-coloured gull
(Ross's gull), said to belong only to North America and
Iceland, On the 28th we saw the last snow-bunting. The
first aurora was seen on the 22nd, and during the winter its
light fell not merely on the Frozen Ocean but on the distant
Franz-Josef's Land, showing us that we were not drifting away
from it. By the end of the month we had drifted to the
eightieth degree of latitude, nearly; and every cliff of the
land, even the most insignificant, emerging at a distance from
the ice, had charms enough to call us all on deck.
4. In the second half of October, winds from the north and
north-east had driven us towards the south and south-west,
and as we neared the land we saw that the ice-fields were
broken up by their contact with its immovable barrier. Our

i8o AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES. [chap.
own floe had been greatly diminished from the general pres
sure of the ice. On the ist of October we were driven so
near the land that we found ourselves in the midst of the
destruction going on in the ice. Our ice-floe was shattered
and broken, and so rapidly had it diminished in size, that the
distance of the ship from the edge of the floe, which was
1,300 paces on the 1st, amounted to only 875 two days after
wards. On the 6th it had diminished to 200 paces, so that it
was reduced to a mere fragment of its former size. The
shocks it now received caused the ship to quiver and shake,
and we heard the cracking and straining in its timbers, which
kept us on the tenter-hook of expectation lest the ice should
suddenly break up. It seemed as if we were doomed to a
repetition of the trials and dangers of the preceding winter.
The bags of necessaries to be taken with us if we should be
forced to leave the ship, were kept in readiness for immediate
use. As we watched the advancing wall of ice, and heard
the too well known howl it sent forth, and saw how fissures
were formed at the edge of the floe, the days of the ice-
pressures were painfully recalled, and the thought constantly
returned — what will be the end of all this ? The Land we
had so longed to visit lay indeed before us, but the very sight
of it had become a torment ; it seemed to be as unattainable
as before ; and, if our ship should reach it, it appeared too
likely that it would be as a wreck on its inhospitkble shore.
Many were the plans we formed and debated, but all were
alike impracticable, and all owed their existence to the wish
to escape from the destruction that stared us in the face.
Such were our out-looks when on the 31st of October we were
driven close to a headland of no great height, about three
miles distant from the ship, and found ourselves in the midst
of icebergs, several of which were of considerable magnitude.
Towards this, the bergs, or we ourselves, or both, were
rapidly drifting, as the soundings showed. If the icebergs
drifted they would of course crush all the ice-fields which
stood in their way. We were now in 79° 51' N. Lat.
and 58° 56' E. Long. Here exactly in the longitude of
Admiralty peninsula of Novaya Zemlya, and with the ship
lying north and south, we were to pass the winter — but
harbourless.

XII.] THE AUTUMN OF 1873. i8r
5. On the forenoon of the 1st of November, the land lay
to the north-west of us in the twilight. The lines of rocks
were so clearly and distinctly seen, that we were convinced
that it could be reached without endangering our return to
the ship. There was no room for hesitation ; full of energy
and wild excitement, we clambered over the ice-walls lying to
the northward, which consisted of barriers, fifty feet high, of
huge pieces of ice recently forced up amid the pressure.
These passed, we came on a broad surface of young ice,
which showed that there had been open water there a short
time before. Over the surface of this young ice we now ran
towards the land. We crossed the ice-foot and actually
stepped on it. Snow and rocks and broken ice surrounded us
on every side ; a land more desolate could not be found on
earth than the island we walked on ; all this we saw not. To
us it was a paradise ; and this paradise we called Wilczek
Island. 6. So great was our joy at having reached the Land at last,
that we bestowed on all we saw an attention which, in itself
it in no way merited. We looked into every rent in the rocks,
we touched every block, we were ravished with the varied
forms and outlines which each crevice presented. We talked
in grand style of the frozen slopes of its hollows as glaciers !
Nothing was of greater moment in these first -hours than the
question of its geological character, and great was our surprise
to find here the same rocks, with which we had become
acquainted at the Pendulum Islands during the second
German North Polar Expedition, The columnar conforma
tion of these Dolerite rocks singularly resembled those of
Griper Roads and Shannon Island, The vegetation was
indescribably meagre and miserable, consisting merely of a
few lichens. The drift-wood we expected to find was no
where to be seen. We looked for traces of the reindeer and
the fox, but our search was utterly fruitless. The land
appeared to be without a single living creature. We then
ascended a rocky height on the southern margin of the island,
whence we had a view of the frozen ocean extending some
miles beyond the ship. There was something sublime to the
imagination in the utter loneliness of a land never before
visited ; felt all the more from the extraordinary character of

l82 AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES, [chap.
our position. We had become exceedingly sensitive to new
impressions, and a golden mist which rose on the southern
horizon of an invisible ice-hole, and which spread itself, like
an undulating curtain, before the glow of the noontide
heavens, had to us the charm of a landscape in Ceylon.
7. How vexatious was it to feel, that if we had reached
this Land some weeks earlier, we might have explored it
without the risk of being cut off from the ship. For some
days the sun had sunk below the horizon, and the twilight
of noon admitted of only a few short excursions from the
ship, quite insufficient to satisfy our earnest desire to learn
more of its structure and configuration ; and we much feared
lest the constant north winds should cause us to drift out
of sight of it. Southwards stretched a flat surface of bluish-
grey ice, and beyond the distant ship, a large " ice-hole "
from whose yellow mirror there arose undulating mists.
Beyond this again stretched dark lines of floes running
parallel to the horizon, over which, in the south, hung the
sky in deep carmine. We scrambled over a rugged slope
covered with ice as smooth as glass, which ran into the
interior of the little island, in order to get a clear view
northward ; but we were compelled to return without achiev
ing our purpose, for we feared to absent ourselves longer
from the ship. We accordingly went back, but returned
next day to explore. But these barren days and small
events made a profound impression on our minds, and even
Carlsen, the old and tried navigator of the frozen deep, wore
on his breast, beneath his fur coat, the star of the order
of St. Olaf, to do due honour to the dignity of discovery.
We built a pyramid of stones six feet high on the island,
and fixed in it one of our flags attached to a pole.
8. On the 3rd of November a party of us started about
eight o'clock in the morning, when it was quite dark, to
attempt to reach a glacier which we had seen, on the north
of the island and on the other side of a frozen inlet of the
sea. We took with us a small sledge drawn by three dogs,
and, in constant fear of being cut off from the ship, we pressed
on over a level surface of snow towards some objects suffused
with a dim rosy light, which seemed to float over them. As
we neared them we found them to be icebergs, which sparkled

XII.] THE AUTUMN OF 1873, 183
like jewels, and which we took to be the terminal precipice
of the glacier we were in search of It was only, however,
after some hours that we came actually in sight of it ; the
ship having meanwhile disappeared from our view. Suddenly
there emerged before us, in the east, a white band, which
proved to be the terminal front of the glacier, which, as we
approached it, we were surprised to find had an inclination of
only two or three degrees. Its highest point, therefore, must
have been at a very great distance. On its left side there
was a moraine of great depth. When we began our return
to the ship, the rosy evening light had disappeared from the

i -¦ " ^ 2 - - - " -

: - . ii* i i - ^ ; f t " -

'-si^^^^^fe.:?

r i 5^ <i^ r^i.*i444'*f

^^t^nW*^-- l-^ie;;

APPROACHING THR LAND BY MOONLIGHT.

higher clouds, while it became clearer behind the gigantic
mass of the glacier, so that its dark outline stood out strongly
marked on the heavens. It was quite dark when we again
drew near the ship, but the brave Carlsen, armed with rifle
and walrus-lance for any emergency, came out to meet us.
9. In an excursion on the 6th of November we reached
a point on the north-west of Wilczek Island— passing for the
first time during this expedition beyond the eightieth degree
of north latitude — whence we could see the mainland of the
new country stretching before us under the silver light of the

1 84 AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES. [chap, xii.
moon. An indescribable loneliness lay on its snowy moun
tains, faintly illuminated by the span of twilight in the south
and by the light of the moon. If the ice on the shore, as it
was moved by the ebb and flow of the tide, had not sent forth
shrill notes, and had not the wind sighed as it passed over
the edges of the rocks, the stillness of death would have lain
on the pale and spectral landscape. We hear of the solemn
silence of the forest or of the desert, or of a city buried in
sleep during the night ; but what is this silence to the silence
of a land wth its cold glacier mountains losing themselves in
snows and mists which can never be explored, and the very
existence of which had remained unknown from creation till
this moment ?
10. On the 7th another short expedition towards the south
west of Wilczek Island was carried out ; but notwithstanding
all our exertions we were unable to determine its configuration,
even of the parts immediately contiguous to us. Until the
spring of the following year, the whole island, except
perhaps a portion of its southern side, remained a mystery
to us.

CHAPTER XIIL
OUR SECOND WINTER IN THE ICE.
I. The Land had meantime been thickly enveloped in its
pure white mantle, and wreaths of snow-drifts lay over the
rocks scattered over its surface. The light became fainter.
Sometimes the precipitous faces of the glaciers seemed to
glow in subdued rose-colour through the leaden grey of the
atmosphere. When new " ice-holes " appeared, a frosty vapour
rose and spread over the surface of the ice ; the ship and
surrounding objects were covered as if with down ; even the
dogs were frosted white. We used to stand on deck and
gaze on the sun as it sank, surrounded by the evening clouds,
behind the jagged edges of the hummocks. Raised by re
fraction, he appeared for the last time on the 22nd of October
with half his disc above the horizon, and the whole southern
sky was for a time like a sea of fire over the cold, stiff forms
and lines of ice. At length the disc disappeared, and masses
of dark clouds moved up and obscured the light still lingering
in the sky. The long reign of night began, and the wastes
around us relapsed into the stern sway of winter. A pale
twiUght still lingered for some time, but its faint arc became
smaller and feebler. No shadows accompanied the forms of
those who strayed over the ice. The wind moaned in the
frozen desert. The darkness and the cold continually increased,
till the dome of night vaulted the lonely spot which had
become our home.
2, But the hope and expectation of successes to be achieved,
and the feeling that our safety was not immediately threatened,
rendered this second winter a happy contrast to the preceding
one. We had now leisure and calmness for intellectual occupa-
14

i86 AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES, [CHAP. xm.

tions, which were, indeed, the only means of relieving the
monotony of the long period of darkness. We lived like
hermits in our little cabins in the after-part of the ship, and
learned that mental activity without any other joy suflSces to
make men happy and contented. The oppressive feeling of
having to return ingloriously home, which had always been
disagreeably present to our minds during the first winter, was
no longer felt. We had now a hope, the charms of which
grew day by day, that in the spring we should be able to leave
the ship and start on expeditions to explore the land we had
discovered. Happy in this expectation, we could enjoy the ' •;
indescribable pleasures of good books, all the more that we
were far from the busy haunts of men, and that the presence
of danger clears and sharpens the understanding. Nowhere
can a book be so valued as in such an isolated position as ours
was. Great, therefore, was the advantage we possessed in a
good library, consisting of books of science, and of the classics
of literature. In fact, freed from the constantly recurring '"j,
perils, which had been our portion in the first long Arctic
night, this second winter was, to all who actively employed
their minds, comparatively a state of happiness, undisturbed
by cares. With regard to the crew, they were kept in good
liumour by the increase of their comforts. As we had not the
prospect of a third winter in the ice — which would have
rendered a greater economy of our provisions imperative — we
were enabled to provide them with a more generous diet.
3. In the last three weeks of November we had complete
darkness, the sky clouded over and the weather bad. So
dark was it, that our environment, though it was overspread i*i^:
with countless hummocks and ice-cliffs, looked like one black
unbroken level. On the 31st of October most of the stars
were visible about 3 o'clock in the afternoon ; by 4 o'clock
actual night prevailed. On the i6th of November large print
was barely legible even at noon. On the i8th of the month
we were able to read the larger letters on the title-page of
Vogt's Geology at the distance of a foot. At noon, on the
13th of December, not a letter of this same title-page was
legible, even in clear weather. On the sth of November-there
was a total eclipse of the moon, which then sank below the ,?
¦ horizon and did not return till the 29th of that m9nth. Its

l88 AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES. [CHAP. XIII.
beams then fell on a large ice-hole, which had formed itself
twenty miles to the south of the ship, which made us appre
hensive lest our floe should be driven by the north winds in
a southerly direction. On the 4th of December the moon
reached its highest declination, but, as it waned, it was con
stantly obscured by bad weather. I had reckoned on the
return of moonlight to make an excursion of some days to
the mainland. But the fickleness of the weather at the
beginning of December compelled me to confine my wander
ings to Wilczek Island, which I frequently visited, although
with a thermometer at — 35° F, I was exposed to frost-bites
in the face and hands, whenever I attempted to draw by the
light of a lamp, and with only the protection of light woollen
gloves.^ 4. We observed during this winter, that, on the clearest
nights, snow of the finest texture continued to fall, so that we
saw the heavenly bodies, as it were, through a veil of fine
gauze. In the moonlight this fine snow sparkled faintly, and
its presence could only be discovered by a prickling on the
skin. The constancy of these downfalls added of course to
the depth of the snow under which the Tegetthoff was almost
buried ; indeed at the beginning of the spring she no longer
stood out from the covering of snow, although her fore-part
was eleven-and-three-quarter feet, and her after-part four-and-
a-half feet, above the ice on which she rested. The air was
also often filled with an indescribable quantity of driving
snow ; and when the wind dropped and permitted it to fall,
we were struck with the profound stillness of our environment.
The cold constantly increased and penetrated all the parts
of the interior of the ship which were not artificially heated,^
and almost all the fluids, which were not specially protected,
were frozen. The various kinds of spirits on board were
exposed on the 23rd of November to the cold at - 26° F, ; at
the end of an hour-and-a-half they still remained fluid.
When the temperature fell to - 31° F",, hollands, common gin
' I take this opportunity of stating that the originals of nearly all the illustrations
of this book were drawn on the spot from nature, and that they have been repro
duced as they were drawn.
'^ On the 24th of November the thermometer marked - 14° F. in the ship's hole
The screw propeller had been fast frozen a month before.

¦ !

I I
I. I ill J, I

III. I, I

W\ III
111 lll III

f'l! 'I'll

II I III

l"''l
I II I III

m

I'l'ir

111 ''iV^^
 F T ._  jllcPIIIWIInllll*"*" 

igo AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES, [CHAP.

and maraschino were congealed in two-hours-and-a-half, but
rum and brandy remained unchanged. On another occasion
a mixture of two parts of pure alcohol to one part of water
froze at -47" F., cognac at - 53° F. This low temperature
had so increased the thickness of the ice, that the basin of
open water, which had been sawed through in the previous
summer, was covered on the 3rd of January with ice three-
and-a-half, and on the 20th with ice six-and-a-half feet thick.
5. On the 2 1st of December, the middle of the second
long Polar night — which lasted in all 125 days — was reached ;
and although we knew where the south lay, every trace of
twilight had disappeared, and for six weeks we were enveloped
in unbroken darkness. The figure of a man could not be dis
cerned at a very short distance. In order to be able to sketch
the ship, I had to illuminate it by torches. Those who made
expeditions afoot were struck, as it were, with blindness. If
they approached what seemed to be a lofty chain of moun
tains, over the ridge of which the planet Jupiter hung like a
glowing point, they came at once on a dark wall of ice ; and
when they ascended the apparently far distant ridge, the
planet stood almost in the zenith. There was something
approaching to twilight only when the crescent moon shone
in her first quarter. On the 7th of December the sun was
12°, and on the 21st 14^°, below the horizon. We should not
have seen the sun, could we have ascended the pinnacle of the
Alps, which Pliny imagined to be 120,000 feet high, or even
from that summit of the Caucasus which Aristotle reckoned
at 230,000 feet.
6. Distrusting the quiescent state of the ice, we had again
stretched a tent over one-half of the ship's deck, while the
other portion was covered with snow trodden down as hard as
a skating-rink. The space for free movement was narrowed
still further by the long-boat placed between the two masts,
by the stores of provisions kept in readiness for the possible
disaster which might compel us to leave the ship, by the stand
of rifles, by dog-kennels, and other inevitable impediments.
In bad weather the dogs sheltered themselves under the tent,
and sometimes showed ill-temper if their feet were trod on.
There were places on deck where only their particular friends
were safe from being bitten ; Sumbu especially had a bad

XIII.] OUR SECOND WINTER IN THE ICE. 191
habit of lying behind a cask and springing out on every one
that passed by. Here under its friendly shelter the men
waited the summons to their meals. Hither came Carlsen to
enjoy the opportunity of talking Norwegian with some one or
other. The deck light shone feebly on all this, shedding its
rays on the fine snow which fell through the tent-roof. In the
second half of the winter, when the deck was less frequented,
the lantern became, like the crew — more sleepy ; and its dull
light fell on hard-frozen sailcloth, boards covered with snow,
and on empty tin cases. Here, too, walked, of course, the
deck-watch, enveloped in clothes from head to foot, with only
their eyes uncovered, looking more like moving figures than
men. The deck-watch had also to keep open the water-hole
in the ice, to look out for bears, and to assist in reading off
the thermometers exposed on the ice. They were on duty for
two hours, and the moment they were relieved, they shot
down into their quarters, as quickly as a harpooned whale
dives under the waves. He, too, whose duty it was to fetch
the snow to be converted into water was often to be seen on
deck. Although the store of snow in which we lived was
inexhaustible, yet, in order to be exempt from this duty in
bad weather, it was the practice of those who were told off
for this service to lay up a supply of blocks of frozen snow
under the tent. Some of the crew showed the scrupulosity of
chemists in their work. Before they proceeded to build up
their pile, they brought specimens to the cook, in order to
learn his opinion as to the residuum of salt in the ice.
7. With December a new era began for the dogs. A large
snow house was built for them outside the ship, in which were
placed their kennels, well filled with straw. The name of
each dog was written on his house. And here let me remark,
that the winter quarters of the dogs should always be on the
ice. To keep them under the deck-tent is unhealthy and in
convenient, and would be an impossibility if their numbers
were great. Every morning Haller opened the door of the
snow house, and out rushed the dogs, with their tails in the
air, to begin forthwith a general fight. No shouts, no blows,
not even the discharge of a rifle could separate the combatants.
Pouring water over them at a temperature qf — 35° F., though
a somewhat barbarous way of producing peace, was successful

192 AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES. [CHAP.
only with the younger dogs. When the fight was over, the
next object was to find out their special patron, and the instant
they recognised him they rushed upon him, tugged at his
clothes, and thrust their noses inquiringly into his pockets.
Each then made his morning round, visiting the places where
he had hid in the snow a piece of bread or covered up a bit
of seal. When they had satisfied their appetite, it was curious
to observe how they would make it smooth over the hole in
which they deposited their treasure, all the time cunningly
turning their eyes right and left to see whether they were
observed, 8. Their violence and eagerness having somewhat abated,
we may observe the members of our pack one by one. The
red giant there, who offers his paw as huge as a bear's, is
named after a god of the heathen days of Lapland, " Jubinal ;"
and not a few legends surrounded the accounts of his early
life. A Siberian Israelite, so it was said, brought him from
the north of Asia over the Ural. He was the victor in all
fights, the leader of the sledge team, and could drag four men
on a hard level path without any effort. The day before we
sailed from Bremerhaven he tore a sheep to pieces. Every
summer when he changed his coat, the sailors clad him in a
canvas dress. Bop was his inferior in strength, but his supe
rior in wisdom ; Matoschkin surpassed him in gravity. The
latter used to sit foi hours in a moody manner on a pile of
chests looking at the ice world. Bop and Matoschkin were
Newfoundlands ; the first died of cold in our first winter, the
latter, as our readers may remember, was carried off by a
bear and torn to pieces. We had also two Newfoundland
bitches, who were called respectively " Novaya " and
" Zemlya ; " the former died in the first year, the latter, though
she was of little use in sledging from her laziness, may claim
indisputably the merit of being the mother of her hopeful
son, " Torossy,"' who grew to a considerable size, and was the
pride of the whole crew. He knew no other world than the
frozen ocean, and no other destiny than to draw a sledge ; and
to this work he had devoted himself zealously since the com
mencement of winter. In the happy courage of ignorance
he wagged his tail all day on deck ; wagged his tail as he
followed us on the ice ; wagged it, even when Sumbu stole

XIII.]

OUR SECOND WINTER IN THE ICE.

193

his dinner ; wagged it, even before the jaws of a bear. Gillis,
the fifth Newfoundland, was incessantly quarrelling, and was
the irreconcilable enemy of Jubinal ; he was a favourite with
no one, chiefly because he had killed the two cats which we
brought from Tromsoe as pets for the dogs. His body was
covered with scars, and half his time was spent under the
medical treatment of the Tyrolese. He was not wanting in
docility, but he was essentially an eye-pleaser ; all his efforts
in the sledge were mere sham. Pekel, the Lapp, was the
smallest of all the dogs. In his early days he had tended the
reindeer at the North Cape and on the plains of Tana Elf, and

his ways did not fit him for life amid the ice, but for the brown
herd which roamed at the foot of Kilpis. Hence he was
quarrelsome, and showed special enmity to Sumbu, the mere
sight of whom was enough to stir up the most hostile feelings.
He was therefore banished with his house to a high ice-cliff,
but the thaw destroying its supports, house and dog fell plump
into an ice-lake. Among all the dogs there was no such despe
rate hypocrite as Sumbu, the most demonstrative in his friend
ship, but withal the most greedy and dissatisfied. He was the
first to slink away with tail between his legs and find out the
most secluded nook, when he saw the other dogs being har
nessed in the sledges ; and, when pulled out and put in a
team, at once laid himself down on the sledge, not to draw,
but to be drawn. When at last he was set in motion, he was
no longer the same dog. He was then full of action, unsur
passed in speed and agility, and his sportiveness was as great
as his cunning. From the carpenter he would carry off a hoop,

194

AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES. [CHAP.
or a bag of nails from the stoker, or he lay flat on his belly and
thrust out his long nose in the snow. His agility stood him
in good stead, for it enabled him to catch all the mice that
ventured on deck. Neither the stores of provisions for the
dogs nor the depot of food for the crew were safe from his
depredations. He hated bears so fiercely, that he began to
howl like a wolf when we turned out to hunt them. Boldly
he followed up their trail, even when at a distance from the
hunters and close to the heels of the bear. The dogs were
fed once a day with bear's flesh or blubber, or dried horse
flesh, as long as it lasted.^ They well knew the hour of feed
ing, and gathered together before it arrived. At night they
were shut up in their house, and when 'the snow drifted they
all lay huddled in a heap before the door. The dog-house
was about eight feet high, but after a few weeks we could
scarcely discern it from the accumulation of snow-drifts. For
some time we kept up communication with it by means of
a shaft dug in the snow ; but one day in February a fissure in
the ice was formed right across where the house stood, which
compelled us to remove it.
9. The end of December came, and with it the season of
those festivals which animate the Christian world — Christmas-
tide and the New Year, In order to celebrate them in
common, we built a snow house, decorated its interior with
flags, and placed in it a Christmas tree, which, however, more
resembled a wooden hedgehog or a cheval de frise. About
six o'clock in the evening all our preparations were made, and
the ship's bell, sounding mournfully in the dark and misty
atmosphere, summoned us to our snow house on the ice. Here
lots were drawn, and cigars, watches, knives, pipes or rum fell
to the fortunate drawers. For all these presents we had to
thank friends in Vienna, or Pola, or Hamburg. Then came
the Christmas dinner, but no one's heart was in the matter.
Our bodies, indeed, were present, but our thoughts were far
away with those we loved at home. New Year's Eve passed
off somewhat more cheerfully. Bettergrounded seemed our
expectations that 1874 would at last bring us our long-desired
activity and a not inglorious return to Europe. Scarcely had
the new year begun than the crew knocked at our cabin
' We had brought 1,400 lbs. of it from Bremerhaven,

XIII.] OUR SECOND WINTER IN THE ICE. 195

doors with their congratulations, and such salutations continued
to be the order of the day. On the whole this second winter
both before and after the new year (1874), passed away with
out the fearful events of the preceding. Although floes lay
close to us on every side, and we had no harbour in which to
pass the winter with comfort — like a bear in its winter sleep —
the quiescent state of the ice allowed us to hope that our floe
would remain in the position it had hitherto maintained. This
hope, indeed, lay at the mercy of the winds ; for if north
winds should set in, it was extremely probable that the ice
would break up and drift asunder.
10, The life we now led below in the ship had ceased to be
in any way disagreeable, and cheerful and entertaining reading
seemed to be healthier than bodily exercise. We .did not
suffer from any want of the necessaries of life ; the tempera
ture of our living-rooms generally admitted of our sitting for
hours even without our overcoats. The long night of this
Polar winter was gloomy and oppressive only to those who had
time and leisure to weigh the burden of the hours. There
were, of course, even in this second winter, some of those dis
comforts and dangers of which the reader has heard enough,
and which lead him when he reads of life in the frozen
regions to think of ice-floes rather than of a room in which
comfort is quite possible. We had, indeed, the usual incon
veniences. As early as the middle of October the sky
light was so covered with frost that we could scarcely read
even at noon. On the 20th of that month we were obliged
to keep the lamps constantly burning, and to close in the sky
light, which brought night into the mess-room before the night
of Nature had arrived. By the middle of November the
condensation of moisture was perceptible, and our bed-clothes
were frequently frozen to the wall, and had to be torn from it
before we could go to rest. Yet what signified all this ? We
all slept soundly notwithstanding, and during the day had to
complain rather of warmth than of cold. The condition of
the crew, however, was not so happy. We could not follow
the example set by Hayes and others of removing the con
tents of the hold to the land, and so transforming it into
quarters for the men. On board the Tegetthoff we suffered
some of the evils of over-population, and the moisture was so

196

AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES.

[CHAP.

much increased from it, that some of the berths were com
pletely saturated. The employment of hammocks would
perhaps avert this evil.
II. The number of those afflicted with scurvy decreased
with the approach of spring. Their gums recovered their
fresh and natural appearance, and the general weakness, the
pains in the joints, the leaden weight of the feet, the depres
sion of spirits — symptoms of this terrible malady — abated,
and the scorbutic marks disappeared from' their bodies.

IN THE MESS-ROOM.

Pachtusow, when he wintered in Novaya Zemlya, so abun
dant in supplies of drift-wood, caused his people to use the
bath once a week in a log house constructed on the land, as a
preservative against scurvy, and had their inner clothing
washed twice a week, but even these steps were insufficient to
avert the malady. In our case baths so added to the mois
ture that we were obliged to put a stop to them, and our un-
der-garments could be changed only as our stock of them

xni.] OUR SECOND WINTER IN THE ICE, 197
permitted. Hence we could hope to prevent the spread of
scurvy only by the improvement of our diet. Several hundred
weight of potatoes and a large supply of preserved meat had
been kept in store for the second winter. These now came
into use, and were the more welcome as our supply of lemon-
juice — the most important preservative against scurvy — was
diminishing. By the advice of our physician. Dr. Kepes, we
departed from the maxim, so generally adhered to in Arctic
expeditions, of avoiding spirituous liquors. From the begin
ning of October our men daily received rations of brandy.
When I compare the sanitary condition of the crew of the
Tegetthoff with the better state of that of the Germania, I
attribute this to the lesser power of resistance to disease in
some of our people on board the Tegetthoff, and to the moral
depres.sion so easily explained by our disasters in this ship.
12. The Arctic voyager is exposed to no disease so much
as to scurvy. Its appearance among a crew exercises a most
untoward influence. Its causes are still but little known ; the
means, however, of combating it are numerous. It is no
longer the scourge it was in the days of Barentz, when he and
all his men were attacked with it on the short summer ex
cursion of 1595, or when in Munk's expedition of 16 19 all
died but two. In Behring's expedition of 1741, out of seventy-
six men, forty-two were attacked and thirty died. In Tschiri-
koffs summer expedition during that same year (1741), out of
seventy men, twenty died, Rossmyslow, who passed the
winter of 1768-69 in "Matoschkin- Schar," lost seven out of
thirteen men. When the disease gains the mastery, the utter
incapacity of the expedition for further exploration follows as
a necessary consequence. Lassinius, who was sent out to
explore Novaya Zemlya in 18 19, had to return in the height
of summer, all his men having fallen down with the scurvy.
This disease has been a frightful enemy to expeditions which
have wintered in that region, and carried off numerous victims.
All these, it is true, were miserably equipped, and depended on
the medicinal virtues of the " Loffel-kraut " of that country
for remedies against the disease. In 1832-33 Pachtusow,
wintering in the south of the island, out of ten men lost three ;
in 1834-35, two more died of the same disease. In the expe
dition of Ziwolka and Mojsejew, 1838-39, the scurvy gained

198 AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES. [chap. xiii.
such mastery that at the end of February half of the crew were
attacked, and Ziwolka himself with eight men died. Parry
regarded damp, especially damp bedding, as the principal cause
of the malady. During his wintering at Melville Island he
found sorrel an effective remedy or palliative. He attri
buted the greatest anti-scorbutic effect to beer ; and according
to him and to most of the English expeditions, beer and wine
take the place of brandy. The disease generally has a fatal
issue when there has been excessive loss of blood, or when
dropsy supervenes. Most of Ross's second expedition suffered
more or less from it, and the experience of that expedition
showed that vegetable nourishment alone was not competent
to make head against it. Ross regarded the addition of fish
or seals to the ordinary diet as an effective preservative, and
did not disdain the use of blubber for the same purpose.
Lemon-juice, uncooked potatoes, fruit with much acidity,
fresh vegetables and fresh meat, wine and yeast, exercise in
the open air, and cheerfulness, have always proved sufficient to
prevent its appearance, or at any rate to render it improbable.
But however valuable these may be as preventives, they
almost cease to have any effect when the disease has once
broken out. The lime-juice must be fresh, and, like vinegar
be taken in as concentrated a form as possible. It is decom
posed and useless by being kept too long, and also by the
action of frost. This was the case with the lemon-juice which
Sir John Ross found among the stores of the Fury. An anti
scorbutic effect has been attributed also — and with justice — -to
the chewing of tobacco. It appears that liability to scurvy is
very different among different races, and that neither vege
table nor animal food is an absolute preservative. The
Eskimos, and even the Lapps, who seldom or never use vege
tables, are almost 'exempt from it, and McClure's men fell
down with it in their second winter, although they had fresh
meat three times a week. Steller relates that in Kamschatka
scurvy attacks strangers only, but not the natives, who live
largely on vegetables ; he states also, that the scurvy when it
does appear among strangers and visitors there, is cured by a
diet of the fresh fish of spring.

CHAPTER XIV
SUNRISE OF 1874.
I. An unbroken sleep for the whole winter would, undoubt
edly, be a blessing to the Arctic navigator, and the most
energetic among us resigned himself to slumber for a few
hours in the afternoon — the profane time of the day for all
zones of the earth — especially after the coming in of the New
Year, when the long unbroken night is intensely felt. The
darkness diminished very gradually, and as the weather was
frequently cloudy and dull, it was little lessened by the full
moon, which we had at the beginning of January and February.
December 26, we were able to read only the title of New
Free Press, at the distance of a few inches, but not a word
of Vogt's Geology. January 11, the word Geology on the
title of that book was discernible in clear weather, but
only when the book was held up to the light of the midday
twilight. On the following day it was as dark at lyne
o'clock in the morning as at noon on December 1st, The
moon returned again on the 24th of January, and after it
was four days old we could distinguish the common print
of the " Press " by its hght, and for the first time read off
the degrees of the thermometer without artificial means.
During the whole of the month we had alternations of high
temperatures and snow-drifting, and at the end of it the wind
dropped and the cold became exceedingly great, causing the
ice to break up to the south of our position. It would be
difficult to give in an illustration any notion of the wonder
ful forms produced by the twilight, and its glowing colour-
effects, and quite impossible to describe the blaze of the

20O AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES. [CHAP.
meri(^ian heavens, while deep shadows still lay over the ice-
plains and a dark ridge fringed and closed the horizon.
2. At noon on the 23rd of February the rolling mists
glowed with a red light, announcing the reappearance of the
sun. The next day the sun himself, raised and distorted into
an oval shape, appeared above the horizon about 10 A.M.
Again there was spread over the snow that magical rosy hue,
those bright azure shadows, which impart a poetical character
even to the landscape of the frozen north. The return of the
sun was this year the deliverance from our long night of 125
days.i Anxiously had we waited his return, and joyously we
greeted it, but not with the frenzied feelings of the previous
year. Then the reappearance of the sun was tantamount
almost to a deliverance from hell itself ; but now the sun was
nothing to us but as a means to an end : would it enable us to
begin our sledge-journeys to explore the Kaiser Franz-Josef
Land .¦' The mere thought of the possibility of making new
discoveries threw us into a feverish impatience, and our fears
became intense lest the ship with its floe should drift away
and frustrate the execution of our plans just as they seemed
feasible. 3. On that same day Lieutenant Weyprecht and I resolved
to abandon the ship after the termination of our projected
sledge-journeys of discovery, and to attempt to return to
Europe by means of the boats and sledges. No arguments
were needed to convince every one of the ship's company of
the absolute necessity of this resolution. Our ship lay on its
icy elevation, beyond the power of man to liberate her, and
the provisions would not be sufficient to sustain us for
another year. But fear lest the state of our health should
greatly deteriorate in a third winter spoke more forcibly than
anything else in favour of our decision. When we looked at
our medical stores, once so ample, now so reduced, at the few
bottles of lemon-juice we could count on, all saw the impos
sibility of our remaining longer in these latitudes. The
melancholy issue of Franklin's expedition forced itself on our
I Parry's winter night of 1819-20 lasted eighty-four days ; Ross's, in the Gulf
of Boothia, fifty days; Kane's, in Rennssalaer harbour, 113 days, and Hayes'
123. In the latter case, however, the mountains on his southern horizon were the
cause why the sun was not earlier visible.

XIV.] SUNRISE OF 1874.

mind as an instructive example and warning. In all likelihood
that ill-fated expedition had delayed its return a year longer
than it should have done, and began it in so weakened a con
dition, that it was next to an impossibility that they should
have succeeded in their purpose. We began to be pinched
also in many of our stores, in spite of the greatest economy
in their use. To add to our perils, the doctor drew a sad
picture of the sanitary condition of our crew. Of nineteen
men, several had fallen sick : Krisch still suffered from scurvy
and consumption ; Marola from the first scorbutic symptoms ;
Fallesich from its consequences ; Vecerina from the utter ina
bility to move his lower extremities produced by the same
malady ; Palmich from a constant tendency to it and the con
traction of his lower extremities ; Pospischill from lung dis
ease ; and Haller from a rheumatic affection of his ex
tremities which almost incapacitated him for any exertion.
15

CHAPTER XV.
THE AURORA.
I, The Northern lights had shone for these two winters with
incomparable splendour, not, indeed, with the quiet diverging
beams, sometimes observed in our northern latitudes, and
different also from the phenomena which have been seen and
noted in recent years, even in Central Europe; they resembled
rather those we saw in East Greenland, save that the brilli
ancy and intensity of their colours were far greater.
2. It is very difficult to characterize the forms of this phe
nomenon, not only because they are manifold, but because
they are constantly changing. Sometimes the Aurora appears
like flaming arches with glowing balls of light ; sometimes in
irregular meridians painted on the heavens, sometimes in
brilliant bands and patches of light on the sky. Each of
these forms was frequently developed from a different one,
but towards morning the last-named appearance was the most
general. 3. The movement of the waves of light gave the impres
sion that they were the sport of winds, and their sudden and
rapid rise resembled the uprising of whirling vapours, such as
the Geysers might send forth, which generally assumed the
form of enormous flames, except that they were transparent
and mist-like. In many cases the Aurora much resembled a
flash of summer lightning conceived as permanent. It
appeared almost always in the south, and was visible from
September till March, during which period it was to us the
only external excitement which we had. The illuminating
power of the Aurora, when its colours were most brilliant and
intense, was inferior to the illuminating power of the full moon.

CHAP, XV.] THE AURORA, 203
Some rare cases excepted, this was either so small or so tran
sitory, that it had no influence on the darkness of our long
winter nights. Like a stream, or in brilliant convolutions, the
hght rushed over the firmament, as well from east to west as
from west to east. The formation of the corona (or the con
vergence of the streamers in the direction of the inclination
needle) was sudden, and short in its duration, and frequently
happened more than once in the course of a night. Its great
est intensity was from eight till ten o'clock at night. It was
never accompanied with sound.^ The sketch we have given
represents one of its most characteristic forms. The inner
parts of the flames are usually whitish green, and their edge
on the upper side red, on the lower green.
4. Brilliant auroras were generally succeeded by bad
weather. Those on the other hand which did not rise to any
great height in the sky, or which did not show any special
mobility, were regarded as the precursors of calms. None of
the theories which have been ventilated are in exact accordance
with all the manifestations of these northern lights. The
undulating motion of their waves of light, their rolling forth
like pillars of smoke driven by winds, has hitherto remained
unexplained. Although electrical processes, still unknown,
seem to be the main causes of the Aurora, atmospheric
vapours may, however, have a considerable part in producing
the phenomenon ; and nothing so much favours this supposi
tion as the indefinite form in which it often appears. Its
occurrence during the day, i.e. light clouds with its character
istic movement, has been rather imagined than actually
observed. The transition of white clouds into auroral forms
at night has never at least been satisfactorily proved. Falling
stars pass through the northern lights without producing any
perceptible effect, or undergoing any change. A dirty sulphur
yellow was characteristic of all auroras when the sky was
overcast with mists or when they were seen by moonlight.
In clear weather they were colourless.
' It has often been asserted that sound accompanying the Aurora has been heard
in the Shetland Isles, and in Siberia ; but all scientific travellers protest against
this. Franklin, who at first believed in this alleged phenomenon, afterwards re
tracted his opinion, and was convinced that the noise proceeded from terrestrial
causes.

Illlfllll ,lll I

I I

CHAP, xv.] THE AURORA. 205

5, Their influence on the magnetic needle was very variable.
While the quiescent and regular arches had little or no effect,
the iquicker and more fitful streamers, especially when accom
panied with prismatic colours, produced great disturbance in
it. Sir John Ross remarked, that the aurora when tinged
with deep red colour had a great effect on it, although he
completely stultifies his observation by his supposition, that the
phenomenon was produced by rays of the sun reflected on
the vast fields of. snow and ice surrounding the Pole. Parry
in 1820 could discover no effect from it either on the magnetic
needle or on the electrometer. During the winter of 1872-3,
the character of the northern lights was much altered, though
their colour remained constant. At first they consisted chiefly
of bands, of light, running from the south northwards. At
a later period of that winter they assumed for the most
part the appearance of coronse, and then their direction was
from the north southwards. During the voyage of the
Tegetthoff the observations of the behaviour of these lights
and of the magnetic constants were taken by Weyprecht/
Brosch, and Orel by means of a magnetic theodolite, a
dipping needle, and three variation instruments. The extras
ordinary disturbances of the needle rendered the determina
tion of exact mean values for the magnetic constants impos
sible. The diminution of their intensity was considerable
during the continuance of auroras. In 79° 51' N. Lat. and
58° 56' E. Long, the declination amounted to 19^° E, and the
inclination to 82° 22', The ice-pressures which occurred in
December, 1873, together with the tedious preliminaries in
fixing the magnetic instruments, prevented these officers from
carrying out their labours regularly till the next month. The
following are the principal results of these observations. : (i)
The magnetic disturbances were of extraordinary magnitude
and frequency. (2) They were closely connected with the
aurora ; and they were greater as the motion of the rays was
more rapid and fitful, and the prismatic colours more intense.
.Quiescent and regular arches, without changing rays or
streamers, exercise almost no influence on the needle (3) In
all the disturbances the declination needle moved towards
the east, and the horizontal intensity decreased while the
inclination increased.

2o6 AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES. [CHAP.
6. In spite of the extreme difficulty of describing the
appearances of those fitful and changing lights, I believe that
the following description of Lieutenant Weyprecht will be
found equally faithful and effective : —
"There in the south, low on the horizon, stands a faint
arch of light. It looks as it were the upper limit of a dark
segment of a circle ; but the stars which shine through it in
undiminished brilliancy convince us that the darkness of the
segment is a delusion produced by contrast. Gradually the
arch of light grows in intensity and rises to the zenith. It is
perfectly regular ; its two ends almost touch the horizon and
advance to the east and west in proportion as the arch rises.
No beams are to be discovered in it, but the whole consists of
an almost uniform light of a delicious tender colour. Ii. is trans-.
parent white with a shade of light green, not unlike the pale
green of a young plant which germinates in the dark. The
light of the moon appears yellow, contrasted with this tender
colour so pleasing to the eye, and so indescribable in words, a
colour which nature appears to have given only to the Polar
regions by way of compensation. The arch is broad, thrice
the breadth, perhaps, of the rainbow, and its distinctly marked
edges are strongly defined on the profound darkness of the
Arctic heavens. The stars shine through it with undiminished
brilliancy. The arch mounts higher and higher. An air of
repose seems spread over the whole phenomenon ; here and
there only a wave of light rolls slowly from one side to the
other. It begins to grow clear over the ice; some of its
groups are discernible. The arch is still distant from the
zenith ; a second detaches itself from the dark segment, and
this is gradually succeeded by others. All now rise towards
the zenith ; the first passes beyond it, then sinks slowly
towards the northern horizon and as it sinks loses its inten
sity. Arches of light are now stretched over the whole
heavens ; seven are apparent at the same time on the sky,
though of inferior intensity. The lower they sink towards
the north, the paler they grow, till at last they utteriy fade
away. Often they all return over the zenith, and become
extinct, just as they came.
" It is seldom, however, that an aurora runs a course so
calm and so regular. The typical dark segment which we

XV.] THE AURORA,

207

see in treatises on the subject, in most cases does not exist.
A thin bank of clouds lies on the horizon. The upper edge
is illuminated ; out of it is developed a band of light, which
expands, increases in intensity of colour, and rises to the
zenith. The colour is the same as in the arch, but the inten
sity of the colour is stronger. The colours of the band
change in a never-ceasing play, but place and form remain
unaltered. The band, is broad and its intense pale green
stands out with wonderful beauty on the dark background.
Now the band is twisted into many convolutions, but the
innermost folds are still to be seen distinctly through the
others. Waves of light continually undulate rapidly through
its whole extent, sometimes from right to left, sometimes from
.left to right. Then again it rolls itself up in graceful folds.
It seems almost as if breezes high in the air played and
sported with the broad flaming streamers, the ends of which
are lost far off on the horizon. The light grows in intensity,
the waves of light follow each other more rapidly, prismatic
colours appear on the upper and lower edge of the band, the
brilhant white of the centre is inclosed between narrow stripes
of red and green. Out of one band have now grown two.
The upper continually approaches the zenith, rays begin to
shoot forth from it towards a point near the zenith, to which
the south pole of the magnetic needle, freely suspended,
points. The band has nearly reached it, and now begins a
brilliant play of rays lasting for a short time, the central
point of which is the magnetic pole — a sign of the intimate
connection of the whole phenomenon with the magnetic forces
of the earth. Round the magnetic pole short rays flash and
flare on all sides ; prismatic colours are discernible on all
their edges ; longer and shorter rays alternate with each
other ; waves of light roll round it as a centre. What we see is
the auroral corona ; and it is almost always seen when a band
passes over the magnetic pole. This peculiar phenomenon
lasts but a short time — the band now lies on the northern side
of the firmament ; gradually it sinks, and pales as it sinks ; it
returns again to the south to change and play as before. So
it goes on for hours ; the aurora incessantly changes place,
form, and intensity. It often entirely disappears for a short
time only to appear again suddenly, without the observers

2o8 AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES. [chap,
clearly perceiving how it came and where it went : simply — it
is there. " But the band is often seen in a perfectly different form.
Frequently it consists of single rays, which, standing close
together, point in an almost parallel direction towards the
magnetic pole. These become more intensely bright with
each successive wave of light ; hence each ray appears to flash
and dart continually, and their green and red edges dance up
and down as the waves of light run through them. Often
again the rays extend through the whole length of the band
and reach almost up to the magnetic pole. These are sharply
marked but lighter in colour than the band itself, and in this
particular form they are at some distance from each other.
Their colour is yellow, and it seems as if thousands of slender
threads of gold were stretched across the firmament. A glori
ous veil of transparent light is spread over the starry heavens ;
the threads of light with which this veil is woven are dis
tinctly marked on the dark background ; its lower border is a
broad, intensely white band, edged with green and red, which
twists and turns in constant motion. A violet-coloured
auroral vapour is often seen simultaneously on different parts
of the sky,
" Or again, there has been tempestuous weather, and it is
now — let us suppose — passing away. Below on the ice the
wind has fallen, but the clouds are still driving rapidly across
the sky, so that in the upper regions its force is not yet laid.
Over the ice it becomes somewhat clear ; behind the clouds
appears an aurora amid the darkness of the night. Stars
twinkle here and there ; through the openings of the clouds
we see the dark firmament and the rays of the aurora
chasing one another towards the zenith. The heavy clouds
disperse ; mist-like masses drive on before the wind. Frag
ments of the northern lights are strewn on every side ; it
seems, as if the storm had torn the aurora bands to tatters
and was driving them hither and thither across the sky.
These threads change form and place with incredible rapidity.
Here is one ! lo, it is gone ! scarcely has it vanished before it
appears again in another place. Through these fragments
drive the waves of light ; one moment they are scarcely
visible, in the next they shine with intense brilliancy. But

XV.] THE AURORA. 209
their light is no longer that glorious pale green, it is a dull
yellow. It is often difficult to distinguish what is aurora and
what is vapour — the illuminated mists as they fly past are
scarcely distinguishable from the auroral vapour which comes
and goes on eveiy side.
" But, again another form. Bands of every possible form
and intensity have been driving over the heavens. It is now
eight o'clock at night, the hour of the greatest intensity of
the northern lights. For a moment some bundles of rays only
are to be seen in the sky. In the south, a faint scarcely-
observable band lies close to the horizon. All at once it rises
rapidly and spreads east and west. The waves of light begin
to dart and shoot ; some rays mount towards the zenith. For
a short time it remains stationary, then suddenly springs to
life. The waves of light drive violently from east to west ;
the edges assume a deep red and green colour, and dance up
and down. The rays shoot up more rapidly ; they become
shorter ; all rise together and approach nearer and nearer to
the magnetic pole. It looks as if there were a race among
the rays, and that each aspired to reach the pole first. And
now the point is reached, and they shoot out on every side, to
the north and the south, to the east and the west. Do the
rays shoot from above downwards, or from below upwards .-'
Who can distinguish ? From the centre issues a sea of flames ;
is that sea red, white, or green ? Who can say i* — it is all three
colours at the same moment ! The rays reach almost to the
horizon ; the whole sky is in flames. Nature displays before
us such an exhibition of fireworks as transcends the powers
of imagination to conceive. Involuntarily we listen ; such a
spectacle must, we think, be accompanied with sound. But
unbroken stillness prevails, not the least sound strikes on the
ear. Once more it becomes clear over the ice, and the whole
phenomenon has disappeared with the same inconceivable
rapidity with which it came, and gloomy night has again
stretched her dark veil over everything. This was the aurora
of the coming storm — the aurora in its fullest splendour. No
pencil can draw it, no colours can paint it, and no words can
describe it in all its magnificence. And here below stand
we poor men, and speak of knowledge and progress, and

2IO AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES. [chap. 3CV.
pride ourselves on the understanding with which we extort
from Nature her mysteries. We stand and gaze on the
mystery which Nature has written for us in flaming letters on
the dark vault of night, and ultimately we can only wonder
and confess that, in truth, we know nothing of it."

THE EXPLORATION
OF KAISER FRANZ-JOSEF LAND.
THE SLEDGE JOURNEYS.

4!) 51'  51

53 54 S5 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 'ss

CHAPTER I.
THE EXPLORATION OF KAISER FRANZ-JOSEF LAND
RESOLVED ON.
I. The necessity of returning home admitted of no question;
but the exploration of the Land of which we had seen hardly
anything, beyond the cliffs that lay in our immediate neigh
bourhood, was also felt to be a necessity. That land, which
we were all predisposed to imagine as stretching far beyond
this wall of rocks, — of what did it consist .¦' Was it an island or
a group of islands ? And those white masses lying on these
lofty ranges, were they glaciers ? To these questions no one
as yet could give an answer. But of this there could be
neither doubt nor question, that we could not count on our
floe for a moment, and that those were lost who were not on
board the ship if the floe with the ship began to drift. On
the 1st of March the Tyrolese announced, that a fissure had
appeared half-way between the ship and the shore, and the
danger of being cut off became the chief subject of talk, both
in the cabin of the officers and in the quarters of the men.
When, however, we considered the importance of the venture,
all hesitation disappeared, and there was not a man in the
ship who would not have made his apprehensions subordinate
to the necessity of exploration.
2. As the commander of the expedition on shore, I explained
to the council we held on the 24th of February, my plan for
the projected sledge-journeys, namely : that the sledge-parties
count on the means of escape being left behind to supple
ment those they may have at their command, and that the
depositing of these means be completed before the sledge-
parties start; that the expeditions shall begin between the

214 AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES. [CHAP.
loth and 20th of March, be continued for six or seven weeks,
and take, if possible, the following directions : — one along the
coast towards the North, a second towards the West, and a
third into the interior, and each to be concluded by the ascent
of a dominating height ; that in the event of the sledge-parties
not finding the ship on their return, they should attempt to go
back at once to Europe, and only under the most urgent
circumstances pass a third winter in the ice, though the super
fluous stores, which were to be transported to the land, would
to a certain extent enable them to do this. I engaged also
not to extend these journeys to a date which would prevent
the men recruiting their strength before the return of the
whole expedition to Europe.
3. The exploration of the strange land having been resolved
on, the greatest activity reigned in the ship. There was not
a man on board the Tegetthoff who was not eager to prepare
for the sledge-journeys, though all knew that besides the two
Tyrolese only four men were to accompany me. Every one
longed to take part in the exploration of the unknown land,
and the monotony of our life was now exchanged for a state
of great excitement ; a great venture had been resolved on,
and expectations rose with the possibility of discoveries. The
comparatively short period for which our stores had now to
last enabled us to indulge in what, under the circumstances,
might be called luxury. We could thus dispose of more than
two hundred bottles of wine, which had been reserved for the
sick in the event of a third winter being passed in the ice.
Three-and-twenty men now in three months drank two
hundred bottles of wine and smoked like chimneys the super
fluous stores of cigars and tobacco. Potatoes, preserved
vegetables and fruit, were daily on our table. Our allowance
of rum was increased; lights were freely burnt in every corner,
and the novel sensation of luxury was universal,
4, While we were all living as if the oppressive load under
which we had lain so long had suddenly been removed, in
these days of general hilarity and amid the exciteinent of
new plans, our comrade Krisch drew toward his sad and
melancholy end. From the beginning of February his
malady had made great progress. His body was covered
with scorbutic spots ; but in spite of all this the hope of speedy

I,] EXPLORATION OF KAISER FRANZ-JOSEF LAND. 215
recovery constantly animated our afflicted companion, who
set us a lofty example of the fulfilment of duty by his zealous
activity. In the summer, though already under the influence
of his mortal disease, he had been busy in the construction of
new ice-saws and borers, in order that he might contribute
something to the liberation of the ship, and when he heard of
the projected expeditions to Franz-Josef Land, he gathered
sufficient strength to extort from me the assurance that I
would take him with me. But his end was surely though
slowly drawing on ; his nights were sleepless, and pain left
him neither day nor night. At the beginning of March a
state of unconsciousness supervened, and the action of his
diseased lungs was now to be heard in an uninterrupted
rattUng in his throat. Moments of mental clearness became
more infrequent in his delirium ; help had become impossible ;
all the care of our physician and of the watchers, who never
left him, was now directed merely to the alleviation of his
sufferings. He lingered till we returned from our first sledge
expedition on the i6th of March.

\ I

/J:. \i' ^

KEISCH, THE ENQINEEE.

CHAPTER II.
OF SLEDGE TRAVELLING IN GENERAL.
I. The sledge is pre-eminently the means of geographical
exploration in high latitudes, and as discovery now forms the
main purpose of Polar expeditions, it may be important to
describe clearly and precisely the system we followed, that
others may either adopt or improve on our methods. Thus I
will enter into many details, not in order to dwell on the
inconveniences incident to this mode of travelling, but to
show how the greatest amount of safety and protection may
be secured to the sledge-party.
2. Sledge-journeys presuppose that the ship is safe and
secure in a winter harbour. A ship which has not yet com
pleted its summer voyage should avoid them as exceedingly
hazardous ; and as a principle such expeditions are to be
absolutely dechned by a ship which is beset in the ice ; the
success which may have attended some must by no means
stimulate others to imitate them. Their object is the ex
ploration of lands still unknown or imperfectly known. They
presuppose also the existence of ice, closely adhering to a
coast, on which the journeys are performed, and this coast
line must run in a northerly direction, if the North Pole be
the goal of discovery. Though sledge-parties follow the
coast-line they actually travel on the frozen sea ; for it is
never safe to abandon that line and make for pack-ice at a
distance from it. The crossing of glaciers, however small
may be their inclination, is always attended with danger ; and
if the route be stopped by a stretch of land whose extent
forbids dragging, it is of course impossible to proceed. The
roughness of the land and its insufficient covering of snow

CHAP. II.] OF SLEDGE TRAVELLING IN GENERAL, 217
even in winter sufficiently explain this, A sledge cannot, for
any considerable length of time, be dragged up an inclination
exceeding two or three degrees.
3. The season of the year for sledging must depend on the
climate of particular Arctic localities, and the capacity of the
men to endure low temperatures during the night-camping,
and driving snow during the march. It is advisable, when
more than one year is to be spent in the ice, to begin the
more extended sledge-journeys in the first year, because the
capacities of Europeans to endure cold rather decrease than
increase. Sir John Ross, for example, says that his people at
the beginning of a third winter were incapable of bearing
hardships, especially those of travelling on the ice. The
best season for sledging must always be that time of the year
when snow-storms are infrequent, for even a healthy and
seasoned party will more easily confront a very low temper
ature than driving snow-storms. As a rule, these conditions
are found most perfectly in autumn ; and I do not understand
the objection which Hayes makes to this season as being the
most damp ; whereas as a matter of fact it is the least so.
Autumn journeys are preferable to those in spring, both with
respect to climate and the state of the road ; only they must
be commenced early, on account of the rapidly decreasing
length of the days.^ The darkness of winter puts an end to
aU sledging, and the excessive cold of spring renders it diflScult.
Summer makes it impossible by breaking up the land-ice, or
impedes it by transforming the snow into thaw-water and
sludge. Next to autumn, therefore, the latter part of March,
all April, and a part of May, are most adapted for this pur
pose. It must at the same time be remarked, that Captain
Lyon (1822) and Dr. Kane regarded March as peculiarly
dangerous on account of the prevalence of storms.
4. Next to the season, the state of the snow road, depend
ing on the hardening action of wind and cold, has to be
considered. The cold should not vary more than from - 2° to
- 24° F., because greater frost transforms the smooth evaporat
ing surface of snow into a rough plain, bestrewed with sharp
pointed crystals, so that the sledge instead of gliding along
' Experience acquired both in Greenland and in Franz-Josef Land convinces me
that autumn is to be preferred to spring for sledge-joumeys.
16

2i8 AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES. [CHAP.
encounters the friction, as if of a sandstone surface, and stops
at the least obstacle. Snow of an ivory-like smoothness rarely
occurs ; on the contrary, we find the snow in deep layers as
fine as powder, into which we sink knee-deep, or among
barriers of hummocks, miles in extent, which impose enormous
detours in the transport of the baggage. During the journey
from 2° to 13° below zero F. constitutes the pleasantest tem
perature, and even the nights, under this condition, are passed
without inconvenience by a party inured to exposure. Snow
storms, however, in their mildest form — snow-drifting — are, at
this moderate temperature, distressing and dangerous. In
fact, among all the contingencies which may occur during a
Polar expedition, there is no severer test of enduring persever
ance than dragging a sledge in the face of drifting snow at a
temperature from 13° to 35° below zero F.
5. The ship in its winter harbour is the only place of refuge,
in all cases where a meeting with Eskimos cannot be counted
on. Except for the accidents of hunting, on which no
dependence should be placed, the country itself affords no
kind of means of subsistence ; hence all the necessaries of
life must be carried in the sledges. The heavily laden sledge
becomes in truth a ship of the icy wastes, and its loss involves
the destruction of the whole party. In order to lighten its
load and yet prolong the journey as much as possible, supplies
of provisions are often deposited along the routes to be
traversed. This may be done, either by previous shorter
journeys, or by leaving behind a part of the provisions which
have been taken from the ship, or by burying the product of
the chase in the manner adopted by fur-hunters and Indians.
The danger to such stores from the inroads of bears or the
breaking up of the ice must be guarded against by a careful
selection of localities ; and the place being chosen, the pro
visions should either be buried four feet deep in snow between
steep rocks, somewhat above the level of the sea, or the bags
containing them should be suspended on the inaccessible faces
of the rocks. The choice of an elevated point is some security
against visits from bears. But it is never advisable to build
confidently on finding the dep6t, or to make the possibility of
return dependent on this contingency. A small stock of the
necessaries of life should always be kept in reserve, as a

II.] OF SLEDGE TRAVELLING IN GENERAL. 219
prudent precaution in case the depot should be destroyed. If
however the depdts remain untouched and uninjured, and
their numbers be considerable, the duration of the journey,
which can be prolonged for thirty or forty days only where
provisions are carried in the sledges, may thus be doubled in
extent. The depots for journeys in the spring are often
formed in the preceding autumn, though their preservation is
of course exposed to great risk.
6. Sledges are dragged sometimes by men and dogs con
jointly, sometimes by men without dogs, or by dogs alone.
Reindeer are found to be unfit for sledge dragging ; although
Parry in former days, and Nordenskjold more recently, fre
quently attempted to employ them in this service. Though
a reindeer is able to make with a sledge as many as 120 miles
in three days, it cannot continue such efforts without long
periods of repose, nor drag the heavy loads which are requisite
in longer journeys. Besides this, he who has had any
experience in this mode of travelling, knows the unaccount
able capriciousness of these animals, their stubbornness, and
the difficulty of feeding them. Natives alone are able to
manage them, while to strangers they refuse subjection.
When the sledges are dragged by men alone, unexpected
contingencies are less to be apprehended, but at the same time
their rate of progress is diminished. In an expedition calcu
lated to last a month, ten miles constitute the average day's
march, when circumstances are favourable. If the length of
the journey be prolonged, this average will be considerably
diminished. The combination of men and dogs in the work
of dragging accelerates the speed. With regard to the men
employed in this work, it is advisable to engage experienced
mountaineers ^ of great bodily strength, such men being able
to do work for which, it is admitted, sailors have neither train
ing nor inclination,
7. No form of sledge travelling, when measured by results,
can be compared with sledging by the help of dogs alone ;
for this method enables us to compass the greatest possible
distance, and diminishes the dead-weight of the load in the
sledge. Besides this, dogs are not only active but tractable ;
1 This is the reason why the English North Pole Expedition has engaged the
services of two mountaineers accustomed to glacier travelling.

220 AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES. [chap.
they show no fear ; they can endure hunger longer than men,
even while making great exertions ; they neither drink nor
smoke ; neither fuel for the stove to liquefy the snow, nor
tent, nor sleeping bag, need be taken for them ; none, in fact,
of those many little things which are indispensable for men.
In extreme necessity they may be even used for food. And
since a strong dog is able to drag, even for a long journey,
double of what he needs for his own support, the surplus falls
to the share of the man who accompanies him, and who is
able, therefore, to prolong his absence from the ship. With
out considering the forced marches which Englishmen,
Americans, and Russians have frequently made on the ice
with a number of dogs, the employment of a few dogs in
sledge expeditions has such conspicuous advantage over teams
of men, that I would earnestly recommend the following
method of procedure : two teams of dogs, each of two or
four strong Newfoundlands, should be employed, one to be
driven by the leader of the expedition and the other by one
of the most experienced and trustworthy of the party. Each
sledge should carry at starting, a weight of from 4 to 7 cwt.,
i.e. provisions for thirty to fifty days, only needing a slight
supplement from the products of the chase. Sixteen miles a
day, on an average, may easily be thus accomplished,
especially if the rest of the party attached to each sledge
walk on before their respective teams. Distances varying
from 500 to 800 miles may thus be reached, while 300 or at
the most 500 miles are all that men alone in the same time
can perform. Journeys of this kind require much experience,
so that those men only are serviceable who have much
practical acquaintance with life in the Arctic wastes, and not
merely with life as it is in the ship, but who are inured to
fatigues and skilled in the use of those precautions which
distance from the ship imperatively demands during the pre
valence of extreme cold. With regard to the route itself,
whenever the object is the reaching of higher latitudes and
the exploration of a still unknown country, it is advisable to
choose one from four to eight miles distant from the land.
The search for a route is greatly facilitated whenever we can
ascend dominating heights to enable us to determine our
position. Such a course not only saves us from the necessity

II.] OF SLEDGE TRAVELLING IN GENERAL. 221
of making detours, but affords the only possibility of being
able to touch the land at desirable points and of ascertaining
the character of the intervening districts. A survey may be
m.ade either by triangulation, the base being measured by
those who remain behind in the ship and the summits of the
mountains serving as the points of the triangles, or by the
determination of the geographical latitude and longitude of
the different spots. The combination of both methods is of
course most desirable.
8. The following instruments may be employed in sledge
journeys, according to the degree of exactness which is
required : a small universal instrument, a sextant with an
artificial horizon, a pocket chronometer, an azimuth compass,
a boat compass of simple construction, an alcohol and
mercurial thermometer, and two small aneroids.

CHAPTER III.
THE EQUIPMENT OF A SLEDGE EXPEDITION.
I. The equipment of a sledge expedition on a large scale,
demands an amount of circumspection and precision which
experience alone can give, and its safety and success may be
endangered by the neglect of apparently trifling precautions.
At a distance from the ship the most formidable dangers may
arise, from allowing the matches to become damp, from the
leaking or the loss of a vessel containing spirit, from the
setting fire to a tent, which only too probably may happen
from the carelessness of the cook, to say nothing of those yet
greater perils, — the inability of some of the party to march,
the destruction of depdts of provisions by bears, or the
breaking in of the sea. The first principle in fitting out such
an expedition should be the rejection of everything not
absolutely necessary for the support of life, the instruments
only excepted ; and the second, that the whole of the
travelling gear should be of the most perfect and convenient
form. The departure from these rules contributed, among
other things, to the melancholy issue of the Franklin expedi
tion. McClintock speaks most emphatically of the evils of
over-loading with things not absolutely necessary. The
success of an undertaking may be defeated by the neglect
even of things apparently insignificant, Mojsejew's sledge
expedition along the coast of Novaya Zemlya in 1839 was a
proof and illustration of this. It was wrecked within a few
days by the snow-blindness of the entire party, caused by
their want of snow-spectacles. If we except the journeys of
the Russian explorers of the Siberian coast, carried out, how
ever, at the sacrifice of the whole nomad population, and of

ch. III.] THE EQUIPMENT OF A SLEDGE EXPEDITION. 223
all the dogs and reindeer of North Asia— from which to this
day the exhausted country has not recovered — the merit of
the organization of sledge expeditions belongs pre-em.inently
to the English. It was by Parry and James Ross that those
experiments with sledges were begun, which have since been
brought nearly to perfection by McClintock.^ The method thus
perfected serves to this day as a pattern to be imitated, as it
enables a party of men, inured to hardships and fatigues, to
pass many weeks without the help of those resources which
only a ship in such icy wastes can afford. I will now endea
vour to describe with sufficient detail the equipment of our
sledges in the journeys we carried out,
2. The changeableness of the weather during the season
" for sledging, and the character of our expeditions, required
the employment of three sledges of different sizes. The
smallest of these was a dog-sledge, and the two others were
larger and intended to be drawn by men. The runners were
respectively 6, 8 and 11 feet long, and i|, 2 and 2| inches
broad ^ — gently curved at each end — and about one foot high,
so as to raise the lading above the snow. The sledges were
constructed ofthe best ash, and carried loads amounting to 7,
12, and 20 cwts. respectively. The two runners were fastened
together by two strong front boards, and by four cross-pieces
of wood firmly lashed to the upright standards of the sledge,
which were themselves dovetailed into the runners. Screws
were sparingly used, and chiefly in the fittings of the two
horns of the sledge, and of the rail on which the rifles were
suspended, and which also was used to push and guide the
sledge. The rail was, therefore, of considerable strength, in
order to withstand the pressure of a man's force. The runners
were shod with steel carefully riveted on. The accompany
ing sketch shows the manner in which a sledge is drawn by a
' I take this opportunity of fulfilling a duty of gratitude, when I add that in our
equipment we followed, in every respect, the tried and tested advice of Admiral
McClintock, and that to this we owed for the most part such successes as we
achieved. ' Broad runners facilitate progress through deep snow. March 7, 1874, we
scarcely could move a sledge of medium size with its load, though we afterwards
transported the same load easily with a sledge with broader runners ; and the
former became available when we fastened a pair of Lapp snow-shoes on its
runners.

224

AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES.

[chap.

team of men and dogs combined. Those who take the
longest steps in the march should precede, and the less active
should be placed in the middle, so that any slackness may
be easily detected ; for in a sledge journey it is disgraceful
to draw a weight less than the weight of what we can eat.

TEAM OF SEVEN MEN AND TJIREE DOGS.
The centre trace should never be grasped, as this diminishes
the force of the pull.
3. The proper construction of the cooking apparatus is of
the greatest importance, the great principle being to develop
heat and prevent its escape as much as possible. The accom
panying woodcut represents an apparatus which excellently
well fulfils this condition. A, is the inner compartment ; B,
the holder containing about a bottle of spirit, with seven
wicks ; C, the covered pan for cooking ; D, the outer case ;
and E, a pan filled with snow and fitted with a moveable
handle, which, being placed over an opening in the outer case,
utilizes the ascending heat, which would otherwise escape, to
liquefy the snow. The apparatus should be made of sheet

THE COOKING APPARATUS.

iron, each of its parts of one piece, and there should be no
soldering, in order to diminish the risk of breakage and the
setting fire to the tent by the escape of the spirit in a state of
combustion. These cooking machines should be of differeiit
sizes, according to the number of men in the expedition. The
largest of those used by us consumed fib. of spirits of wine

lir.] THE EQUIPMENT OF A SLEDGE EXPEDITION. 22s
to convert snow, with a thermometer from 13" to 22° below
zero F., into three gallons of boiling water. On account of
the smaller consumption of alcohol, it is better to use ice than
snow for the purpose of cooking,
4. Alcohol of the greatest purity and strength is the best
fuel, and is most easily transported in vessels containing about
ten gallons. Next to alcohol, stearine is most to be recom
mended, on account of its great heating powers ; and then
train-oil, though the smoke and dirt produced by it in the
tent are almost unbearable evils. Petroleum ought not to be
employed, on account of its dangerous character and its being
prejudicial to health. Wood and coals generate too little
heat in proportion to their bulk. Parry was the first who,
in his journey of 1827, employed spirits of wine ; he still used
wood and coals in 1820 and Lyon in 1822,
5. The nights are passed either in snow huts, or in tents.
If tents be used, the climate must determine their material,
whether cotton or sailcloth. A mackintosh floor-cloth .should
always be spread over the ground of the tent. It is indis
pensable to make the walls of the snow huts two or three
feet high, in order to allow room for movement, and the closed
side, i.e. the side opposite the entrance, must be made double,
as it is always exposed to the direction of the wind. The
tent entrance must be carefully closed with hooks and rings,
and should not reach to the ground. A tent formed by two
poles, about eight feet long, crossed at each end, with another
to rest on these supports, is the most simple and secure form
of erection. During the journey, a small sail may be advan
tageously used, whenever the wind is favourable; one ofthe
tent-poles may be used as a mast, and an " Alpine stock " may
serve as a yard for the sail.
6. The sledge party passes the night in a common sleeping
bag, in which there may be, under propitious circumstances,
smaller separate bags for each. When the temperature is not
below - 13° F., the sleeping bag may be made out of a warm
strong quilt; but when the cold is more intense, it must be made
of buffalo-skin, and to prevent its being pulled off during the
night it should be buttoned at the top in the middle Sheep
skins cannot be recommended for this purpose, as they are
fer heavier than buffalo-skins ; and as they more easily collect

226 AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES. [CHAp.
moisture, so they freeze more quickly. The sleeping bag
should always be wrapped up in the tent and packed with it
on the sledge, so that it may come as little as possible in
contact with the snow. If the temperature should fall below
— 35° F., the travelling party suffers greatly from the frost
even in such a sleeping bag, and it would then be advisable
to lay an inflated india-rubber mattress under the bag, so
that only the legs of the sleepers should be exposed to the
influence of the cold.
7. As for arms, it is enough to have three double-barrelled
Lefaucheux rifles and one revolver ; and even in districts
where encounters with bears may be daily expected, three
cartridges a day are a sufficient stock of ammunition. These
should be explosive shells, with steel points. Small shot
cartridges are indispensable on sledge expeditions, as birds
are not unfrequently met with. When the cold is excessive,
great caution must be used with the cock of the lock, as the
brittleness of the metal then causes it to be easily broken ;
and from the same cause the hammer will often not stand at
half-cock. The guns must not be oiled, as it sometimes
happens that the hammer on full-cock will not go down
where the lock is smeared with oil. Light woollen gloves
should be worn for shooting, in order that the fingers may
not be frozen in handling the guns.
8, A chest, fixed on the fore-part of the sledge, contains
the instruments used in surveying and in the determination
of localities ; also a thermometer and an aneroid barometer,
lucifer matches and cartridges, packed in tin boxes and care
fully protected from damp ; a supply of nails and screws,
wind-screens for the travellers, sewing materials, the spoons
of the party, extra soles of felt for shoes, medical stores,
brushes, sketch-book, flags, and a supply of light cord. The
pocket-chronometer must be worn in close contact with the
body of the leader of the party, to guard it against the
hurtful influences of the cold,
9. The provisions should be placed below everything,
when the sledge is loaded. The daily allowance for each
man ought to be increased by half a pound above the usual
rations on board ship, so that about 2J lbs. or 2f lbs. of sohd
food fall to the share of each man, and about an equal weight

III.] THE EQUIPMENT OF A SLEDGE EXPEDITION. 227
to each dog, McClintock allowed 2^ to 3 lbs. a head for the
men ; but only i lb. pemmican a day for the Eskimo dogs.
Hayes calculates provisions for fourteen dogs for twelve days
at 300 lbs, — almost 2 lbs. a day ; and, on another occasion, for
fifteen dogs for thirty-eight days, at 800 lbs ; and considers
ll lbs. for Eskimo dogs as too little, when great demands are
made on their strength and endurance. From my own
experience, I should say, that the least diminution of this
quantity of nourishment reduces the capacity to endure great
cold and excessive exertions, and produces, after even a few
days, a feeling of lassitude both in the men and the dogs,
harder to endure than even the sensation of hunger. Parry,
in his sledge and boat expedition of 1827, found that 10 oz. of
biscuit and 9 oz, of pemmican were hardly sufficient to sustain
a man's strength. " It may be useful," he observes,^ " to
remark, as' the result of absolute experience, that our daily
allowance of provisions, although previously tried for some
days on board the ship, and then considered to be enough,
proved by no means sufficient to support the strength of men
living constantly in the open air, exposed to wet and cold for
at least twelve hours a day, seldom enjoying the luxury of a
warm meal, and having to perform the kind of labour to
which our people were subject, I have before remarked,
that, previously to our return to the ship, our strength was
considerably impaired, and, indeed, there is reason to believe,
very soon after entering upon the ice the physical energies
of the men were gradually diminishing, although for the first
few weeks they did not appear to labour under any specific
complaint. This diminishing of strength, which we con
sidered to be owing to the want of sufficient sustenance,
became apparent, even after a fortnight, in the lifting of the
bread bags ; and I have no doubt that, in spite of every care
on the part of the officers, some of the men, who had begun
to fail before we quitted the ice, would, in a week or two
longer, have suffered very severely, and become a serious
incumbrance, instead of an assistance, to our party ; and we
were of opinion, that in order to maintain the strength of
men thus employed, for several weeks together, an addition
' Narrative of an Attempt to Reach the North Pole, pp. 145, 146, 410. London :
1828.

228 AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES. [CHAP.
would be requisite of at least one-third more to the provisions
we daily issued,"
IO. To facilitate inspection, it is advisable to portion off
the stock of provisions for each week in separate sacks, and
never to open a fresh sack till the previous one has been
emptied. The contents of the sacks for the latter weeks
should be increased a fifth-part at least above the normal
weight; because hunger with its accompanying loss of strength
generally grows in a distressing manner. The provisions
should consist of boiled beef, hard bread, extract of meat,
chocolate, grits, pea-sausages, sugar, rice, condensed . milk,
and coffee. Tea and the two last mentioned articles of food
have an indescribably reviving effect, especially in the morning,
and- enable the party to make long forced marches, warding
off the great enemy of such expeditions — thirst. Pemmican
and fatty substances, however, when the temperature is very
low, must be used in moderation, inasmuch as they tend to
promote this evil. The fact that we require more carbon in
our food in winter than in summer, and that the colder a
country is, the more of this element should be found in its
nourishment, may, indeed, be true for life in settled abodes
or on board an Arctic ship, but does not hold good of sledge
journeys. As fresh meat affords, under all circumstances, the
strongest nourishment, the business of hunting must not be
left to chance. In order to diminish the weight, all preserved
foods — with the exception of milk — are turned out of their
tin cases, and kept in small bags. Wherever there is a cer
tainty of finding drift-wood, I would recommend, as Back does,
vermicelli or macaroni, which can then be properly prepared.
Good strong tea is of the greatest importance, though at
first we set little store by it. A small ration of rum daily
is almost indispensable in sledge journeys, especially when the
temperature is very low. Franklin (1819) and John Ross
(1829) both pronounce in favour of the moderate use of this
spirit, though they were of opinion that rum, when the crews
were leading an inactive life on board ship, promoted scurvy.
The provisions we have specified do not altogether correspond
with the views of earlier Polar navigators, ; Pachtussow and
Ziwolka provided themselves in their sledge journeys (1835)
with the following stores : — Salted meat, barley-meal, grits.

III.] THE EQUIPMENT OF A SLEDGE EXPEDITION. 229

biscuit, butter, tea and sugar ; and Parry's provisions, in 1827,
consisted of pemmican, wheat-meal, sweet cocoa-powder,
biscuit, and 300 lbs. of concentrated rum.^ Hayes preferred
dried meat, beef-soup, and potatoes to the usual pemmican.
II, The equipment should be supplemented by the follow
ing articles : — A small cask of strong rum, a funnel, an india-
rubber bottle to measure out the daily allowance of spirit, a
snow-shovel, and a stand for surveying purposes. The sketch
given below exhibits a sledge laden and packed for a long
journey.

THE SLEDGH WITH ITS LOAD.

a, Spirit-can.
/, Ajce, Thermometer.
hf Dog-sledge.
i, Cooking-machine.
A, Box of instruments.
m, Tent and sleeping-bags.

n and z, Surveying-Stand and tent-pole.
o, Sledge-sail.
r, Sacks of provisions.
s, India-rubber bottle.
t, Funnel.
7t. Shovel.

12. To obviate the danger of being cut off from the ship
by the breaking up of the ice, or to enable the party to push
on further, boats have frequently been taken in sledge
expeditions. For such purposes, boats of thin metal or of wood
are not to be commended ; those made of leather, india-
rubber, or waterproof sailcloth, are preferable But even when
their wooden frame-work is made as light as possible, their
weight is not less than 300 or 400 lbs. The addition of this
weight, and the difficulty of lading them, are so much felt on
such journeys, that the boat is usually left behind at a little
distance from the ship, as was the case in Kane and Hayes'
jouriieys up Smith's Sound. The case is different, however,
in journeys which have to be carried out partly on the ice and
1 Narrative, &c. Intro, p. xiv.

230 AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES. [CHAP.
partly — and, indeed, chiefly — on the sea. In such cases, boats
of sufficient size to carry both the crews and the baggage are
requisite. The whale boat of the Norwegian whalers, carrying
seven or eight men, is best adapted for this purpose; although,
in long reaches of deep snow, they have their inconveniences,
as almost double the number of men is then needed to drag
them along. The boats in such expeditions are transported
over the ice when the snow road is good, or only passably
good, by means of the largest of the sledges we have
described ; but, if the snow be very deep, it would be advis
able to use sledges with three runners underneath, boarded
over, so as to prevent the load from sinking into the
snow,^ 13. As the sledge party has to endure for several weeks
all the horrors of Arctic weather, the article of clothing
demands special care and consideration. Abundance of
woollen under-garments and light furs best answer this
purpose. The woollen under-garments should not fit too
closely, so as to hinder the circulation of the blood ; and the
fur coat should be wide, and reach half-way down the leg.
It would be a great m.istake to take the clothing of the
northern nomad as our pattern. Our powers of enduring
the severities of Arctic climate are inferior to theirs, so that
we cannot attempt to imitate their hardihood ; but our own
industries enable-us to surpass all their resources. During the-
march, a long garment of lamb's-wool, to which a belly-band
is sewn, two stout linen shirts, one or two pairs of woollen
drawers, strong cloth trousers, a pair of common mittens, and
a light hood, are sufficient for all temperatures. Wind,
especially if it be accompanied with drifting snow, necessi
tates fur coats, with hoods attached, two pairs of woollen
gloves, and a band of flannel to protect the nose, buttoned
on to the hood. Wind-guards, made of strong leather
serving to protect the face against wind and frost, must not
be neglected. Flannel masks, with holes cut for nose and
mouth, are of little use, as they are completely frozen in a
few hours, A shawl wrapped round the mouth is, after all,
the best protection against cold wind, and the least hindrance
to respiration. As the shortest beard is converted at once
* See description of Parry's Boats — Narrative, &c. Intro, pp. xi.-xii.

III.] THE EQUIPMENT OF A SLEDGE EXPEDITION. 231
into a glacier by the freezing of the breath, it is necessary to
cut it off. The accompanying figure exhibits the Arctic sledger
prepared for the eventualities of cold. It need scarcely,
however, be remarked, that no absolutely general rules can
be laid down in the matter of clothing, which depends on the
different capacities of resistance in individuals, and also on
the variations of the weather. When the temperature is not
more than 2° or 13° below zero F., some diminution of the
garments enumerated above may safely be allowed. Knitted
woollen hoods are sufficient protection for the head in almost

THE DRESS OF THE ARCTIC SLEDGER.

all cases. Gloves, not intended to be used in drawing and in
handling the instruments, should be made of lamb's-wool,
and the fingers lined with flannel. The stockings also should
be strengthened with flannel at the heels and toes, and
should be kept as dry as possible; because wet feet are
inevitably frozen when the cold is excessive. Hence, also,
the stockings must be changed at night and dried, by being
laid on the chest during sleep.
14 In the matter of furs, no better can be selected than
buffalo-skin, or wash-leather made of bear's hide ; though no

232 AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES. [CHAP.
covering can surpass that which is made from the skins of
birds — Eider-ducks, for example — which is equally good for
either summer or winter, during the march, or even during
sleep, and which need be exchanged for furs only when the
temperature during a night-camping falls 35° to 58° below zero
F. Sheep-skin and wolf-skin are too heavy ; and the reindeer-
skin, though so light and warm, is not suitable, as it at once
loses the hair when exposed to damp, and does not last a
winter with constant use ; but of these, the best are those of
the young reindeer killed- in autumn. Some Arctic travellers,
in the absence of furs, have used an extra covering of light
sailcloth, as a protection against the drifting snow, which
penetrates the clothes and stiffens them. We have tried this
experiment, but were not convinced of its success. In Parry's
second expedition, his people are said to have worn their furs
next to their bodies, and to have found this warmer than the
wearing of woollens next the skin ; but this I am inclined to
regard as a mistake. When furs are worn during the march,
their congelation and consequent increase of weight are
diminished by wearing the furs sometimes inside and some
times outside. The inhabitants of Lapland and Kamschatka
constantly wear the fur outside ; and some Eskimo tribes
wear double furs — one turned inside, the other outside. If
cloth clothes are worn, their surface should be smooth, so as
not to harbour the driving snow ; and all buttons should be
of a large size, as frozen fingers find it easier to manage
them. 1 5 . The covering for the feet of a sledge-party should , be
sailcloth boots, lined with flannel, and soled with stout felt;
and it is not advisable to strengthen the soles by plaiting
them with string, as the boot thereby loses that perfect
pliability which is indispensable to preserve the foot from
the danger of frost-bite. Hence also any covering of india-
rubber is objectionable. Leather boots must not be used in
sledging ; because they become utterly unpliable at a low
temperature, and make frost-bites inevitable ; and when
once put on they cannot be pulled off without being cut
to pieces. All boots should be so large and their legs so
wide, that they may be put on conveniently over the
trousers ; and sailcloth boots especially, because of their

III.] THE EQUIPMENT OF A SLEDGE EXPEDITION. 233
shrinking from frost, should be so wide, that they can be
put on easily over three pairs of strong woollen stockings.
The Eskimo, the inhabitants of Lapland, Kamschatka, and
other northern nomad tribes, wear the dried grass of Cyper-
acites as their foot-coverings; and this might be recom
mended, if it did not also involve the use of skin-coverings
for the feet, in which no European can make long marches,
without their being inflamed. Because, in the Arctic regions,
the condensation of moisture in the shape of ice is an enemy
constantly to be guarded against, all stuffs are to be avoided
which tend to harbour moisture, especially the linings of
coats, pockets, and so forth, made of cotton instead of pure
wool. India-rubber garments must never be used, as they
prevent evaporation from the body.
16. If dogs are used to draw the large sledges along with
men, they ought to be harnessed in the way which the sketch
on a preceding page represents. The dog-sledge should be
laid across the hinder part of the principal sledge, and made
fast to it. If, however, dogs alone are employed, and at walk
ing-pace, they are harnessed in pairs, one pair behind the
other. Each dog should draw by a single trace, as we can
only thus avoid the constant entangling of the rope-traces.
If more than four dogs be employed, they cannot well go
in pairs one before the other, but must be harnessed to the
sledge in a row, side by side, and the traces must be long,
so as to enable the most powerful and best-trained dogs,
which are placed in the middle, to be somewhat in advance of
the others. The dogs should be selected according to the
special purpose for which they are to be employed ; for,
while an Eskimo dog will run, but shirks the effort of draw
ing heavy loads, a Newfoundland submits to its load, but
goes at a foot's-pace. In the Hudson's Bay territory a cross
between a wolf ahd a dog is regarded as the best animal
for draught, because it surpasses the dog proper in strength
and courage. Newfoundlands of pure breed are, on the whole,
most to be recommended, and next to them, the Eskimo dog,
which has a good deal of the character of the wolf, though he
is difficult to hold. These dogs, too, although they are in
describably thievish, voracious, and ill-tempered, in consequence
of their harsh treatment and bad feeding, have this further
17

234 AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES. [chap. hi.
distinguishing quality, that they will stick tg a retreating
bear with wonderful pertinacity till the hunter comes up to
kill it. European dogs are only to be taken when an expedi
tion has not the opportunity of procuring dogs of the kinds
we have mentioned ; but, if they be employed, they should
be strong and hardy, with long hair and thick coat. The
purity of their breed is of less consequence than their being
good-tempered, as fights between large dogs end in the
destruction of the weaker. The Ostjaks, in the neighbour
hood of Obdorsk, are the nomad tribes nearest Europe who
use dogs for sledges ; and their breed of dogs is far superior
to any other, either in Lapland or Northern Russia. The
dogs of Russia in Europe were employed in the expedition

TOROSSY IN HARNESS.

(1839) of Ziwolka and Mojsejew to Novaya Zemlya; but
it does not appear that they answered the expectations
which had been formed. In sledge-expeditions the dogs are
allowed to sleep in the open air ; but they must be fastened to
stakes, lest the scenting some animal should tempt them
to run off. We ourselves, however, allowed a small tent,
weighing little, for the few dogs which accompanied us. Dogs
whose paws have not been early hardened by long marches
on the ice, easily hurt their feet, which do not heal during
the journey ; and wounds can only be prevented from getting ¦
worse by a daily application of collodion and brandy, and
by a protection of flannel ; and this is the treatment we
pursued to Jubinal in the journey we are about to describe.
Whenever a dog is exhausted by dragging, it is generally
blooded in the tail or ear after the fashion followed by the
Siberian tribes.

CHAPTER IV.
THE FIRST SLEDGE JOURNEY
I. From the preceding remarks on the equipment of a sledge,
the reader will, perhaps, have gained a pretty clear notion
of the procedure by which we are enabled to travel for weeks
in Arctic wastes. This description will have shown him the
various and manifold contingencies against which a leader has
to provide, if he is to conduct an expedition safely and
successfully, especially if he commands a body of men, who
are neither so careful nor so observant as those who ac
companied me in the sledge journeys I am about to describe.
2. I now pass to the first of these, the object of which was
to determine the position and general relations of the new
Land, which still remained a mystery to us, to reconnoitre
a route for its exploration towards the north, and to ascertain
what we could of the character of the intervening regions.
I regarded the ascent of the high mountain — Cape Tegetthoff
— which we had seen before us for months, as the preliminary
step towards the attainment of these ends. Its great distance
from the ship had rendered abortive all the attempts to reach
it which had been made at the end of last autumn. With
the beginning of March (1874) the sledging was now to com-
. mence in reality. Though the sun had returned on the
24th of February, it was seldom visible in the remaining
days of that month ; a heavy water-sky overspread the
southern heavens, and the only cheerful precursors of spring
were the birds which once more appeared in our neighbour
hood. The snow had been distressingly soft, but the north
east winds which prevailed during the first days of March
hardened it. When these winds fell, the temperature also

236 AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES. . [CHAP.
fell, and although the beginning of March is regarded as
a time little favourable for sledge travelling on account of
the excessive cold, our impatience for action overcame all
doubts and fears, and on the 9th one of our larger sledges
stood ready, laden and packed for an expedition, equipped
for a week. It carried an extra quantity of provisions,
which were intended to form dep6ts. From the general store
we took 39 lbs. of hard bread, 5 lbs. of pemmican, 16 lbs,
of boiled beef, 6| lbs, of lard, i lb, of pea-sausage, ^ lb. of
salt and pepper, 6 lbs, of rice, 2 lbs, of grits, 5 lbs. of
chocolate, 5 gallons of rum, i lb. of extract of meat, 2 lbs.
of condensed milk, and 8 gallons of alcohol. The rest of
the baggage consisted of such articles as we have described
above. We had besides 3 breech-loaders and 100 cartridges,
of which 40 were fired away,
3. I selected for my party six men and three dogs, Gillis,
Torossy and Sumbu, As I reserved the picked men of our
crew for the contemplated longer journey towards the north,
some of the above were not altogether adequate to the work.
My two Tyrolese, however, Haller and Klotz, possessed great
endurance, Lukinovich and Cattarinch in a lesser degree-; as
for Pospischill and Lettis, they would have done credit to
Falstaff's corps. As Pospischill suffered from lung disease,
Lukinovich from palpitation of the heart, Haller from chronic
rheumatism, and Lettis from a tendency to bronchial catarrh,
it may be inferred how necessity alone enabled them to
do what they did, when the temperature fell lower than we
expected. 4. On the morning of the loth of March we left the ship,
and the " Flag of the sledge journeys," jvhich had hung for
so long a time over my berth, now fluttered in the fresh
breeze which blew from the north-west. So much had this
" at last," excited me, that I could not sleep a wink, and those
who were starting on the expedition as well as those who
remained behind were as much agitated, as if the conquest of
Peru or Ophir were contemplated, and not the exploration of
lands buried under snow and ice. With indescribable joy we
began the mechanical drudgery of dragging the sledge, each
of us at first wearing a mask, like the members of the
" Vehmgericht," until we became habituated to the withering

IV.] THE FIRST SLEDGE JOURNEY. 237
effects of the wind. As we moved along the level surface
of the land ice of the preceding autumn, after forcing our way
through the hummocky ice, which had formed itself on the
north of the ship, we saw behind us some black spots
approaching at full speed. These were the dogs we had
left behind, which insisted on travelling with us, and much
craft and force, supplemented by the logic of a few shots,
were needed to force them to return to the ship. My com
panions interpreted the conduct of the dogs refusing to remain
with the ship as a sign foreboding the death of our engineer.
As the lading of our sledge amounted to about 6 or 7 cwts.
and the snow was favourable for sledging, we were able to
advance at the unusual rate of 100 paces in a minute, and in
two hours we passed the south-west Cape of Wilczek Island.
Close to this Cape we saw an iceberg which had fallen on
the ice and crushed it all round, and sheltering ourselves from
the wind under the lee of another, we took our mid-day rest,
with the thermometer at - 15° F. As the sun at noon was
so little above the horizon that we got uncertain results for the
determination of the latitude, I preferred during this journey
to begin the surveying and, at the same time, the determina
tion of the localities of Franz-Josef Land, by a triangulation
of elevated points, to which the measurement of a base was
afterwards to be added. Hence the ascent of high mountains
formed part of our programme.
5. We continued our march till the ship disappeared from
our eyes, and the route now lost its level character and
assumed the appearance of a very chaos of ice. In the
evening we reached a high rocky promontory of Wilczek
Island, near which rose some stranded icebergs, and against
which the ice-sheet of the sea, impelled by the waves, was
dashed and broken. Close in shore the ice was in violent
motion,, and as we passed over the "ice-foot," to the amaze
ment of all, three of our men fell into a fissure. All through
the night we heard in our tent, which we erected on the land,
the cracking and crashing sounds emitted by the ice. Next
day— March nth — making a very early start, the ther
mometer at - 14° F., we saw a water-sky to the south, and,
after ascending a height, close before us lay the sea, covered
with young ice. Heavy mists were ascending from fissures.

238 AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES. [chap.
and the level surface of the young ice glowed with the colours
of the morning. Immediately under the coast of the island
lay a narrow band of piled-up ice, with traces of recent
pressures, and thinking that the interior was impassable to
a laden sledge, we began our toilsome march along its rocky
coasts. 6. We were in no mood to observe the picturesque character
of our route, for our labours in dragging the sledge over the
hummocky ice were excessive. We had frequently to unload
the sledge or dig away an obstacle which could not be evaded.
The conduct of the dogs was not quite faultless ; and as for
my companions, if one of them turned round, or if a bird
flew past, this was enough to make the rest pause in their
pulling, with the ready excuse of surprise at the circumstance.
If in such cases Klotz failed to exert his strength, the sledge
at once came to a standstill. We pressed on through icebergs
on each side of us, shattered by the frost, and amid a constant
noise of cracking and splitting produced by the increasing
cold. At length, after several hours, we came out on an
open level and crossed the gentle slope of a snow-covered spit
of land. The rugged mountainous front of Hall Island,
and the long glacier walls of M'Clintock Island, now rose
before us. Our course lay clearly marked out : it ran in a
north-westerly direction over a snow-covered level of old ice
towards Cape Tegetthoff. Soon, however, the mist began to
rise and floated over tbe wide expanse of ice, and so obscured
every object that we were able to continue our journey in the
twihght only by means of the compass. We determined our
course by the aid of small hummocks of ice, which rose above
the general level surface, but so great was the difficulty of
keeping a definite line in the mist, that we were compelled to
halt every four hundred paces, and correct our route by the
larger compass, which often showed that we had deviated 20°
to 40° in azimuth from the true line, and in some cases the
error amounted to even 90°. To add to all this, snow began
to fall, so that we were almost blinded, and hence it was that
a bear for some time followed our footsteps, unseen by any of
the party. When we first sighted him, though he was at a
little distance off, he looked enormously large in the mist.
We quickly seized our rifles, and one of our men firing

IV.] THE FIRST SLEDGE JOURNEY. 239
precipitately, the bear disappeared, leaving no track of blood
to show whether it had been wounded. But bears, even when
severely wounded, often leave no such trace ; hence doubtless
the origin of the assertion, that a wounded bear can dress its
own wound, using its paw to apply snow to the injured
part. 7. It was our practice in this, as well as in the following
expeditions, to rest at noon for an hour or two, and putting
up the tent take a meal of hot boiled beef. But the inferiority
of an untrained to a well-trained sledge party was seen even
in such operations. Much time was wasted ; in like manner
and from the same cause, the coffee-making in the morning,
the preparation for the march, the taking down of the tent,
the loading of the sledge, occupied my party for hours, and
the smallest snow-drifting sufficed to blow away all their
moral force. As we left the tent, the bear stood again before
us, but disappeared as suddenly when we seized our rifles.
In the course of a few hours we passed some icebergs shaped
like huge tables, and when the wind rose and lifted up the
mist for a few moments, we saw the rocky heights of Cape
Tegetthoff towering above us at no great distance. The
snow began to drive directly in our faces, and meanwhile the
bear had followed our steps, often hidden from our sight
by the vehement gusts of snow, sometimes on our flank,
sometimes in our rear, keeping at about 200 paces distance
from us. By feigning unconcern we hoped to stimulate his
courage to attack us, reckoning on converting him into food.
Suddenly, however, he ran towards us, and our apparent
indifference disappeared. In a moment we stood ready to
receive him ; the sledge was drawn across the line of his
advance, and each casting off his drag-rope, knelt and aimed
over the sledge. The directions were to aim at the lower part
of the skull, and to fire only when he was quite close to us.
The dogs were moved to the further side of the sledge, and
covered with its sail. Of the other four men, two held the
dogs, a third laid hold of a revolver, and the fourth provided
himself with some cartridges ready for contingencies. After
the completion of these preparations, no one either moved or
spoke The bear meanwhile, moved steadily towards us,
stopping for a moment at the spot where a piece of bread had

240 AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES. [CHAP.
intentionally been placed. Just as he stopped to examine it,
three shots in rapid succession went off, and the bear, hit in
the head and chest, lay dead on the ground. The dogs, being
let loose, rushed on their fallen foe and began to tear his
shaggy skin. While we were cutting the bear up, they sat
down and watched us, occasionally dipping their tongues in
the warm red blood and snapping up the morsels which were
thrown to them. The bear we had shot was a female, six
feet in length ; and after cutting off the tongue and the best
portions for meat, we continued our march in the teeth of
the driving snow. One of our people had cut his finger
badly in dressing the bear, and as the application of chloride
of iron did not suffice to stop the violent bleeding, we were
compelled to halt and erect our tent about six o'clock in the
evening, 8, When we set out again on the morning of the 12th
(the thermometer marking — 26° F,) all round us was a red
undulating waste, and the driving gusts of snow, which hid
from our view the nearest rocky heights, pricked us as if with
countless sharp-pointed darts. Such drifting snow, although
it greatly impedes travelling, cannot be compared with the
tremendous snow-storms I had experienced in Greenland.
The same precursory signs were, however, common to both —
extraordinary refractions, brilliant auroras, perfect calms, and
a dull close atmosphere. In taking down the tent, which was
covered with wreaths of snow, every article which fell in it
was at once buried under its drifting waves. Of all the tests
of endurance in Arctic journeys none exceeds that of con
tinuing the march amid driving snow at a low temperature.
Some of my company who had not been accustomed to walk
in such tremendous weather, in attempting to button on their
wind-screens and nose-bands and fasten up their coats after we
had left the tent, at once had their fingers frozen. Our sail
cloth boots were as hard as stone, and every one took to
stamping to preserve his feet from frost-bite. Under such
circumstances the sledge is not packed with that precision
which is the only preservative against the loss of the various
articles of its contents. To watch against this contingency
is the special business of the man who pushes the sledge from
behind. Hurry and confusion were visible in the bag of

241

IV.] THE FIRST SLEDGE JOURNEY.
provisions being left open. At last everything was ready:
the march began, men and dogs, dragging the sledge along,
all coated with snow and entirely covered except the eyes.
In a momentary lull of the wind, we discovered that our
march the day before had led us far too much to the south,
and Cape Tegetthoff now lay before us directly north.
Thither we now directed our steps, and as the wind still came
from the north-west, we struck our sledge sail. As a con
sequence of this marching against the wind, which is most
severely felt by the leaders of the team, all, even Klotz, had
their noses frost-bitten. We had much difficulty in persuading
him to rub his with snow, urging that his nose did not belong
to himself alone, but that seven noses and fourteen feet were
under the general supervision of the leader, and that each
had a share in this general property.
9. As we came under the land, the violence of the snow-
drifting somewhat abated, and in about two hours a calm
set in. Close before us lay the plateau of Cape Tegetthoff,
with its steep precipitous sides. From its summit a line of
basalt rocks descended towards the east, ending in two
columns, each about two hundred feet high. We reached
them just before noon, and the weather being propitious we
determined the latitude by observation and found it to be
80° 6' N.L. The force of the tide not being able to raise
or burst the bay-ice, the thaw-water of the spring collects
itself on the coast-edge in small lakes. Close under one
of these towers of dark-coloured basalt, we set up our tent ;
and while our cook was preparing our dinner of bear's flesh
we lay in the sun under the rocks in order to dry our clothes,
which were coated all over with ice.
10. About one o'clock I set off with the Tyrolese to the
plateau of Cape Tegetthoff. Those who remained behind
spent their time in rubbing their feet with snow. Lettis had
reserved for us the unpleasant surprise that his feet had been
frost-bitten for three hours, and that he had lost all feeling in
them. We marched for an hour on the snow, which lay in
tender azure-blue shadow under the long line of basalt rocks,
and after climbing for another hour over rosy-coloured masses
of snow lying between crystallized rocks, we reached the
highest point of the undulating plateau. No ascent could be

242

AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES.

[CHAP.

more interesting, made, as it was, in a country so utterly
unknown. Haller and Klotz were born mountaineers, and
during my surveys in Tyrol I had made a hundred ascents of
mountains of io,000 feet, without the tension of expectation
I now experienced, as I mounted this summit. The ascent
was not without difficulty, and it taxed the extraordinary
dexterity of the two Tyrolese to climb up steep icy precipices
in their sail-cloth boots. It was about three o'clock in the
afternoon when we reached the summit ; the temperature had
fallen to —30° F. (in the tent the thermometer at the same
time marked — 24° F. and in the ship —20° F.), By a baro
metrical measurement we found the height to be 2,600 feet.
Contrary to expectation the view from the top proved to be

CAPE TEGETTHOFF.

limited. In a northerly direction, the atmosphere, laden
with innumerable ice crystals, possessed so little trans
parency that Cape Berghaus, at no distance off, appeared
to be covered with a thick veil, and all distant objects were
enveloped in a dense mist. Fogs lay over the interior to the
west, and banks of reddish vapour covered the icy ocean to
the south. Some narrow strips of open water sparkled in the
sun. After making a sketch of all that could be distinctly
seen, and determining the bearings of some points, we re
turned to the tent. Here we found Lettis and Cattarinch
engaged in rubbing with snow the hands of Lukinovich,
which had been frost-bitten, while he was occupied in rubbing
the feet of Lettis.

IV,] THE FIRST SLEDGE JOURNEY. 243
II. Nothing except the wind makes men so sensitive to
cold as the want of exercise. The fall of the temperature
had been felt far more by those who remained behind, than
by ourselves. Even the wonderful beauty of the snow-clad
summit bathed in rosy light failed to modify their severe
judgment of Franz-Josef Land, Instead of greeting us with
supper ready at the appointed hour, which he ought to have
prepared without the use of spirit, the bewildered cook was
vainly endeavouring to roast bear's flesh over smoky chips
and sticks, and we got our supper only after I had served out
a bottle of alcohol. We then went to rest in the common
sleeping bag, but soon began to shake with cold, which threw
Pospischill, who took oil twice a day for lung-disease, into a
fever. When I left the tent to look at the thermometers, the
mercury in one had gone down into the bulb and was frozen,
and the spirits of wine in the other showed 41° below zero
(C). Some hot grog, for which a whole bottle of strong rum
was used, put us all right, raising the temperature of our
bodies by one or two degrees. After this refreshment we all
fell into a deep sleep, which was incommoded only by the
increasing dampness of our clothes.
12. We started again about six o'clock on the morning of
March 13. The sun had not risen, the spirit of wine thermo
meter indicated nearly 44° (C.) below zero, and a piercingly
cold breeze met us from the land. Even on board the ship the
temperature at the same time marked 37° (C.) below zero, a
difference to be ascribed to the influence of the land in lower
ing the temperature. In Greenland we observed still greater
deviations of this nature, which seem to show that climatical
influences are subject to great variations, even in places which
are in close proximity. Cape Berghaus was our goal. From
its summit a general view of the distribution of the land under
80° N. lat. was reasonably to be expected. Long before the
rise of the sun, the hard snowy plains were tinted with a pale
green reflected light, and the icebergs wore a dull silvery hue,
while their outlines constantly changed and undulated. Our
road was formed from millions of glittering snow crystals, so
hard that the sledge glided over them with difficulty and with
a creaking noise, and after three hours, the exertion of dragging
had so exhausted us that we determined to unload the sledge.

244 AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES. [chap.
and, after melting some snow, to wet its runners with water.
A layer of ice was immediately formed on them, which greatly
facilitated the labour of dragging, till it was rubbed off. A
broad inlet surrounded by picturesque mountains — Nordens
kjold Fiord — had opened out on our left, and as a large
glacier formed the background of this fiord, we took a wester
ly direction in order to study the ice-formation. The heights
surrounding this fiord seemed equally as well fitted as Cape
Berghaus for the object we had in view. The further we
penetrated into it, the deeper became the layer of fine powdery
snow which the wind had deposited in this hollow. At noon

MELTING SNOW DURING A HALT NEAR CAPE BERGHAUS.

we reached the high precipitous termination of Sonklar-
Glacier, and pitched our tent by an iceberg.
13. In the afternoon, accompanied by the Tyrolese, I
ascended a mountain — Cape Littrow — whose height, by
means of an aneroid barometer, we ascertained to be 2,500
feet. From its summit we had a view of the mountains of
Hall Island, and of the islands which lay to the east. Not a
breath of wind was stirring, and the atmosphere was clearer
than usual, so that, without suffering in the least degree from
cold, I could work for three hours, first in sketching our sur
roundings and then in taking observations. From south-west

IV.] THE FIRST SLEDGE JOURNEY. 245
to north-east the peaks of distant mountains rose above the
summits of those in the foreground. This view, while it assured
us that the land we had named after our monarch must be of
great extent, stimulated our impatience to know its extent,
and the nature and relation of its constituent parts. The
Wiillersdorf Mountains were the extren^ limits of what
could be known for the present, and their three peaks glowed
in the setting sun above the dark edges of the terraces of the
Sonklar-Glacier, whose broad terminal front over-hung the
frozen bay of Nordenskjold Fiord. It was eight o'clock in the
evening when we returned to our tent, not, however, before we
had made suitable preparations for the observation of the
movement of the glacier. Sumbu and Torossy were our
companions ; but we had to tie them with a rope both in
going up and coming down, and we ourselves only mastered
the great steepness of the cone of the mountain by steps
which Klotz, who went on before, hewed with incomparable
dexterity and precision in the ice. During the night the
temperature fell to 46° below zero (C.) (—47° F- i" the ship),
and I do not believe that we could have passed through it
without the help of grog. We drank it as we lay close to
gether muffled up in our sleeping bag. It was boiling hot,
and so strong, that under other circumstances it must have
made us incapable of work, yet in spite of the grog, we
suffered much all through the night from cold and our frozen
clothes.

CHAPTER V.
THE COLD.
I. The coldest day we had during this expedition was the
14th of March. By six o'clock on the morning of that day
the Tyrolese and I stood on the summit of the precipitous
face of the Sonklar-Glacier. The others remained behind to
clear the tent of snow, and to bury a small dep6t of provisions
in an iceberg which was close at hand. The sun had not yet
risen, though a golden gleam behind the glaciers of Salm
Island indicated his near approach. At last the sun himself
appeared, blood-red, glowing with indistinct outline througli
the mists, and surrounded with parhelia, which generally occur
when the cold is great. The tops of the high snowfy moun
tains were first touched with rosy light, which gradually
descended and spread over the icy plains, and the sun like a
ball of fire shone at length clearly through the frosty mist,
and everything around seemed on fire. As the sun even at
noon was but a few degrees above the horizon, this wonderful
colouring lasted throughout the day, and the mountains,.
whose steepest sides were covered with a frosty efflorescence,
shone like glass in this radiant light. The alcohol thermo
meter soon after we came on the glacier fell to 59° i' (F.)
below zero,^ and a light breeze blowing from the interior,.
which would have been pleasant enough on a March day in
Europe, exposed me, while engaged in the indispensable work
of drawing and measuring, to such danger, that though I
worked under the shelter of my Tyrolese companions as a
protection against the cold, I was constantly compelled to rub
^ This was the maximum of cold I observed during my three Polar expeditions.

chap, v.]

THE COLD.

247

my stiffened and benumbed hands with snow. We had taken
some rum with us, and as each took his share, he knelt down
and .allowed another to shake it into his mouth, without
bringing the metal cup in contact with his lips. This rum,
though it was strong, seemed to have lost all its strength and
fluidity. It tasted like innocent milk, and its consistence was
that of oil. The bread was frozen so hard that we feared to
break our teeth in biting it, and it brought blood as we ate it.
The attempt to smoke a cigar was a punishment rather than
an enjoyment, because the icicles on our beards always put
them out, and when we took them out of our mouths they

ON THE SONKLAR-GLACIER.

were frozen. Even the shortest pipes met the same fate.
The instruments I used in surveying seemed to burn when I
touched them, and the medals which my companions wore on
their breasts felt like hot iron.
2. The phenomena of cold which we had the opportunity
of observing during this journey, and which I immediately re
corded, will perhaps justify a short break in my narrative while
I attempt to describe them. The horrors of a Scythian winter
are an ancient belief, and it used to be counted wisdom to shun
the zones where men were frozen, as well as the zones where men

248 AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES. [CHAP.
were scorched. But it has been assumed, with great exaggera
tion, that a hot climate makes men sensual and timid, while a
cold climate renders them virtuous and bold. There is far more
truth in the opinion held by some observers, and especially by
Polar navigators, that cold is depressing in its influence, and
enfeebles the powers of the will. At first it stimulates to
action, but this vigour is quickly followed by torpidity ; exer
tion is soon succeeded by the desire to rest. Persons exposed
to these alternations of increased action and torpor feel as if
they were intoxicated. From the stiffness and trembling of
their jaws they speak with great effort, they display uncer
tainty in all their movements and the stupor of somnambulists
in their actions and thoughts. Most of the circumpolar
animals escape, as much as they can, the horrors of the frost :
some migrate ; others, burying themselves in holes, sleep
throughout the winter. The fish, which are found in the
small pools of sweet water on the land are frozen in when
these pools freeze, and awake to life and movement again
only when the pools are thawed.
3. The human body, with an inner warmth amounting to
95°— 100° F., is exposed in the wastes of North America
and Siberia to frightful cold, the extremes of which have been
noted by many different observers. Back recorded in Fort
Reliance, Jan. 17, 1833, the temperature —67° F. ; Hayes,
March 17, 1861,-69° F. ; Nev^row, in Jakutzk, Jan, 31, 1838,
-74° F,; Kane,-69=F. ; Maclure, Jan. 1853,-73° F- ; John
Ross, 1831,-56° F. ; and Parry, 1821,-55° F-J while the
lowest temperature which has hitherto been observed in the
Alpin^ countries of Europe is only — 24° F. In consequence
of the difficulty of observing the extremes of cold, lower
temperatures than these can scarcely ever have been regis
tered. 4. In order to illustrate the effect of an extraordinarily low
temperature on the human frame, the best point to start from
is the imagination of a man exposed without clothes to its
influence. At 37° or 50° (C.) of cold a misty halo would en
compass him, the edges of which would have, under certain
circumstances, the colours of the rainbow. It is evident that
the moisture of the body rapidly coming forth and becoming
visible in the cold air would cause this mist, which would

v.] THE COLD. 249
decrease with the heat of the body, and disappear on the death
of the frozen man. The purpose of clothing is to counteract
as much as possible this twofold loss of warmth and moisture,
which is the principal cause of the fearful Arctic thirst. But
even clothed men exposed to so low a temperature present a
strange appearance. When they are dragging a sledge on the
march their breath streams forth like smoke, which is soon
transformed into a mass of needles of ice, almost hiding
their mouths from view ; and the snow on which they tread
steams with the heat which it receives from the snow beneath.
The countless crystals of ice, which fill the air and reduce the
clearness of day to a dull yellow twilight, make a continual
rustling noise ; their fall in the form of fine snow-dust, or
their floating as frosty vapour, is the cause of that penetrating
feehng of damp which is so perceptible when the cold is
intense, and which receives accretions from the vapours issuing
from the open places of the sea. Notwithstanding all this,
there is an indescribable dryness in the atmosphere, strongly
contrasting with the feeling of dampness. Heavy clouds
are impossible ; the heavens are covered only by mists,
through which the sun and the moon, surrounded by halos,
glow blood-red. Falls of snow, as we understand the ex
pression, altogether cease ; the snow crystals, under the in
fluence of cold, are so minute as to be almost invisible. The
land, the real home and source of cold, acts as the great
condenser of vapour, and snow and moisture of every kind,
and lies under a deep covering of frozen snow till the colour
of its walls and precipices reappears in April, The soil, in
the stricter sense of the word, is frozen as hard as iron
wherever it appears through the snow, and the mean tem
perature of Franz-Josef Land (about 3° F.) makes it highly
probable, that the frost penetrates to the depth of a thousand
feet. Great cold, calm weather, and clear atmosphere com
bined, are the characteristics of the interior of Arctic countries.
The nearer we approach the sea, the rarer is this combination.
Light breezes sometimes occur with a temperature 37° (C.)
below zero,^ but the atmosphere is then less transparent,
5. It is well known that sound is propagated far more freely
' Hayes mentions a storm occurring at -27° F. ; but this is probably an error
of the press. 18

2SO AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES. [CHAP.

in Polar regions than with us. When the cold was great, we
could hear conversations, carried on in the usual tone of voice,
distinctly at the distance of several hundred paces. Parry
and Middendorf both assert that the voice is more audible at
a distance in cold weather. The propagation of sound seems
to find less hindrance from the irregular masses of ice and
cushions of snow, than from the curtains of our woods and
the carpets of our vegetation. In the mountainous districts
of Europe many of the characteristics of Polar regions, be
sides intense cold, are met with ; yet it is a fact, that the
report of a gun can scarcely be heard in those situations.
Cold, however, can scarcely be regarded as the essential con
dition of this phenomenon; for the propagation of sound,
though in a less striking degree, may be observed even in the
summers there.^ It would seem rather that the amount of
moisture in the atmosphere has a more decided influence in
the production of this phenomenon,
6. When the snow becomes hard as rock, its surface takes a
granular consistence like sugar. Where it lies with its massive
wreaths frozen in the form of billows, our steps resound, as we
walk over them, with the sound as of a drum. The ice is so
hard that it emits a ringing sound ; wood becomes wonderfully
hard, spHts, and is as difficult to cut as bone ; butter becomes
like stone ; meat must be split, and mercury may be fired as a
bullet from a gun.^
7. If cold thus acts on things without life, how much more
must it influence living organisms and the power of man's
will ! Cold lowers the beat of the pulse, weakens the bodily
sensations, diminishes the capacity of movement and of en
during great fatigue. Of all the senses, taste and smell most
lose their force and pungency, the mucous membrane being in
a constant state of congestion and excessive secretion. After
a time a decrease of muscular power is also perceptible. If
one is exposed suddenly to an excessive degree of cold, in
voluntarily one shuts the mouth and breathes through the
^ In Greenland I once heard at the distance of 800 paces a conversation between
Borgen and Copeland carried on in the usual tone.
^ Sir John Ross frequently did thib, sending the bullet through a solid boafd.
The freezing point of quicksilver is —40° F. It varies however between —40° and
— 45° F. , according to the purity of the metal.

v.] THE COLD, 251
nose; the cold air seems at first to pinch and pierce the
organs of respiration. The eyelids freeze even in calm
weather, and to prevent their closing we have constantly to
clear them from ice, and the beard alone is less frozen than
other parts of the body, because the breath as it issues from
the mouth falls down as snow. Snow-spectacles are dimmed
by the moisture of the eyes, and when the thermometer falls
37° (C.) below zero they are as opaque as frost-covered
windows. The cold, however, is most painfully felt in the
soles of the feet, when there is a cessation of exercise. Nervous
weakness, torpor, and drowsiness follow, which explains the
connection which is usually found between resting and freezing.
The most impprtant point, in fact, for a sledge party, which
has such exertions to make at a very low temperature, is to
stand still as little as possible. The excessive cold which is
felt in the soles of the feet during the noon-day rest is the
main reason why afternoon marches make such a demand on
the moral power. Great cold also alters the character of the
excretions, thickens the blood, and increases the need of
nourishment from the increased expenditure of carbon. And
while perspiration ceases entirely, the secretion of the mucous
membranes of the nose and eyes is permanently increased,
and the urine assumes almost a deep red colour. At first the
bowels are much confined, a state which, after continuing for
five and sometimes eight days, passes into diarrhoea. The
bleaching of the beard under these influences is a curious
fact. 8. Athough theoretically, the fat endure cold better than the
lean, in reality this is often reversed. Somewhat in the same
way it might be argued that the negro would have an advan
tage over the white man, for the former as a living black bulb
thermometer is more receptive of the warmer .waves of heat.
But blackening the face or smearing the body with grease are
experiments which could only be recommended by those who
have never been in a position to try them. The pnly protec
tion against cold is clothing carefully chosen, and contrivances
to avoid the condensation of moisture. All articles of dress
are made as stiff as iron by the cold. If one puts off his fur
coat and lays it down for a few minutes on the ground, he
cannot put it on again till it be thawed. The fingers of woollen

252 AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES. [Chap.
gloves become as unpliable as if they belonged to mailed
gauntlets, and therefore Arctic travellers, except when engaged
in hunting, prefer to use mittens.
9. Constant precautions are needed against the danger of
frost-bite, and the nose of the Arctic voyager especially
becomes a most serious charge. But no sooner has its safety
been secured, than the hands which have rubbed it with snow
are threatened with the same fate. The ears, however, are
well protected from frost by the hood. Frost-bite, which is
caused by the stoppage of blood in the capillaries, evinces
itself by a feeling of numbness, which, if not immediately
attended to, increases to a state of complete rigidity. Slight
cases are overcome by rubbing the part affected with snow.
When the cold is excessive, feeling accompanied with a prick
ling sensation only returns after rubbing for hours. Under all
circumstances, freezing water with an infusion of hydrochloric
acid is the best means of restoring circulation. When the
frost-bitten member is immersed in this, it is at once over
spread with a coating of ice, but as the temperature of the
water slowly rises the frozen limb is gradually thawed. The
longer persons are exposed to a low temperature, the greater
becomes their sensitiveness under it. Their noses, lips and
hands swell, and the skin on those parts becomes like parch
ment, cracks, and is most sensitive to pain from the least
breath of wind. In cases of neglected frost-bite, the violet
colour of a nose or hand is perpetuated, in spite of all the
efforts made to banish it. Frost-bites of a more severe
character will not yield to mere rubbings with snow, but
should be treated with the kind of cold bath we have described,
continued for some days. The formation of blisters, the
swelling of the parts affected, great sensitiveness and liability
to a recurrence of the malady, are the consequences. In
many cases a sensitiveness to changes of temperature lasts
for several years. Amputation is inevitable in severe and
neglected cases. When circulation has been restored, a
mixture of iodine and collodion — 10 grains to an ounce —
may, according to the experience of Dr. Kepes, be advanta
geously applied to reduce the inflammation which generally
results. 10. It is remarkable that great heat as well as great cold

v.] THE COLD, 253
should generate the great evil^thirst. It is also remarkable
how rapidly the demoralisation produced by thirst extends
when any one of the party begins to show signs of suffering
from it. Habit, however, enables men to struggle against
thirst more successfully than against hunger. Many try to
relieve it by using snow ; which is especially pernicious when
its temperature falls considerably below the point of lique
faction. Inflammation of the mouth and tongue, rheumatic
pains in the teeth, diarrhoea, and other mischiefs, are the con-
.sequences, whenever a party incautiously yields to the tempta
tion of such a momentary relief It is in fact a mere delusion,
because it is impossible to eat as much snow — say a cubic foot
— as would be requisite to furnish an adequate amount of
water. Snow of a temperature of 37° to 50° (C.) below zero
feels in the mouth like hot iron, and does not quench, but
increases thirst, by its inflammatory action on the mucous
membranes of the parts it affects. The Eskimos prefer to
endure any amount of thirst rather than eat snow, and it is
only the Tschuktschees who indulge in it as a relish with their
food, which is always eaten cold. Snow-eaters during the
march were regarded by us as weaklings, much in the same
way as opium-eaters are. Catarrhs of every kind are less
frequent in Polar expeditions, and the chills to which we are
exposed by passing suddenly from the cold of the land
journey to the warmer temperature of the ship, have no evil
consequences. It deserves to be investigated whether this
arises from the difference of the amount of ozone in the
atmosphere of the respective latitudes. — Now let us return to
our journey.
II. After crossing over the Sonklar-Glacier and measuring
its slight inclination of i^ 6', we climbed an elevation to
ascertain the most promising route for penetrating in a
northerly direction ; and none seemed better suited than that
which lay over its back, which seemed free from crevasses.
But we looked in vain for the fancied paradise of the interior,
which had existed only in our desire to clothe in glowing
colours the Land, from which we had been so long held back.
The true character, however, of Kaiser Franz-Josef Land, so
far as it could be explored in this and the following sledge
expeditions, wiU be the subject of the next chapter. The

254 AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES. [cHAP.
accompanying sketch represents a block of snow, about the
height of a man, at the foot of the Sonklar-Glacier, to which
the winds had given a fanlike shape. In the afternoon, after
inspecting the stakes which we had fixed for measuring the
motion of the glacier, we came back to the tent and began
our return march to Cape Tegetthoff and the ship. A cutting
wind compelled us to make constant efforts against frost-bites.
With a heavy creaking noise the sledge was dragged over the
hard snow, and to our reduced strength it seemed to be laden
with a double load. The night is generally the hardest part
of such expeditions, and our camping out during the night
under the chffs of Cape Tegetthoff was especially bitter.
Happy was he who, exhausted by the labour of dragging,
fell asleep at once. As usual, we dug a deep hole in the snow

DLOCK OF SNOW.

and loosened it as much as possible, so that we might profit
by its property of being one of the worst conductors of heat.
In a short time the inside of the tent was covered with rime
frost, and we ourselves with ice. The tongue only seemed to
recover its former mobility with those who bewailed their loss
of knives, stockings, gloves — yea, of everything, even their
place in the tent. They ate their portion of bear's flesh much
as if they had been chloroformed, and dropping asleep in their
stiffened icy coat of mail, they were awoke by its gradual
thawing, to reiterate without cessation how cold it was; a
fact which no one present was prepared to dispute. The
alcohol thermometer stood at - 56° F. (- 48° on board the
ship), and when the warmth produced by the exercise we
had taken and by the effects of supper was gone, the feeling
of cold was so intense that it seemed far more probable that

V,] THE COLD. 255
we should be frozen to death than that we should sleep. The
cook therefore received orders to brew some strong grog, and
forthwith six spirit-flames burnt under the kettle filled with
snow; but to make snow of such extreme coldness boil quickly
we should have had to place the kettle over Vesuvius itself in
the height of an eruption.
12. We now slept without stirring a limb, and about five
o'clock in the morning of the iSth of March we started to
compass the twenty miles which lay between us and the ship
in one march, without encountering the suffering of another
night's camping out in the snow. The weather was as clear
as it is possible to be at a temperature of —52'' F., and going
along with a light breeze from the north, we made use of our
sledge sail to such advantage that we reached the gentle
ascent of the west point of Wilczek Island after a march of
seven hours. We formed a second depot of provisions on the
summit of a rocky promontory, whence we discerned with a
telescope the masts and yards of the ship lying behind an ice
berg, and our fears and anxieties lest it should have drifted
away in our absence were dissipated by. this glad view. Our
return to the ship could no longer be a matter of choice ; it had
become a necessity, Lettis had been unable for some days to
take any share in the labour of dragging, and walked along in
shoes made of reindeer hide, on account of his frost-bitten
feet. Haller also wore similar shoes to save his swollen feet ;
Cattarinch's face was frost-bitten, and he too suffered from
lameness ; Pospischill, who could no longer wear his shrunk-up
fur coat, so suffered from frost-bite in both hands, that I sent
him on to the ship, that he might have the help of the doctor
as soon as possible. It was with much effort that we made
the last six hours' march ; and when at length, stiff with ice,
we passed between the hummocks that lay around the ship,
Weyprecht, Brosch, Orel, and eight sailors came to meet us,
who, alarmed at the inability of Pospischill to speak in answer
to their questions, had set out from the ship in order to
find us,
¦ 13. As I entered my berth I heard the hard breathing of
our poor comrade Krisch. For more than a week he had lain
without consciousness ; yet death had not cometo relieve him.
On the afternoon of the i6th of March a sudden cessation of

CHAP, v.] THE COLD.

257

afl sound told us that he was no more ! Next day, his body,
placed in a coffin, was brought on deck, and our flag hoisted
half-mast high. On the 19th, when the thermometer was at
— 13° F, the body was committed to its lonely grave in the far
north. A mournful procession left the ship, with a sledge, on
which rested the coffin covered with a flag and cross, and
wended its way to the nearest elevation on the shore of
Wilczek Island. Silently struggling against the drifting snow,
we marched on, dragging our burden through desolate reaches
of snow, till we arrived, after a journey of an hour and a half,
at the point we sought on the island. Here, in a fissure
between basaltic columns, we deposited his earthly remains,
filling up the cavity with stones, which we loosened with much
labour, and which the wind, as we stood there, covered with
wreaths of snow. We read the prayer for the dead over him
who had shared in our sufferings and trials, but who was not
destined to return home with us with the nev/s of our success ;
and close by the spot, surrounded with every symbol of death
and far from the haunts of men, we raised as our farewell a
simple wooden cross. Our sad and solemn task done, there
rose in our hearts the thought, whether we ourselves should be
permitted to return home, or whether we too should find our
resting-place in the unapproachable wastes of the icy north.
The wind blowing over the stiff and stark elevation where we
stood, covered us all with a thick coating of snow, and caused
the appearance of frost-bite in the faces and hands of some
of our party. The decoration of the grave of our comrade
with a suitable inscription was therefore deferred till the
weather proved more favourable. We found considerable
difficulty in returning to the ship through an atmosphere filled
with snow.^
It may easily happen in such weather that travellers on the ice should have
great difficulty in finding the ship, though they should pass by it at less than 200
paces distant. The direction of the wind contributes but little towards the ascei-
taining of their position ; amid hummocks of ice the wind constantly changes. On
the 6th of March, Haller and I wandered about for hours amid drifting snow-storms.
Pekel, who came to us from the ship, guided us rightly.

CHAPTER VI. '
A GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF KAISER FRANZ-JOSEF LAND.
In now presenting a general view of those parts of Kaiser
Franz-Josef Land which were explored by us, I must be
allowed to anticipate the order of my narrative which describes
the subsequent sledge expeditions, by which our knowledge of
the discovered country was so considerably enlarged.
I. The country, even in its already ascertained extent, is
almost as large as Spitzbergen, and consists of two main
masses — Wilczek Land on the east, and Zichy Land on the
west, between which runs a broad sound called Austria Sound,
extending in a northerly direction from Cape Frankfort till it
forks at the extremity of Crown-Prince Rudolf's Land, 8o° 40'
N. L. One branch of it, a broad arm running to the north
east— Rawlinson Sound — we traced as far as Cape Buda-Pesth.
Wilczek and Zichy Lands are both intersected by many fiords,
and numerous islands lie off their coasts.
2. A continuous surface of ice extends from the one land to
the other. At the time of our exploration, this expanse was
formed of ice, for the most part not more than a year in
growth, but crossed in many places with fissures and broad
barriers of piled-up ice. Throughout its whole extent we saw
many icebergs, which we never did in the Novaya Zemlya
seas ; whence it is to be inferred that they sail away in a
northerly direction. ^ Our track lay over this ice-sheet. As
' There are no glaciers on the coast of Siberia, and the glaciers of Spitzbergen are
not, it seems, large enough to detach icebergs. May not, therefore, the icebergs
which gather at Hope Island, iis well as those which are met with on the northern
coasts of Siberia, originate in the glaciers of Franz-Josef Land? Barentz saw, in
August, 1596, on the northern coasts of Novaya Zemlya, as many as 400 icebergs.

CH. VI.] DESCRIPTION OF KAISER FRANZ-JOSEF. LAND. 259
long as it remains unbroken, every fiord might serve as a
winter harbour ; but if it should break up, not a single locality
suitable to form one presented itself along the coasts we
visited, which had no small indentations.^
3. The map of this country, which we present, was designed
and constructed from fifteen observations of latitude, from
many observations made with the azimuth compass, from
drawings, and from a system of triangulation, which, from the
nature of the circumstances und er which it was formed,''
makes no pretensions to absolute exactitude. The heights of
the mountains were determined by the aneroid barometer.
Near the ship a base of 2170^8 metres was measured by
Weyprecht and Orel, and connected trigonometrically with
the nearest promontories. This work of theirs formed the
basis of my surveys.
4. It has always been a principle and a practice with Arctic
explorers to name their discoveries either after the promoters
of their special expeditions, or after their predecessors in the
work of discovery. Though they are never likely to become
important to the material interests of mankind, the naming
the lands we discovered after those who promoted our expedi
tion, was, we considered, the mo.st enduring form by which we
could express our gratitude for their efforts in furtherance of a
great idea. The localities, I may add, were named during the
work of surveying.
5. As I have had the privilege of visiting all the Arctic
lands north of the Atlantic, I have been able to compare them
and observe their resemblances as well as their differences.
West Greenland is a high uniform glacier-plateau ; East Green
land is a magnificent Alpine land with a comparatively rich
vegetation and abundant animal life. How and where the
transition between these opposite characters takes place in
the interior is as yet utterly unknown. We may form some
notion of Spitzbergen and Novaya Zemlya, if we imagine a
mountain-range, like that of the Oetzthal with its glaciers,
rising from the level of the sea, if that level were raised about
' This of course does not exclude the possibiUty of finding appropriate winter
harbours in those Sounds we were unable to visit ; most probably such occur in
Markham Sound, which abounds in fiords.
" This applies especially to the region lying to the north of 81° 10'.

2Co AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES. [chap.
9,000 feet. There is more softness, however, in both these
countries than is usual in the regions of the high north. But
Franz-Josef Land has all the severity of the higher Arctic
lands ; it appears, especially in spring, to be denuded of life
of every kind. Enormous glaciers extend from the lofty
solitudes of the mountains, which rise in bold conical forms.
A covering of dazzling whiteness is spread over everything.
The rows of basaltic columns, rising tier above tier, stand out
as if crystallized. The natural colour of the rocks was not
visible, as is usually the case : even the steepest walls of rock
were covered with ice, the consequence of incessant precipi
tation, and of the condensation of the excessive moisture on
the cold faces of the rock. This moisture in a country whose
mean annual temperature is about 3° F., seems to indicate its
insular character, for Greenland and Siberia are both remarkable
for the dryness of their cold, and it was singular that even
north winds occasioned a fall of temperature in Franz-Josef
Land. In consequence of their enormous glaciation, and of
the frequent occurrence of plateau forms, the new lands
recalled the characteristic features of West Greenland, in the
lower level of the snow-line common to both, and in their
volcanic formation. Isolated groups of conical mountains and
table-lands, which are peculiar to the basaltic formation, con
stitute the mountain-system of Franz-Josef Land ; chains of
mountains were nowhere seen. These mountain forms are the
results of erosion and denudation ; there were no isolated
volcanic cones. The mountains, as a rule, are about 2,000 or
3,000 feet high, except in the south-west, where they attain
the height of about 5,000 feet.
6. The later Arctic expeditions have established the exist
ence of vast volcanic formations in the high north, and of very
recent deposits in their depressions. In fact, a vast volcanic
zone seems to extend from East Greenland through Iceland,
Jan Mayen and Spitzbergen, to P'ranz-Josef Land, The
geological features of the- latter are at any rate in harmony
with those of North-east Greenland, The tertiary Brown-
coal sandstone of East Greenland is also found in Franz-Josef
Land, though Brown-coal itself is met with only in small beds,
which, nevertheless, may be reckoned among the many indica
tions that the climate of Polar lands must once have been

VI.] • DESCRIPTION OF KAISER FRANZ-JOSEF LAND. 261
as genial as the climate of Central Europe at the present day.
The kind of rock which predominates is a crystalline aggre
gation called by the Swedes " Hyperstenite " (Hypersthene),
identical with the Dolerite of Greenland ; but the Dolerite of
Franz-Josef Land is of a coarser-grained texture, and of a
dark yellowish green colour; according to Professor Tschermak
(the Director of the Imperial Mineralogical Museum at Vienna),
it consists of Plagioclase, Augite, Olivine, titaniferous Iron
and ferruginous Chlorite. The mountains of this system
forming table-lands, with precipitous rocky sides, give to the
country we discovered its peculiar physiognbmy.
7, The Dolerite of Franz-Josef Land greatly resembles
also the Dolerite of Spitzbergen. After the return of the
expedition I saw in London some photographic views of the
mountains of North-East Land, Spitzbergen, taken by Mr,
Leigh-Smith, and I was at once struck with the resemblance
between their forms and those of Franz-Josef Land, I
learnt also from Professor Nordenskjold, the celebrated
explorer of Spitzbergen, as I passed through Sweden, that
the rock of North-East Land was this same Hyperstenite
(Hypersthene). Hence the geological coincidence of Spitz
bergen and Franz-Josef Land would seem to be established ;
and this geological affinity, viewed in connection with the
existence of lands more or less known, appears to indicate
that groups of islands will be found in the Arctic seas on the
north of Europe, as we know that such abound in the Arctic
seas of North America. Gillis' Land and King Karl's Land
are, perhaps, the most easterly islands of the Spitzbergen
group ; for it is not probable that these and the lands we
discovered form one continuous uninterrupted whole,
8. Amygdaloids, so common in Greenland, were never found
by us in Franz-Josef Land ; and while the rocks in the
southern portions of the country were often aphanitic and
so far true basalt, in the north they were coarse-grained and
contained NepheHne. The other rocks consisted of a whitish
quartzose sandstone, with a clayey cement, and of another
finely-grained sandstone, containing small granules of quartz
and greenish-grey particles of chlorite, and also of yellowish
finely-laminated clay slate. Erratics, so far as my oppor
tunities permitted me to judge, were of rare occurrence ;

262 AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES. Tchap.

but we found many smaller pieces of petrified wood, allied to
lignite. 9. Some of the islands of the Spitzbergen and Franz-Josef
L§.nd group must be of considerable extent, because they
bear enormous glaciers, which are possible only in extensive
countries. Their terminal precipices, sometimes more than
100 feet high, form generally the coast-lines. The colour of
all the glaciers we visited inclined to grey, we seldom found
the dull green-blue hue ; the granules of their ice were extra
ordinarily large ; there were few crevasses ; and the moraines
were neither large nor frequent. Their movement was slow ;
and the snow-line commences at about 1,000 feet above the
level, whereas on the glaciers of Greenland and Spitzbergen
the like limit is generally 2,000 or even 3,000 feet, and in
these countries also, all below that line is free from snow in
summer. Franz-Josef Land, on the contrary, appears even in
summer to be buried under perpetual snow, interrupted only
where precipitous rock occurs. Almost all the glaciers reach
down to the sea. Crevasses, even when the angle of inclina
tion of the glacier is very great, are much less frequent
than in our Alps,, and in every respect the lower glacier
regions of Franz-Josef Land approach the character of the
neves of our latitudes. There only was it possible to deter
mine the thickness ofthe annual deposits of snow and ice. In
these lower portions, the layers were from a foot to a foot-and-
a-half thick ; fine veins, about an inch wide, of blue alternating
with streaks of white ice ran through them, which occurred
with peculiar distinctness at the depth of about a fathom.
On the whole, this peculiar structure of alternating bands or
veins was not so distinctly marked as it is in the glaciers of
the Alps, because the alternations of temperature and of the
precipitations are very much less in such high latitudes.
10. The glacier ice of Franz-Josef Land was- far less dense
than the glacier ice of East Greenland ; whence it appears
that movement, as a factor in the structure of the glacier,.
predominates in Franz-Josef Land more than the factor of
regelation. Even at the very end of the glaciers, granules an
inch long are distinctly traceable in its layers, and in the
«/w/ region especially the glacier ice is exceedingly porous.
The great tendency of the climate of Franz- Josef Land to-

VI.] DESCRIPTION OF KAISER FRANZ-JOSEF LAND. 263
promote glaciation is manifested in the fact, that all the
smaller islands are covered with glaciers with low rounded
tops, so that a section through them would present a regular
defined segment of a circle ; hence many ice^streams descend
ing from the summits of the plateaus spread themselves over
the mountain-slopes and need not to be concentrated in
valleys and hollows in order to become glaciers. Yet many
glaciers occur — the Middendorf Glaciers, for example — whose
vertical depth amounts to many hundred feet. Their fissures
and the height of the icebergs show this. Tt was unfortunately
impossible for us to explore the Dove Glacier, the largest of
all we saw, owing to its great distance from the line of our
route. Evaporation from the surface of the glacier goes on
with great intensity during those summer months when the
daylight is continual, and deep water-courses show that streams
of thaw-water then flow over it.
1 1. The comparison of the temperature of the air within
the crevasses of the glaciers with the external air, invariably
proved, that within the crevasses the temperature was higher.
The traces of liquefaction in the glacier during«winter, arising
from the warmth of the earth, could not be observed, because
the sides and under-edge of the glaciers were inaccessible
from the enormous masses of snow, and the icicles of the
terminal arches and precipices could be ascribed only to the
freezing of the thaw-water of the preceding summer.
12. The plasticity ofthe glaciers was so great, that branches
of them, separated by jutting-out rocks, flowed into each
other again at their base, without showing any considerable
crevasses. We could only in a few cases judge of their
movement by direct measurement, and we had never more
than one day to test it. One observation made on the
Sonklar Glacier in the month of March did not seem to
support the notion of the advance of the glaciers ; but the
repetition of similar experiments, some weeks later, made on
two glaciers on the south of Austria Sound, gave the mean of
two inches as the daily movement. It is very probable that
their movement begins in the Arctic regions somewhat later
than in our latitudes, perhaps at the end of July or beginning
of August, because the period of the greatest liquefaction then
ends, while it is at its minimum in March and the beginning

264 AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES, [chap.
of April, The signs of glacier-movement were apparent in
the detachment of icebergs in the month of March, but more
frequently in the month of May — as at the Simony Glacier —
and in the crashing-in of the ice-sheet at their base in the
month of April — as at the Middendorf Glacier ; and the
appearance of " glacier dirt," where there is no material to
furnish a moraine, — as on the Forbes Glacier — must be
regarded as a sign of its onward movement or lateral ex
tension. The infrequency of moraines may be explained by
the resistance which Dolerite offers to weathering, and may
also be regarded as a sign of the slow movement of -the
glaciers. Red snow was seen once only, in the month of
May, on the precipices westward of Cape Briinn. We never
met. with glacier insects, although they are common in
Greenland ; and however diligently I looked for them I
never saw unmistakable traces of the grinding and polishing
of rocks by glacier action.
13. It is well known that the north-east of Greenland
as well as Novaya Zemlya and Siberia are slowly rising from
the sea, nay, that all the northern regions of the globe have
for ages participated in this movement. It was, therefore,
exceedingly interesting to observe the characteristic signs of
this upheaval in the terraced beaches, covered with debris
containing organic remains along the coast of Austria Sound.
The ebb and flow, which elevates and breaks up the bay-ice
only at the edge, is to be traced on the shores of Austria
Sound by a tidal mark of two feet,
14. The vegetation was everywhere extremely scanty,
crushed, not so much by the intensity of the cold as by
its long continuance, and is far below the vegetation of
Greenland, Spitzbergen, and Novaya Zemlya. It resembled,
not indeed in species but in its general character, the vegeta
tion of the Alps at an elevation of 9,000 or 10,000 feet,
while the Alpine region corresponding to the vegetation of
East Greenland lies a thousand feet lower. We found neither
the stunted birches and willows, nor the numerous phseno-
gamous plants of East Greenland, Spitzbergen, and Novaya
Zemlya, The rare appearance of soil chiefly contributes to
this extremely sparse vegetation, the detritus of the country
resembling the meagre " dirt " layer on an old moraine, here

VI.] DESCRIPTION OF KAISER FRANZ-JOSEF LAND. 265
and there enlivened by a small patch of green. Although we
visited Franz-Josef Land at the season in which vegetation
begins to stir, nowhere could there be seen a patch of sward,
even a few feet square, to recall the features of our latitudes,
although we examined depressions very favourably situated
and free from snow. Some level spots showed patches of
thin meagre grasses of Catabrosa algida (Fries), a few speci
mens of Saxifraga oppositifolia and of Silene acaulis, rarely
Cerastium alpinum or Papaver fiudicale (L.). Thick, cushion
like tufts of mosses were more frequently discovered. There
were abundance of lichens : Imbricaria stygia (Acharius),
Buellia stigmatea (Korber), Gyrophora anthracina (Wulfen),
Cetraria nivalis (Acharius), Usnea melaxantha (Acharius),
Bryopogon jubatus (Korber), ' Rhizocarpon geographicuin
(Korber), Sporastatia Morio (Korber) — and the U-mbilicaria
arctica of winter, which we found in Greenland at an elevation
of 7,000 feet. These specifications I owe to the kindness of
Professor Fenzl, director of the Botanical Garden in Vienna,
and of Professor Reichhardt. The museum of this institu
tion accepted the small collection of plants I was able to
bring to Europe. Of some of these there remained nothing
but withered roots, so that it was impossible to determine
their character. Nature in those regions, unable to deck
herself with the colours of plants, produces an imposing
effect by her rigid forms, and in summer by the glare of
the ice and snow ; and as there are lands which are stifled
by the excess of Nature's gifts and blessings, so as even
to defy efforts of civilization, here in the high North another
extreme is displayed — absolute barrenness and nakedness,
which render it quite uninhabitable.
15. Drift-wood, chiefly of an old date, we frequently found,
but in small quantities. On the shore of Cape Tyrol, we
once saw a log of pine or larch one foot thick and several feet
long, lying a little above the water-line, and which might have
been driven thither by the wind, as the Tegetthoff was. The
fragments of wood we found — the branches on which showed
that they did not come from a ship — were of the pine genus
{Pinus picea, Du Roy), and must have come from the
southern regions of Siberia, as the large broad rings of
growth showed. 19

266 AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES. [CHAP.
1 6. Franz- Josef Land is, as may be supposed, entirely
uninhabited, and we never came on any traces of settle
ments. It is very questionable whether Eskimos would have
been able to find there the means of subsistence, and if
anywhere most likely on the western side of Wilczek Island,
where an "ice-hole" of considerable extent remained open
for a great part of the year.
17. In the southern parts it is destitute of every kind of
animal life, with the exception of Polar bears and migratory
birds. North of Lat. 81°, the snow bore numberless fresh
tracks of foxes, but though their footmarks were imprinted
on the snow beyond the possibility of mistake, we never saw
one. Once we found their excrements, and on Hohenlohe
Island those of an Arctic hare. The scanty vegetation forbade
the presence of the reindeer and musk-ox. It is not, how
ever, impossible that there may be reindeer in the more

LIPARIS GELATINOSUS.

westerly parts of the country, which we did not visit. The
character of that particular region approximates to that of
King Karl's. Land and Spitzbergen, on the pastures of
which herds of these animals live and thrive.
18. Of the great marine Mammalia, seals only {Phoca
groenlandica and Phoca barbatd) abounded ; although we
saw some White Whales, Walruses we saw twice, but not
close to the shore ; it is, however, probable that the absence
of open water prevented us from seeing the walrus nearer
the shore, for the character of the sea-bottom would present
no obstacle to its existence,
19. Of fish we saw only the species Liparis gelatinosus
(Pallas) and a kind of cod {Gadus), which were taken with the
drag-net. 20. The birds, which we found in the region between
Novaya Zemlya and Franz-Josef Land were of the following
species :— the long-tailed Robber Gull {Lestris, K.) ; the black

VI.] DESCRIPTION OF KAISER FRANZ-JOSEF LAND, 267
Robber Gull without the long tail-feathers ; the Burgomaster
Gull {Larus Glaucus, B.) ; the Ice or Ivory Gull {Larus
eburneus) ; the Kittiwake {Rissa tridactyla, L.) ; the Sea-
swallow {Sterna macrura, N.) ; the Arctic Petrel or Malle-
moke {Procellaria glacialis) ; Ross's Gull {Rhotostetia rosed) :
two species of Auks {Uria arra, P., and Uria maitdtii, L.) ;
the Greenland Dove {Grylle columba, Bp.) ; the Rotge
{Mergulus alle, V.) ; the Lumme {Mormon arcticus) ; the
Eider-duck {Soviateria 7nollisima, L.) ; the Snowy Owl {Strix
nivea) ; the Iceland Knot {Tringa canutus) ; the Snow-bunting
{Plectrophanes nivalis, M.). Most of these occurred also on
the coasts of Franz-Josef Land.
21. We can here only allude generally to those forms of
animal life which were taken by the drag-net on the south of
Franz-Josef Land, and brought to Europe in the collection of
Dr. Kepes, and of which I made seventy-two drawings. To
Professor Heller, of Innspruck, and Professor Marenzeller, of
Vienna, the expedition is indebted for the naming and arrange
ment of those specimens, and while I refer my readers to
their fuller account in the Mittheilungen of the Imperial
Academy of Sciences of Vienna, I limit myself here to a
few of the results of their observations. The investigation
of the invertebrate Fauna of the sea through which we passed
was necessarily limited from the moment that the course
of the Tegetthoff ceased to be under our control. " We hadj
in the first place, no zoologist on board, and from the drifting
ship nothing more could be done than letting down the net
alraost daily during the weeks of summer — which Lieutenant
Weyprecht did — and dragging it for some hours. The greater
part of the animals so taken were immediately sketched by
me, in order that, in the event of the loss of the original
objects, some sort of representation of the animal world of a
region never before investigated might be preserved. The
issue justified a caution which must always be kept in view in
Polar expeditions.
Of the abundant shrimp-family of the Arcric seas there
are four species among the collections we formed, namely: —
Hippolyte payeri. Heller, n. sp., Hippolyte turgida (Kroyer),
Hippolyte polaris (Sabine), and Hippolyte borealis (Owen).
The Hippolyte payeri was found at the depth of 247 metres.

268

AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES,

[chap.

and was of a beautiful pink colour and had blue^black eyes.
There were found besides : Crangou boreas and Pandalus
borealis (Kroyer).
The group of Amphipoda was, comparatively, largely
represented among the Crustacea of the Arctic waters ; we
often called these Floh-krebse — flea-crabs — because many of
them used their hind legs to hop along. Eleven species of
this genus were brought home in our collections ; among these

HIPPOLYTE PAYERI.

were A mathillopsis spinigera, a new species, Cleippides quadri-
cuspis, also a new species, both described by Professor Heller;
Acanthozone hy strix (Owen), &c. The group — Isopoda — is
represented by the interesting Munnopsis typica (Sars), the
Idothea sabini (Kroyer), and by a new variety, Paranthura
arctica.

HYALONEMA LONGISSIMUM.

Of the group Pycnogonida, our collection contained three
varieties, of which two are new.
Sponges were common ; but we were obliged to leave
behind the specimens of the larger kinds on account of the
room they took up. Among the silicious sponges, those of
the genus Hyalonema were the largest in size, and included
the forms described as Hyalonema boreale (Lov^n), and Hyalo-

VI.] DESCRIPTION OF KAISER FRANZ-JOSEF LAND. 269
nema longissimum (Sars). There was one specimen of the
horny sponge, so rare in those parts. The drag-net often
brought up Actinicg, Bryareum grandiflorum (Sars), and
June 2. 1873, from a depth of no fathoms, a specimen of
the extremely rare Umbellula described by Mytius and Ellis,
1753. Since that date this animal had been lost sight of.

UMBELLULA.

until it was found again by the Swedes — Gladans expedition
1 87 1— in Baffin's Bay, and by the Cliallenger, 1873, between
Portugal and Madeira and between Prince Edward's Island
and Kerguelen's Land. It may be assumed that our Um
bellula is identical with the form first described, 1758, by
Linnaeus as Isis encrinus. I regret to say that this, the most

270

AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES.

[chap. VI.

interesting of all the objects we had collected, was left behind
in the Tegetthoff. The sketch of it made from life will
facilitate a comparison with the forms known in other regions
and variously named.

KORETHRASTES HISPIDUS.

Hydroid polypes, widely distributed in several varieties in
the Atlantic Ocean, — Asterid(B Arvd. OphitiridcB, the Korethrastes
hispidus (Wyv. Thomson), a new variety discovered by the
Porcupine expedition between the Faroe and Shetland islands,
Critzoida, represented by two species never before found so
far north, and several HolothuricB, were also among the

NEPHTHYS LONGISETOSA,

acquisitions brought home Our collection was rich in
Annelides, containing seven-and-twenty varieries found in
Greenland and Spitzbergen, Fourteen varieties of Bryozoa
were found, and single specimens of Turbellaria and Gephyrea.

CHAPTER VII.
THE SECOND SLEDGE EXPEDITION.- — AUSTRIA SOUND.
I. The first sledge journey enabled me to draw up a plan
for a more extended expedition towards the north. It was
not only a cherished scheme of my own, but it became also
the dominating interest on board the Tegetthoff, although the
other scientific investigations were carried on uninterruptedly.
Weyprecht and Brosch continued with admirable perseverance
the laborious observation of the Magnetic Constants, and
measured on the ice close to the ship a base of 2170^8 metres,
which served for all my trigonometrical surveys. The
meteorological observations also were carried on with the
usual regularity,
2. For some days the weather had been bad ; its increas
ingly stormy character excited our fears, lest the ice should
break up and the floe drift away with the ship. The danger
of leaving her, in order to explore the extent of the new
country, increased also with the longer duration of our pro
posed second journey. We were convinced, too, that the sea
within a few days had broken up the ice almost as far as
Wilczek Island, and a heavy water-sky was seen in the south
at no great distance from us. Discoveries of importance
could only be expected from an expedition of a month's
duration. But withal the venture must be made, and leaving
the dangers and perils to the chances of the future, I gathered
together the picked men who were to accompany me, to lay
before them my plans. I explained to them my design of
penetrating in a northerly direction as far as possible, and I
put before them the danger of our being cut off from the ship.
But while I showed the perils, I stimulated them also by the

272 AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES. [chap.
hope of reward. If the eighty-first degree of latitude were
reached, I guaranteed to them the sum of ;£'ioo ; if we attained
the eighty-second degree, ;^25o ; and I declared that merit,
and merit alone, should regulate the distribution of these
sums. In order to make sure of reticence on the part of my
company and thus obviate ill-feeling among the rest of the
crew, which might easily have been called forth by this appa
rent preference, they were told that the rewards would be
forfeited, if any of those who stayed behind in the ship should
hear of these rewards. The assembled company agreed also
to my request never to mention dangers during the journey,
and, in the event of our not finding the ship on our return, to
take the whole blame of such an issue on our own shoulders.
With regard to the rewards, I must add that never was a
secret better kept. Immediately began on board a packing,
a tailoring, a preparation as if for a campaign, and under the
tent-roof of the ship the rusty runners of the sledges were
polished, till they were as smooth as glass.
3. Before we started, there was an interesting interruption
in the monotony of our lives, occasioned by a family of bears.
While we were absent in our first journey a bear had been
shot from the ship, and little Pekel had been wounded in the
neck. On the 19th of March another bear came close to us,
which was scared away after some unsuccessful shots had
been fired at it. Three days afterwards a she-bear appeared
accompanied by her two cubs, of a darker colour than their
mother, rolling on after her. It was exceedingly interesting
to watch the actions of this family. The mother frequently
stopped and snuffed the air with uplifted snout ; then she
would lick her cubs, who fondly crept up to their
mother, behaving exactly like young poodles, which they also
resembled in size. Six shots were fired at seventy paces
distance, and the mother-bear, after running for about forty
paces, fell dead. Amazed at the reports of the rifles and the
actions of their mother, the little bears sat as if they were
rooted in the snow, and looked with astonishment at the dark
forms which rushed out from the ship. One of them suffered
itself to be shaken by Pekel ; and only when they were seized
by the nape of the neck and carried on board did they seem
to entertain the least surmise of mischief At first they were

VII.] SECOND SLEDGE EXPEDITION.— AUSTRIA SOUND. 273
shut up separately in casks set on their end, and growled long
and impatiently till they were put together in the same cask.
Sumbu alone w-as slow to understand our suddenly-excited
pity for his hereditary foes, and scratched and barked at the
cask for hours together, while the cubs growled and threatened
retahation with their little paws. After looking at this for
some time, Gillis was moved to side with the bears, and a
battle ensued between him and Sumbu, in which the latter
got the worst of it. The little animals afforded us much
amusement, and the crew were seriously considering the feasi
bility of training them to draw in the sledge, inthe meditated
return expedition to Europe. They ate bread, sauerkraut.

THE DOGS DIFFER AS TO THE TREATMENT OF YOUNG BEARS.

bacon — in short, everything that was given them.

morning, however, the little rascals eluded the eye
and

One
of the
watch and got away. They were immediately caught and
killed, and appeared roasted on our dinner-table.
4 On the 25th of March our preparations for the extended
journey northwards were brought to an end. The sledge with
its load weighed about 14 cwt.

274 AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES. [chap.
lbs.
The large sledge ....... .150
The dog sledge ,.,,,.... 37
The provisions, including packing , , , , , . . 620
The tent, sleeping bags, tent-poles, alpine stocks . . . 320
Alcohol and rum ..,.,. , , 128
Fur coats and fur gloves ,.,..,,. 140
Instruments, rifles, ammunition, shovel, two cooking-machines,
drag-ropes, dog-tent, &c.  170
Total . 1565
Each of the four sacks of provisions — calculated for seven
days and seven men — contained 5 1 lbs. of boiled beef, 48 lbs.
of bread, 8 lbs. of pemmican, 7 lbs. of bacon, 2 lbs. of extract
of meat, 4 lbs. of condensed milk, 2 lbs. of coffee, 4 lbs. of
chocolate, 7 lbs. of rice, 3 lbs. of grits, i lb. of salt and pepper,
2 lbs. of peas-sausage, 4 lbs. of sugar, besides a reserve bag
with 20 lbs, of bread. We took' boiled beef for the dogs.
We counted also on the produce of our guns as a considerable
supplement both for ourselves and them.
5. The sledge party consisted of myself, Orel, Klotz and
Haller, and of three sailors, Zaninovich, Sussich, and Lukino
vich ; and we had with us three dogs, Jubinal, Torossy, and
Sumbu, and men and dogs together dragged the large sledge.
The duties were thus divided : Zaninovich managed the
packing and the giving out of the spirit and rum, Haller
served out the provisions, Klotz attended to the dogs and the
arms, Sussich was responsible for keeping everything in work
ing order, and at night Lukinovich acted as a wind-protector
close to the door of the tent. We started on the morning of
the 26th of March with the thermometer 6° F. below zero,
and amid snow driving from the north-west. For some
distance we were accompanied by Weyprecht and the rest of
the crew. We had scarcely gone a thousand paces from the
ship, before the snow began to drive to such an extent, that
we could scarcely see our comrades close to us and keep
together. As it was impossible to go on until the storm laid,
we preferred, instead of returning to the Tegetthoff, which
would have been the simpler course, to erect the tent out of
sight of the ship behind some ice-hummocks, and pass twenty-
four hours in it. Our only employment except sleeping was
to thaw the snow, which filled our clothes and especially our

VII.] SECOND SLEDGE EXPEDITION.— AUSTRIA SOUND, 275
pockets. On the 27th of March (the thermometer varying
between 2° and 22° F. below zero) we continued our journey
amid a slight fall of snow, and made an early start, in order
that our halt of yesterday should remain unknown to the
crew of the ship. When we reached the south-eastern point
of Wilczek Island we lost sight of the ship, and the driving
snow with a falling thermometer increased to such an extent,
that Sussich's hands were frost-bitten, and we were compelled
to halt for an hour to rub them with snow. Starting again,
we all ran the risk of having our faces frost-bitten, meeting as
we did a strong wind. The heavily-laden sledge, too, com
pelled us to make such exertions that our faces were bathed
in perspiration. On the 28th of March the wind fell to a
calm, and as we passed over the Sound between Salm and
Wilczek Islands in a north-westerly direction we advanced at
the rate of eighty paces a minute. The track, which we
followed, consisted partly of bay-ice a year old and partly of
old floes, these together forming a continuous surface, here
and there broken by barriers of hummocks, miles in length,
due to ice-pressures. After we had passed the headlands
south-west of Salm Island, we came in sight of the WuUers-
dorf mountains, which we had hitherto seen only from a great
distance, hoping from their summits to determine the route
which we should take northwards,
6. At the distance of some miles right ahead of us lay
several rocky islands, with their outlines scarcely discernible
owing to the dull thick state of the atmosphere ; but as they
lay in the direction of our course, we made for them. We
now passed some icebergs and saw on their southern sides
the first signs of the process of hquefaction— new icicles. By
and by a wind from the south-west set in, raising the temper
ature gradually to 6° F, and bringing with it fogs and then
heavy snow-storms. Covered with snow and running before
the wind, with a large sledge-sail set, we came under the
glacier-walls of Salm Island, among icebergs frozen fast
together, trudging along through wind and whirhng snow.
Occasionally the wind was so strong, that the sail alone
sufficed to impel the heavy sledge, while a man in front,
guided by a whistle from those behind, kept it in its proper
course. After a march of sixteen hours, the wind having

276 AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES. [chap.
increased to a storm, which rendered it impossible to keep the
track, we determined to halt. Our clothes appeared to consist
of nothing but snow, our eyes were iced up, and our strength
exhausted. In great haste we erected the tent and took refuge
within it ; but our misery now properly began. One scraped
the thawing snow from the clothes of another, or turned inside-
out the pockets of his own trousers, filled with dissolving snow
balls. At last the cooking-machine was lighted, and we began to
steam, and heartily wished that our miseries had arisen from cold
instead of moisture. The temperature in the tent rose at the
distance of three feet from the flame to 80° F., and twenty
minutes after the production of this artificial heat it fell seven
degrees below zero. Early in the morning of the 29th of
March (Palm Sunday) the wind abated and the temperature
rose to 24'5° F., so that it began to rain in the tent as we were
preparing our breakfast. During the march of that day we
ascended the rocky heights of Koldewey Island, at the foot of
which we had put up . the tent for the purpose of surveying-
These rocks consisted of Dolerite, over-spread with a close
network of Lichens {Cetraria nivalis) and in the clefts we
found Silene acaulis.
7. From the summit of this island we suddenly beheld, in
the field of view of the telescope of the theodolite, a bear,
which had seized Torossy and severely wounded him. But
almost immediately again the bear disappeared in the snow, and
when we came to the place of his disappearance, we dis
covered the winter retreat of a family of bears. It was a
cavity hollowed out in a mass of snow lying under a rocky
wall. The bear had shown herself only once, but resisted all
our efforts to seduce her to leave the shelter she had chosen,
nor had we any special desire to creep on all fours into the
narrow dark habitation. Sumbu only was bold enough to
follow her, but he too saw things which led him to return very
quickly. From the snow which had been thrown up at the
entrance of this hole, we inferred that this had been the work
of the bear in her efforts to close the approach to her abode.
It was the first time that we came upon a family of bears in their
winter quarters, or had the chance of adding anything to our
scanty knowledge as to the winter sleep of those animals.
Middendorff does not admit that they sleep during the winter;

VII,] SECOND SLFDGE EXPEDITION.— AUSTRIA SOUND. 277
he considers the bear far too lean to be able to do so. Accord
ing to Dr, Richardson it is only pregnant females who hiber
nate in a snow-hole, while the males roam over the Arctic seas
in search of places free from ice.
8. As we advanced further, we went round Schonau Island^
so remarkable for its columnar structure and environed by ice
which had been raised up by pressure. In a cleft of its pre
cipitous rocky walls we buried a depot of provisions and a
supply of alcohol for two days, together with some articles of
clothing, covering them up with four feet of snow. We could
not, however, conceal from ourselves the danger of placing a
depot within sight of a bear's hole, and greatly deplored that

THE WINTER HOLE OF A BEAR.

We were not able, like the fox in the fable, to obliterate the
marks of our footsteps. Towards evening the temperature
fell to — io°F., and the tent was frozen as stiff as a board. On
the 30th of March the temperature fell to — 22° F., and a
strong north wind was blowing as we came out of the tent,
and curling billows of snow, reddened by the rising sun, rolled
round us, hiding from us at last even the sun himself A march
in the teeth of a wind at so low a temperature is quite useless
and only exposes to the great danger of frost-bite. This was
now clearly seen when, the tent being taken down as usual
immediately after breakfast, the laggards, imperfectly clad,
^ Schonau, near Teplitz in Bohemia, my birthplace.

278 AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES, [chap, vii.
faced the wild weather. One was binding a stocking round
his face with his braces, because his frozen fingers would
not permit him to button on his nose-band and wind-guard;
another had put on reindeer shoes instead of boots after a
vain attempt to thaw them ; a third had put on the wrong
boot, and I myself was obliged to wind a long rope round my
body, because I was unable to fasten my coat. Such a state
of things is opposed to order and safety, and may degenerate
into serious mischief There was nothing for it therefore ¦ but
to set up the tent again and to get back into our sleeping-bag.
But the damp tent was frozen hard, and wfe felt much as if we
were lying between two plates of cold metal. It would
be difficult to say whether we suffered more from cold than
from vexation. Zaninovich spread the sail over us, and
shovelled down the snow from the walls of the tent ; — who
could be so serviceable as this comrade of ours, who on every
occasion displayed such hardihood against cold } Orel and I
made vain attempts to shorten the time by reading a volume
of Lessing which we had brought with us ; but we soon
renounced the effort, finding that we could not fix our atten
tion in such a situation. We had some compensation, however,
in the amusement of hstening to the Dalmatians learning to
speak German with Klotz, who was far from the weakness.
of uttering a single word in Itahan, As usual, when the
weather was bad, the dogs gathered close to the wind-sheltered
side of our tent. ^ Sumbu forcing himself in among us had to
be driven out, for he growled if he had the faintest suspicion
that we meant to move or to smoke ; but failing to make
himself comfortable among the other dogs, he avenged himself
by again rushing in among us, .shaking the snow from his coat,
and forced us to admit him.
9. On the 3is't of March, the weather having cleared, we
continued our journey northwards, halting as usual at noon
to refresh ourselves with soup. We measured the meridian
altitude of the sun with a theodolite, and surveyed and
sketched our surroundings. When we came to 80° 16' N.L.
we found a broad barrier of hummocks piled one upon
another. This was succeeded by older ice, whose undulating
surface was broken by numerous icebergs and ' high black
basaltic cliffs. Here ended the possibility of determining the

2 So

AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES.

[chap.

route to be taken ; for although there was an opening
between Cape Frankfurt and the- Wullersdorf mountains, we
could not enter it, until we ascertained whether it led north
wards. In order to settle this point Haller and I left the
sledge and made a forced march to Cape Frankfurt, whence
we hoped to discover the direction of our course. Meanwhile
Orel and the rest of the party dragged the sledge with great
exertions between hummocks and icebergs towards the north
east. Cape Frankfurt is a promontory of Hall Island, 2,000
feet high and surrounded with glaciers. The small difference
of level in the sea-ice at the base of its cliffs showed that the
tide did not rise high. Its glaciers flowed towards Markham
Sound and Nordenskjold fiord. When we arrived at the

CAPE FRANKFURT, AUSTRIA SOUND, AND THE WULLERSDORF MOUNTAINS.
summit everything lay steeped in the rosy mists of evening.
Flocks of birds flew from its massive basaltic crown, and as it
was evident that they had not come there to breed, we inferred
that open water was not far offi
10. Our attenrion was directed, however, especially, to the
conflguration of the country, and great was our delight when
we beheld beneath us a broad inlet, which promised to be of con
siderable extent and to run towards the north. This inlet was
covered with icebergs and could be traced up to the faint out
lines of a distant promontory (Cape Tyrol). It now appeared
certain, that we could reach the eighty-first degree of latitude
on an ice-covered sea, and the measurement of some angles
furnished us v/ith a provisional guidance for penetrating into

VII.] SECOND SLEDGE EXPEDITION.— AUSTRIA SOUND. 281

these new regions. The coasts of Wilczek Land appeared
to run in a northerly direction, and then to trend gradually to
the north-east. At a great distance below us we saw a dark
point moving over the dimly-seen plain of sea-ice. Its
advance was discernible only when for a short time it dis
appeared behind an iceberg, and again reappeared. It was
Orel with the large sledge ; but neither the snowy mountains
bathed in carmine light, which surrounded our point of view
with picturesque effect, nor the crimson veil spread over them,
nor the profound solitude of the wastes that lay around us,
could so rivet our attention as that little point in which lodged
forces apparently so insignificant, but yet made potent by
human will. With pain and toil we descended the mountain
in our canvas boots between steep precipices of ice, and
pressed on for six miles in the rapidly-waning light over hum-
mocky-ice to rejoin our companions, whose position we had
marked by the stars, from the elevation we had ascended.
We reached our friends before midnight and our news excited
great joy.
II. On the 1st of April (the thermometer marking -20° F.)
we penetrated by Cape Hansa into the newly-discovered
passage, which was covered with heavy ice ; I called it Austria
Sound. The nearer we approached the coast of Wilczek
Land, the more unquestionable did it appear that the Wiil
lersdorf mountains extended far into the interior; but it
would have cost more time than the attempt was worth to
ascend them. The latitude taken at noon was 80° 22'-
Nothing can be more exciting than the discovery of new
countries. The combining faculty never tires in tracing their
configuration, and the fancy is restlessly busy in filling up
the gaps of what is as yet unseen, and though the next step
may destroy its illusions, it is ever prone to indulge in
fresh ones. Herein lies the great charm of sledge expedi
tions, as compared with the tiresome monotony of life on
board ship — a charm which is only then diminished when we
have to wander for days over wastes of snow, with the coasts
at such a distance, that they do not change sufficiently
rapidly, or leave scope for indu.ging in surmises and fancies
of what is coming. The discomforts incident to this mode of
travelling are in this case doubly felt. The sledge is dragged
20

282 AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES. ' [CHAP
with great difficulty in the hours of the early morning, for
the hard edges of the snow crystals have not yet felt the
smoothing effects of evaporation under the power of the sun.
The goal itself appears as if it were never to be reached,
because the limited horizon of the travellers constantly
retreats. Thirst and languor then set in. The small quantity
of water which we were able to prepare during the march
had no more effect than a drop on a plate of hot iron. Klotz
felt unwell to-day, and cured himself by swallowing his
ration of rum at one gulp. Even the dogs seemed languid,
and crept along with drooping heads and their tails between
their legs.
12. The land on our right was a monotonous waste of
ridges and terraces of parallel raised beaches, partially covered
with snow. Following its line as we marched onwards, we
passed iceberg after iceberg. Towards evening I ascended
one of these, and made the joyful discovery that Austria
Sound stretched in a northerly direction at least as far as a
cape — afterwards called Cape Tyrol. In the midst of my
observations Orel called to me from below that a bear was
coming near us. We awaited his approach with the greed
of cannibals, for his flesh would be priceless while we were
making such great exertions and had only the insufficient
nourishment of boiled beef I promised Haller and Klotz
the bear-money of 30 gulden, usual in Tyrol, if the bear
should be bagged. The animal received three shots at the
same moment and at first stood stock still, but then began to
drag himself slowly offi We rushed after him, and to save
our cartridges struck him with the butts of our rifles, and
finished him by thrusting our long knives into his body. We
appropriated 50 lbs. of his flesh to our own use, and gave the
rest of his carcase to the dogs, and deposited 50 lbs. of boiled
beef on the iceberg, close by which we erected our tent,
13. On the 2nd of April (the thermometer marking— 11 F.)
we again started with renewed vigour, though in the face of
a strong north wind, I myself left the sledge in order to
examine the raised beach for some distance. It was for the
most part bare of snow, and exhibited laminae of brown-coal
sandstone amid the Dolerite. Close beside the scanty remains
of some drift-wood, I was surprised to find a circle of large

VII.] SECOND SLEDGE EXPEDITION.— AUSTRIA SOUND. 283

stones resembling those erections which I had seen in East
Greenland in deserted Eskimo villages. As, however, there
were no other marked traces of former settlements, this circle
of .stones was no doubt something accidental. The magnitude
of Franz-Josef Land seemed to grow before our eyes, as we
saw the broad Markham Sound opening up towards the west,
and ranges of high mountains stretching away towards Cape
Tyrol. The coasts abounded in fiords, and glaciers were
everywhere to be seen, Wilczek Land disappeared under
ice-streams, and only reappeared again in the rocky heights
of Cape Heller and Cape Schmarda, opposite Wiener-neustadt
Island. In the evening we reckoned that we had reached
latitude 80° 42',
14. On the 3rd of April (the thermometer standing at
— 9° F.) we should have reached Cape Tyrol, had not snow
storms from the south kept us in the afternoon in our tent : a
delay with which Lukinovich was by no means displeased, for
this being Good Friday he had counted on a day of complete
rest, — for our friend Lukinovich was prone to turn his eyes to
heaven, spoke constantly of the saints, could mention their
festivals as they occurred in the calendar ; but, alas ! was a
snow-eater, and could march not a whit better than Falstaff,
On the 4th of April the temperature, with constant driving
storms of snow from the south, rose from - 4° to 23° F. ; and
the snow accumulated to such an extent even in the tent,
that it had to be shovelled out. It was towards the afternoon
before we could continue our march, the delay made being
not so much on account of the cold, as from dread of the
moisture. Our start proved, however, useless, for the snow
began to drive so furiously, that, as we dragged, those behind
could scarcely see the men in front. We again travelled by
the compass and used our sledge-sail ; but we constantly
deviated from the right course, though we pressed on, passing
Cape Tyrol without seeing it, and entered an unknown region
in which we were guided by mere chance — expecting every
moment to stumble on a fissure in the ice or open water.
This day we sustained a painful loss — the loss of my dog
Sumbu. For two long years he had been almost our only
source of amusement by his cunning and his impudence.
He had long been the rival of the frolicsome Torossy, in

284

AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES.

[chap.

dragging the sledge ; and it was often almost touching to see
how at evening he would sink down exhausted in the snow,
in the very spot where he was unharnessed. It cannot well
detract from the merit of such services — and after all they
were rendered in the interests of science ! — that they were
those of an animal and sprang from attachment.^ To this
vigorous lively animal, what more natural than that he should
be almost beside himself if in one of these vast solitudes he

HOW SUMBU WAS LOST.
should get sight of a living creature ? So it happened to-day.
A gull flew over his head, and Sumbu burst away from the
sledge. In hot pursuit of the bird he disappeared from our
sight and nevfer returned again. All our shouts were thrown
away. Our track was soon covered over by the drifting snow,
and there cannot be a doubt that our faithful companion,
after wandering about for days, either died of hunger or fell
a victim to a bear. ^ Sumbu and Pekel were my own dogs.

VII.] SECOND SLEDGE EXPEDITION.— AUSTRIA SOUND. 285
15. April 5, after a short rest, we again started about mid
night in order to economize our time (the thermometer being
at 19° F.). The weather had greatly improved. Klotz, who
was the first to step out of the tent, startled us by the in
formation that some high land barred our further progress.
But when we followed him into the open air, we found that
Klotz had looked to the west instead of to the north, and we
discovered the true state of things, that Zichy Land ran on
our left in a northerly direction, while Wilczek Land trended
towards the north-east. We pursued, therefore, our course on
the vast icy wastes, over which hung Cape Easter (81° i'), and
Cape Hellwald shining in the sun, and hoisted the flag on the

CAPE EASTER AND STERNEK SOUND.

sledge to celebrate our passage of the eighty-first degree of
north latitude, and in commemoration of Easter Sunday.
16. During our march, spying us at a great distance, a bear
approached us at a rapid pace, but when he came within forty
paces he fell, receiving three bullets in his head. The accom
panying illustration shows how we received bears when they
attacked us on our journey ; it represents also the fine forms
of Cape Tyrol in the background. A few hours afterwards,
we observed a she-bear about 400 yards from us, apparently
diligent in burrowing in the snow ; but as soon as she got
wind of us she suddenly turned, reared herself on her hind
legs, and began to snuff the air. She then came towards us,
but as she advanced she rolled herself over with evident-

VII.] SECOND SLEDGE EXPEDITION.— AUSTRIA SOUND. 287
pleasure on her back several times, then pushed on with her
snout and belly close to the ground, perfectly unconscious of
the three rifles which were levelled at her. At fifty paces
distance we fired, and brought her down. We immediately
examined the place where we had seen her so busy. We did
not find poor Sumbu, as we half expected, but a partially-
consumed seal, and close to it a hole in the ice, into which
the creature no doubt would plunge when danger threatened ;
but the bear had been sharper and cleverer than the seal, and
had probably seized it when asleep on the ice. Bear-flesh now
formed our principal food, and the sledge was heavily laden

DINING ON BEARS FLESH.

with it. We ate it both raw and cooked, and when the flesh
was badly cooked — especially if it were the flesh of an old
bear— it was less palatable than when uncooked. It may be
tolerable food for sea-gulls, but it is a diet hardly fit even for
devils on the fast-days of the infernal regions. Arctic lands
certainly do not furnish delicacies to gratify a refined taste ;
the best things they have to offer are coarse and oily, and if
ever they are eaten with relish, it is a relish which comes from
hunger alone. The desolate shores of these lands are truly
the very home of hunger, and nowhere else are the calcula
tions of travellers so much influenced and determined by the

288 AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES. [chap.
stomach and its needs. Remains or fragments are unknown
in Arctic regions. The dead are consumed by the living, and
the living find their never-ceasing occupation in the toilsome
search for food. In my three Arctic expeditions, I very
seldom indeed found the remains of animals, never the re
mains of a bear or a fox. The man who visits these wastes
must do homage to the principle of eating everything, and
throwing away nothing. Franklin was unsurpassed in this,
but i believe we were little behind him. Franklin and his
people found the flesh of a white fox as pleasant to the taste
as young geese — a proof how entirely they had forgotten
how geese taste. They preferred foxes, too, to lean reindeer;
and they considered the flesh of a grey bear exceedingly pala
table, though even the Eskimos eat it only in dire necessity.
Reindeer marrow, even raw, was to them a great delicacy,
and they ate animals in a state of decomposition, Barentz
and his crew were very modest in their tastes; they com
pared whale-flesh to beef, and foxes to rabbits, as articles of
diet ; bears' meat they utterly detested. Once only it seems
they partook of the liver of a bear, and three of his men
became exceedingly ill in consequence, their skin peeling off
from head to foot. Kane was prejudiced against bear, not
withstanding the great straits to which he was reduced, and
complains of this food as being absolutely uneatable. The
testimony of Dun6r is more favourable. "If," says he, "a
bear has not been eating walrus or seal in a state of semi-
putrefaction before he is killed, his flesh, though somewhat
coarse, is yet palatable, and not at all prejudicial to health,"
Parry thought whale-flesh and walrus -flesh equally distaste
ful : he makes an exception in favour only of the heart of
the walrus ; but he speaks of the tenderness and excellence
of the flesh of young seals. As for ourselves, we disdained
nothing that we could get hold of, after the manner of Sir
John Ross, who thought the fox the best of all food, better
than the gull {Larus tridactylus).
17. The continued moisture of the last few days had
completely saturated our canvas boots ; and those of several
of us were besides nearly worn out, and in the morning when
completely frozen, to put the foot into one was as bad as
putting it into an ice-hole, so that we were obliged to thaw

VII.] SECOND SLEDGE EXPEDITION.— AUSTRIA SOUND. 289
them over a spirit-flame, and to knock their heels with a
hammer, continually during the march. Sussich had made
himself a pair of new boots out of a cloth jacket. It would,
however, be a mistake to think that we should have been any
better off with leather boots. In fact, we could not have put
them on, and in the increasing cold of the following weeks
our feet would certainly have been frost-bitten. Our clothes
were completely saturated in like manner, and whenever the
temperature fell they became stiff with ice. I suffered the
least of any, for my bird-skin garments were the best pre
servatives against the penetration of moisture.
18. No kind of snow opposes such hindrances to sledge-
dragging as the snow with the thermometer not much below
freezing-point, for at this temperature it balls. This impedi
ment we now encountered. The air, too, became oppressively
heavy ; land and sky were suddenly overspread with darkness ;
and, from behind thunderlike clouds, red rays of the sun fell
on the conical mountains of Kane Island. Falls of snow,
calms, and violent gusts of wind rapidly succeeded one
another, and just before we erected our tent it again became
clear. Far to the north we saw two white masses — Becker
and Archduke-Rainer Islands, and an extensive inlet — Back
Inlet; but only within Austria Sound could we count on
pursuing our journey northwards without making any detours.
On Easter Monday, April 7th (the thermometer varying
between 9° and 19° below zero [C.]), we approached Becker
Island ; but the atmosphere was on this day so moist and
thick, though without mist in the proper sense, that its exist
ence might be asserted or disputed according as the light
changed ; and it was only when we were not further off than
100 paces that we could be positive of the existence of land,
rising gently at an angle of l° 7', Over this ice-covered island
we now dragged, and, full of expectation, mounted its highest
point. To the north lay an indescribable waste, more utterly
desolate than anything I had ever seen, even in the Arctic
regions, interspersed with snow-covered islands, all, big and
littie, of the same low, rounded shape. The whole, at a dis
tance, presented the appearance of a chaos of icehills and
icebergs scattered over a frozen sea. One thing only in this
view gave us much satisfaction, Austria Sound still stretched

290 AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES. [CHAP.
uninterruptedly towards the north. Could we have forgotten
how the Tegetthoff^ had drifted towards Franz-Josef Land,
that Sound would have seemed to us the true road to the
Pole. Nor could we doubt that in the immediate north open
water would be found, for in no other way could we interpret
the indications we had observed in the course of the last few
days — the great moisture and high temperature, the dark
colour of the northern sky, the frequent flights of Auks, and
Divers, grey and white Gulls, which flew from the north
southward, or vice versd.
19. After crossing Becker Island, we went on again on the
frozen sea, which was rough and undulating for some distance.
From behind one of the hummocks a bear suddenly emerged,
and came towards us without any fear or hesitation, his yellow
colour forming a strong contrast with the gleaming hills of
ice. When he was thirty paces off we fired ; but though
severely wounded he managed to get away. On the 7th of
April (the thermometer varying between 16° and 25" below
zero (C), and with a light south-west wind), we passed close
to Archduke-Rainer Island, a heavy rime frost seriously
impeding our progress. We were able, however, to turn to
good account the clear sunny weather of this day. We dried
our clothes and tent furniture, spreading them out in the sun
over the sledge or suspending them to its mast and yard.
We had almost reached Cape Beurmann at noon, and having
taken our observations, we found our latitude to be 81" 23''.
We had consequently gone beyond the latitude reached by
Morton ; Hayes only having reached a slightly higher latitude
than this. About this time of the day the horizon towards
the north became exceedingly clear, and the steep rocks of
Coburg Island were distinctly visible, and behind them now
rose the faint outlines of mountains — Crown-Prince Rudolf's
Land. 20. At this latitude it seemed as if Wilczek Land suddenly
terminated, but when the sun scattered the driving mist we
saw the glittering ranges of its enormous glaciers — the Dove^
Glaciers — shining down on us. Towards the north-east we
could trace land trending to a cape lying in the grey distance
— Cape Buda Pesth, as it was afterwards called. The prospect
^ Named after Dove, the celebrated German physicist.

VII.] SECOND SLEDGE EXPEDITION.— AUSTRIA SOUND. 291
thus opened to us of a vast glacier land, conflicted with the
general impression we had formed of the resemblance between
the newly- discovered region and Spitzbergen ; for glaciers of
such extraordinary magnitude presuppose the existence of
a country stretching far into the interior. As it appeared to
us that Crown- Prince. Rudolf's Land and Karl Alexander's
Land formed a continuous whole, we left Austria Sound and
diverged into Rawlinson Sound, and directed our course
towards Cape Rath. It was my intention, if this headland
should be reached, to leave behind the remainder of the party
and push on with the dog-sledge and two companions. We
could count on finding deep snow-wreaths behind the hum
mocks, and to dig out a snow-house would have been the
labour of an hour for three men. Previous experience had
convinced us that such a night encampment is warmer than
the shelter which a tent can afford. But though we were filled
with zeal to extend our discoveries as much as possible, we
now felt that the excessive exertions we had made had reduced
our strength. We had slept on an average but five hours a
day, and marched the rest of the day, or at any rate had been
occupied with all manner of work. Our appetite too had in
creased with our labours, and the partaking of bears' flesh
began to tell on some of us. The restricted use of bread-stuff
was especially felt, and the almost exclusive use of flesh pro
duced diarrhoea and general debility. Nothing is more pre
judicial to those engaged in extended sledge journeys than
great exertion with insufficient sleep. The urgent reasons we
had for losing no time in order that we might return as soon
as possible to the ship, constrained us to depart from the
rule of a ten hours' sleep to a seven hours' march on sledge
journeys. In consequence of our peristent adherence to this
principle during our return to Europe after abandoning the
Tegetthoff, the labours incident to it were far more easily per
formed. We did not lose but gained strength ; and some of us
even grew stouter during it,
21. On the 8th of April we conrinued our journey, making
an early start as usual. Our track lay between countless
hummocks, some of which were forty feet high, while the de
pressions between them were filled with deep layers of snow, and
as we advanced into Rawlinson Sound, high icebergs towered

292

AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES.

[chap.

over a monotonous chaos of ice-forms. The ice resembled
that which surrounded the Tegetthoff during our first winter,
and indicated a periodical, perhaps even an annual, breaking
up. There was nothing, however, to entitle us to infer that
Rawlinson Sound was navigable in summer. Like many of
the passages of the northern coast of North America, Austria
and Rawlinson Sounds are too narrow for the purposes of navi-l
gation. They are, however, well calculated for sledge travel
ling. For some time we made use of our sledge-sail ; but
when the wind shifted to E.S.E., it drove the sledge so much

CUTTING UP THE BEARS.

from its true course, that we took it down. Our noses had
become so susceptible, that we were glad to put on our wind-
protectors to save them from frost-bite. Then followed snow
storms, alternating with brilliant sunshine which, however,
illuminated, partially only, some reaches of the hummocky ice,
while the distant land lay in shadow. It cost us excessive
labour to get the sledge on ; we had occasionally to dig a
lane for it, and we ran some risk of breaking it. Our advance
was one continual zig-zag, due to the confused character of

VII.] SECOND SLEDGE EXPEDITION,— AUSTRIA SOUND, 293
the ice on which we travelled and the untrustworthiness of the
compass in high latitudes. It seemed too, as if the declina
tion of the magnetic needle had considerably diminished since
we left the ship. Our labours were diversified by the visit of
a bear, who, when we first observed him, was standing on the
top of one of the many ice-hummocks about 300 paces distant,
. He then approached us, as was usually the case, under the
wind, and we at once drew up to receive him. He took no
notice of the bread we had laid down to gain his attention,
but still pressed on till he received three bullets in his head.
Notwithstanding this he ran for about seventy yards and then.
fell. To make sure, another bullet was fired into his body,
and thinking him dead, we forthwith began to cut him up ;
but when his belly was being opened, he raised his head in a
fury, seized the butt-end of my rifle with his teeth and tore it
from my hand. My companions soon despatched him. The
bear was eight feet long, and therefore of unusual size. We
might have cut off two or three cwt. of flesh from his carcase,
but in consideration of the heavy lading of the sledge, we
contented ourselves with appropriating sixty pounds. Both
Rawhnson and Austria Sounds were equally rich in fresh traces
of bears, which seemed to be those of whole families and not
of individual animals,
22. Our latitude from a meridian observation was found to
be 81° 38' — and though the sun shining dimly through the
clouds might account for an error of two or three minutes, we
had certainly passed beyond the latitude 81° 35' reached by
Hayes in Smith's Sound in 1861.1 Having no conception at
the time that Hall's American expedition had penetrated, the
year before we achieved this result, to 82° 9' on the land and
82° 22' at sea, we hoisted our sledge-flag to commemorate our
success. The character of the ice now became so wild and
confused that we wandered 45° from one point of the compass
to the other. We constantly expected to come upon open
fissures, and could not conceal from ourselves how easily its
loose connection might be broken up by a storm, and our
return to the ship exposed to great risks. The transport of
our travelling gear became increasingly difficult, and great
were our fears lest, through the constant heavy shocks which
' Pany reached, on the frozen s«i to the north of Spitzbergen, 82° 45' N.L.

294 AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES, [chap, vii.
the sledge encountered, the case of spirit should be crushed
and destroyed. The difficulties too to be overcome amid
the multitude of hummocks were more depressing than
the occurrence of snow-storms, inasmuch as their number
almost destroyed the possibility of progress ; and the
monotonous uniformity which tired the eye tended also to
depress the spirits.
23. On the 9th of April (the thermometer standing at 10°
F., and a light breeze blowing from the east) we continued
our work of dragging between the hummocks till noon. We
then ascended an iceberg, and discovered that the hummocks
of ice in Rawlinson's Sound appeared to stretch on without end.
We therefore altered our course and took a north-westerly
direction, in order to come under Crown-Prince Rudolf's Land,
whose noble mountain forms and mighty glaciers shone forth
in the light of the sun. We expected to find smoother ice on
its coast-line ; but we were deceived in this expectation, for
the character of the ice remained unchanged. We were com
pelled therefore to cross this Sound in a westerly direction to
Hohenlohe Island, and to select the rocky pyramid — ^visible
from a great distance — of Cape Schrotter as the point where
our expedition should divide into two parties ; the larger
party to remain behind, the smaller to penetrate further
towards the north over the glaciers of Rudolf's Land. By
noon of this day we reached 81° 37' N. L, and in the evening
arrived at Cape Schrotter, All the labours and efforts of the
last few days had consequently been without result.

CHAPTER VIIL
IN THE EXTREME NORTPL
I. IMMEDIATELY after reaching Cape Schrotter, the east
end of Hohenlohe Island, we ascended the summit of this
Dolerite rock, which was quite free from snow, and covered
with a sparse vegetation. We were surprised to find here the
excrement of a hare. The prospect which lay before us
convinced us of the necessity of our proposed temporary
separation. The mountains of Crown-Prince Rudolf's Land,
separated from us by an arm of the sea covered with level
ice, were so high (about 3,000 feet) that we saw at once that we
could pass over them only with the small dog-sledge. The
walking powers, moreover, of two of my companions had
greatly deteriorated, and for them rest was not an indulgence,
but a necessity. Austria Sound appeared to stretch still
further to the north, but its western coasts turned sharply
to the left in the precipitous cliffs of Cape Felder and Cape
Bohm. The blue jagged line of mountains, towering above
snow-fields lying in the sun, stretched away to the north-west
till they were lost in dark streaks on the horizon, which our
experience led us to interpret as a water- sky above open
spaces of the sea.
2. I was greatly delighted by Orel's readiness, though he
was suffering from inflamed eyes, to take part in the expedi
tion to the extreme north ; and it only remained for us to
select the fittest among the party and to calm the apprehen
sions of those who were to remain behind. On our return to
the foot of the rocks, where the tent was already pitched,
we found the rest of the party sitting close to each other
at the rocky wall on which the sun was shining, in order

296 AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES, [CHAP.
to warm themselves, — like crickets on the wall of a house.
The success of an expedition like that we projected depends
chiefly on the mutual good feeling among* its members,
and he who commands it, besides participating personally in
all the labours to be endured, must show himself a sympa
thetic friend even in cases where strict duty doe's not enjoin it,
so that confidence in him may grow into a kind of belief in
his infallibility. There could not be more devoted or enduring
nien than those who were here lying in the sun, and whom we
now joined, in order to decide the question of the hour. I
explained to them the plans I meant to follow, — that I should
be absent from five to eight days, that if I should not return
to them within fifteen days they should march back to the
ship with the sledge — sawn through the middle — and the
stock of provisions which should be placed at their disposal
would suffice for this emergency, I then asked each of them
whether he could dismiss fear, and remain behind in tjiis
desolation. Sussich answered : " Se uno de lori resta indietro,
mi non go paura : " so said the rest. By the expression, how
ever, " uno de lori " they meant Orel or one ofthe two Tyrolese,
and specially with an eye to the bears which might be prowling
about, I left it free to Klotz and Haller to decide which of
them was the fittest and most serviceable to accompany me :
" You," answered Haller, " you, Klotz, are the better man to
drag the sledge and endure fatigue," Accordingly Sussich
and Lukinovich remained under Haller's command. These
three were ordered not to go more than 300 yards from Cape
Schrotter, to remain on the defensive if attacked by bears, to
spend their time in drying their clothes and repairing their
torn boots, and to go about in wooden shoes to save wear and
tear. Haller received as Governor of Hohenlohe Island a
pocket-compass, a watch, an aneroid barometer, and a ther
mometer, and to them we left also our little medicine-chest.
If Dr. Kepes had once tried to make a doctor of me in one
hour, in now repeating the experiment on Haller I confined
myself to ten minutes.
3. On the morning of the loth of April (the thermometer
standing at 5° F.) we divided the tent ; one half was put on the
dog-sledge, the other was pitched, with its open side close under
the rock. Before a caravan takes the desert, the camels are

VIII.] IN THE EXTREME NORTH.

297

watered, and we too, though in a very different kind of desert,
exposed to the constant evil of thirst, would gladly have been
treated in like fashion. But we had to content ourselves with
a pint of boiling water, served out to each of us every morn
ing, reminding us, indeed, of coffee, for 2 lbs. of it were
boiled in 105 gallons of water in the course of thirty days-
The provisions were divided, and enough for eight days was
dealt out to the party starting to the north, Orel, Zaninovitch,
Klotz, myself, and two dogs. The special requirements of
our expedition, among which were a rifle and a revolver, raised
the weight of our sledge to about 4 cwt., which it was the
business of the dogs to draw without any assistance from us,
and this they did over the level snow with such zeal, that we
had some trouble in keeping up with them.
4 The merits of our dogs I have hitherto left unnoticed, in
order emphatically to assert that we owed the passing beyond
the eighty-second degree of north latitude not to our own
exertions, but to the endurance and courage of these animals.
No kind of life among dogs is comparable for hardships with
the life of a dog in an Arctic sledge. His tent is scarcely the
pretext of a shelter, and his natural coat is generally covered
by a thick rime. The snow when it drifts completely covers
him, though he constantly but vainly seeks to shake it off.
He draws his breath with difficulty, hunger gnaws at his
bowels, and his wounded feet colour .the snow with blood.
Often, too, these poor animals amid the great cold must keep
still ; then they lift up their paws alternately, to prevent
frost-bite. The two dogs, which- accompanied us to the ex
treme North, were the noblest animals ever employed in a
sledge expedition, and when I recall the great services they
rendered us, both now and afterwards in the return to Europe^
their sad end fills me with sincere sorrow, Jubinal and
Torossy were dogs of remarkable size and strength, and
escaped the epidemic diseases ^ which attacked the dogs of
Hayes and Kane ; and .though it has been thought that the
1 Kane's dogs died principally in consequence of being fed chiefly on salt meat,
and Hayes's from a disease among dogs which spreads over all West Greenland.
Epidemics of this kind break out among the dogs of the Eskimos and of the
Siberian tribes. Middendorf mentions, however, that canine madness never occmrs
among the dogs of the latter,
21

298

AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES.

[chap.

dogs of the Eskimo and of the Siberian people were alone
adapted for Arctic expeditions, our experience with our own
dogs, most of them brought from Vienna, proves that they
were not a whit less useful. Our dogs had only one defect :
they had not been trained to sledge-drawing from their youth,
but had been broken to it only during our expedition, and
were therefore not always amenable to discipline. When left
to themselves in dragging the sledge they went on, without
turning to the right or left, from cape to cape, and if they
found themselves on ¦ a wide plain of ice, and far from all
striking landmarks, they ran either towards the sun or moon.

ICEBERGS AT THE BASE OF THE MIDDENDORF GLACIER.
or some remarkable star. It was against the grain with them
to have to drag in the teeth of the wind, and if they had to
push on amid hummocks of ice, they immediately began to
growl. They were fed in the morning, and more particularly
in the evening, and they showed a delicacy of taste in dis
criminating between bear's flesh and the despised seal's flesh.
While they carefully avoided coming near us before our start,
provided they were not very hungry, in order to escape being
harnessed, yet when harnessed nothing could exceed their
vigour and persistence in dragging.

VIII.] IN THE EXTREME NORTH. 299
5. As we approached the promontory on the south of
Crown-Prince Rudolf's Land, we came upon innumerable ice
bergs, from one hundred to two hundred feet high, which
made an incessant cracking and snapping sound in the sun
shine. The Middendorf glacier, with an enormous sea-wall,
ran towards the north to a great distance. Deep layers of
snow and great rents in the sea-ice, the consequence of the
falling-in of icebergs, filled the intervening spaces between
them. Into these fissures we were continually falling, drench
ing our canvas boots and clothes with sea- water. But the
aspect of these colossal fragments of glaciers engrossed us to
such an extent, that we wandered a long time with unflagging
interest among these pyramids, tables, and cliffs. It was only
when I sent on Klotz to mark out by his footsteps a path by
which we might ascend the Middendorf glacier, that we came
to a more open region, and, all putting their strength to the
work of dragging, we gained its summit, crossing in our pro
gress many crevasses bridged over with snow. Three of these
yawned across the lower part of the glacier, needing but a
shght movement of the ice to detach them and transform
them into icebergs. Further on, the glacier appeared smooth
and free irom crevasses, although its inclination amounted to
several degrees. Towards the north it seemed as if it might
be crossed without excessive exertion, if all took part in the
work of dragging. But before v.'e began this part of the day's
work we rested, and recruited ourselves with dinner, and set-
ing up our little tent at about 400 paces above the edge of the
glacier, we looked down with feelings of delight on its semi
circular terminal precipice and the gleaming host of icebergs
which filled the indentations of the coast. While we were
sitting in the tent Klotz made the fatal communication to me,
that he was not the man he should be, that for some days his
foot had swollen and ulcerated, so that he could walk only in
shoes made of hide. However vexatious this mishap, there
was nothing for it but to send him back to Hohenlohe Island.
Laden with a sack and carrying a revolver, he set off, and
soon disappeared from our eyes in the labyrinth of icebergs
beneath us.
6. We had nieanwhile again packed the sledge, harnessed
the dogs, and fastened the traces round us, when, just as we

30O

AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES.

[chap.

were setting off, the snow gave way beneath the sledge, and
down fell Zaninovich, the dogs, and the sledge, and from an
unknown depth I heard a man's voice mingled with the howl
ing of dogs. All this was the impression of a moment, while
I felt myself dragged backwards by the rope. Staggering
back, and seeing the dark abyss beneath me, I could not doubt
that I should be precipitated into it the next instant. A
wonderful providence arrested the fall of the sledge ; at a
depth of about thirty feet it stuck fast between the sides of
the crevasse, just as I was being dragged to the edge of the
abyss by its weight. The sledge having jammed itself in, I

Hi\ •^*>~ *-^

THE SLEDGE FALLS INTO A CREVASSE ON THE MIDDENDORF GLACIER.
lay on my stomach close to the awful brink, the rope which
attached me to the sledge tightly strained, and cutting deep
into the snow. The situation was all the more dreadful as I,
the only person present accustomed to the dangers of glaciers,
lay there unable to stir. When I cried down to Zaninovich
that I would cut the rope, he implored me not to do it, for if
I did, the sledge would turn over, and he would be killed.
For a time I lay quiet, considering what was to be done. By
and by it flashed into my memory, how I and my guide had
once fallen down a wall of ice in the Ortler Mountains, 8oo
feet high, and had escaped. This inspired me with confidence

VIII.] IN THE EXTREME NORTH. 301
to venture on a rescue, desperate as it seemed under the cir
cumstances. Orel had now come up, and although he had
never been on a glacier before, this gallant officer dauntlessly
advanced to the edge of the crevasse, and, laying himself on
his stomach, looked down into the abyss, and cried to me,
" Zaninovich is lying on a ledge of snow in the crevasse, with
precipices all round him, and the dogs are still attached to the
traces of the sledge, which has stuck fast." I called to him
to throw me his knife, which he did with such dexterity, that
I was able to lay hold of it without difficulty ; and as the
only means of rescue, I severed the trace which was fastened
round my waist. The sledge made a short turn, and then
stuck fast again. I immediately sprang to my feet, drew off
my canvas boots, and sprang over the crevasse, which was
about ten feet broad. I now caught sight of Zaninovich and
the dogs, and shouted to him, that I would run back to
Hohenlohe Island to fetch men and ropes for his rescue, and
that rescued he would be, if he could contrive for four hours to
keep himself from being frozen. I heard his answer : " Fate,
Signore, fate pure!" and then Orel and I disappeared. Heed
less of the crevasses which lay in our path, or of the bears
which might attack us, we ran down the glacier back to Cape
Schrotter, six miles off. Only one thought possessed us — the
rescue of Zaninovich, the jewel and pride of our party, and
the recovery of our invaluable store of provisions, and of the
book containing our journals, which, if lost, could never be
replaced. But 'even apart from my personal feeling fqr
Zaninovich, I keenly felt the reproaches to which I should be
exposed of incautious travelling on glaciers ; and it gave me
no comfort to think that my previous experiences in this kind
of travelling over the glaciers of Greenland appeared to justify
my proceedings. Stung with these reflections, I pressed on at
the top of my speed, leaving Orel far behind me. Bathed in
perspiration, I threw off my bird-skin garments, my boots, my
gloves, and my shawl, and ran in my stockings through the
deep snow. After passing the labyrinth of icebergs I saw the
rocky pyramid of Cape Schrotter before me in the distance
The success of my venture depended on the weather. If snow-
driving should set in, and footprints should be obliterated,
it would be impossible to find Hohenlohe Island. All around

302 AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES, [chap.
me it was fearfully lonely. Encompassed by glaciers, I was
absolutely alone. At last I saw Klotz emerge from behind
an iceberg at some distance off, and though I continued to
shout his name till I almost reached him, I failed to rouse him
from his usual reverie. When at last he saw me breathlessly
pushing on, scarcely clothed, and constantly calling, his sack
slipped from his back, and he stared at me as if he had lost
his senses. When the hardy son of the mountains came to
understand that Zaninovich with the sledge was buried in the
crevasse, he began to weep, in his simplicity of heart taking
the blame of what had happened on himself He was so

KLOTZS -AMAZEMENT.

agitated and disturbed, that I made him promise that he
would do himself no mischief, and then, leaving .him to his
moody silence, I ran on again towards the island. It seemed
as if I should never reach Cape Schrotter ; with head bent
down I trudged on, counting my steps through the deep snow;
when I raised it again, after a little time, it was always the
same black spot that I saw on the distant horizon. At last I
came near it, saw the tent, saw some dark spots creep out of
it, saw them gather together, and then run down the snow-
slope. These were the friends we had left behind. A few
words of explanation, with an exhortation to abstain from

VIII.] IN THE EXTREME NORTH, 303
idle lamentation, were enough. They at once . detached a
second rope from the large sledge, and got hold of a long
tent-pole. Meantime I had rushed upon the cooking-machine,
quickly melted a little snow to quench my raging thirst, and
then we all set off again — Haller, Sussich, Lukinovich, and
myself — to the Middendorf glacier. Tent and provisions were
left unwatched ; we ran back for three hours and a half ; fears
for Zaninovich gave such wings to my steps, that my com
panions were scarcely able to keep up with me. Ever and
anon, I had to stop to drink some rum. At the outset we
met Orel, and rather later Klotz, both making for Cape
Schrotter, Klotz to remain behind there, and Orel to return

ll«

THE ALARM OF THE HOHENLOHE PARTY.

with us at once to Middendorf glacier. When we came
among the icebergs under Cape Habermann I picked up, one
by one, the clothes I had thrown away. Reaching the glacier,
we tied ourselves together with a rope. Going before the rest,
I approached with beating heart the place, where the sledge
had disappeared four hours and a half ago. A dark abyss
yawned before us ; not a sound issued from its depths, not
even when I lay on the ground and shouted. At last I heard
the whining of a dog, and then an unintelligible, answer from
Zaninovich. Haller was quickly let down by a rope ; he
found him still living, but almost frozen, on a ledge of snow

304 AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES. [CHAP.
forty feet down the crevasse. Fastening himself and Zanino
vich to the rope, they were drawn up after great exertion. A
storm of greetings saluted Zaninovich, .stiff and speechless
though he was, when he appeared on the surface of the
glacier. I need not add that we gave him some rum to
stimulate his vital energies. It was a noble proof how duty
and discipline assert themselves, even in such situations, that
the first word of this* sailor, saved from being frozen to death
was not a complaint, but thanks, accompanied with a request
that I would pardon him if he, in order to save himself from
being frozen, had ventured to drink a portion of the rum,
which had fallen down in its case with the sledge to his ledge
of snow. Haller again descended, and fastened the dogs to
the rope. The clever animals had freed themselves from their
traces in some inexplicable way, and had sprung to a narrow
ledge, where HaJler found them, close to where Zaninovich
had lain. It was astonishing how quickly they discerned the
danger of the position, and how great was their confidence in
us. They had slept the whole time, as Zaninovich afterwards
told us, and he had carefully avoided touching them, lest they
should fall down deeper into the abyss. We drew them up
with some difficulty, and they gave expression to their joy,
first by rolling themselves vigorously in the snow, and then
by licking our hands. We then raised Haller by the rope
some ten feet higher than the ledge on which Zaninovich had
lain, so that he might be able to cut the ropes which fastened
the loading of the firmly wedged-in sledge. At this moment
Orel arrived, and with his help we raised one by one the
articles with which the sledge was loaded. It was ten o'clock
before we were convinced that we had lost nothing of any
importance in the crevasse,
7, We now left the glacier and the icebergs, and by mid
night had reached Cape Habermann. Here we slept, and the
dogs with us, as uncomfortably as possible. On the morning
of the nth of April (the thermometer marking 3° F), we
started at an hour when we would much rather have con
tinued to sleep. Our thirst was so great that we felt our
selves equal to drinking up a stream. Haller, Sussich,
Lukinovich had during the night returned to Cape Schrotter.
Before they started Haller earnestly besought me to come

VIII.] IN THE EXTREME NORTH. 305
back as soon as possible ; for the recent event, he said, had
not been without its disquieting effects on the men. On the
whole, we might congratulate ourselves on being able to
continue our journey, without having received any serious
damage, though no longer over the treacherous glacier.
8. A sharp turn to the left brought us to the west coast of
Crown-Prince Rudolf's Land, along which we pursued our
route northwards. When we reached Cape Brorock, where by
an observation we found our latitude at noon to be 81° 45',
the weather became wonderfully bright, and the warm, sun
light lay on the broken summits of the Dolerite mountains.

HALT UNDER CROWN PRINCE RUDOLFS LAND

which, though covered with gleaming ice, were free from snov/.
To the north-west we saw at first nothing but ice up to the
horizon ; even wit'n the telescope of the theodolite I could not
decide for the existence of land, which Orel's sharp eye dis
covered in the far distance. In the Arctic regions, it often
happens that banks of fog on the horizon assume the character
of distant ranges, for the small height to which these banks
rise in the cold air causes them to be very sharply defined. It
is very common also to make the same mistake in the case
of mists arising from the waste water of enormous glaciers.
We marched on northward close under the land, and for the
first time over smooth undulating ice, in high spirits at the
increasing grandeur of the scenery and at the happy issue of

3o6 AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES. [CHAP. VIII.
our adventure of yesterday. Thirst compelled us frequently
to halt in order to liquefy snow ; ^ sometimes we melted it as
we marched along, and our sledge with smoke curhng up from
the cooking-machine then resembled a small steamer.
9. By and by we came to more snow, and the ice, through
which many fissures ran, became gradually thinner, but when
we reached the imposing headland, which we called Cape Auk,
the ice lay in forced-up barriers. A strange change had come
over the aspect of nature. A dark water-sky appeared in the
north, and heavy mists rolled down to the steep promontories
of Karl Alexander Land ; the temperature rose to 10° F.,^ our
track became moist, the snow-drifts collapsed under us with
a loud noise, and if we had previously been surprised with
the flight of birds from the north, we now found all the rocky
precipices of Rudolf's Land covered with thousands of auks
and divers. Enormous flocks of birds flew up and filled the
air, and the whole region seemed alive with their incessant
whirring. We met everywhere with traces of bears and foxes.
Seals lay on the ice, but sprang into the water before we got
within shot of therti. But notwithstanding these signs of a
richer animal life, we should not be justified in inferring, from
what we saw in a single locality, that life increases as ^e move
northwards. It was a venial exaggeration, if amid such im
pressions we pronounced for the nearness of an open Polar
sea, and without doubt all adherents of this opinion, had they
come with us to this point and no further, would have found
in these signs fresh grounds to support their belief In
enumerating these observations, I am conscious what attrac
tions they must have for every one who still leans to the
opinion that an open ocean will be found at the Pole ; subse
quent experience, however, will show how little is their value
in support of this antiquated hypothesis,
10. Our track was now very unsafe ; it was only the ice
bergs which seemed to keep the ice in the bays. A strong
east wind would certainly have broken it up and cut off our
return, at least with the sledge. There were no longer the
^ Snow-water was for two years the only water we used, and as none of us
became goitred, we were a living refutation of the opinion shared by many that its
constant use generates this disease in the inhabitants of the Alps,
^ On board the ship the temperature at the same time was - 20° F.

TT|T(|||||i|ll|||j|||ilH|ip|ll|| |||||||||||||H|||

¦IIIIIIIUllii ''^'^ -*'t ' '"•

illlM

3o8 AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES. [CHAP. VIII.

connected floes of winter, but young ice only, covered with
saline efflorescence, dangerously pliable, and strewn over with
the remains of recent pressures. The ice was broken through
in many places by the holes of seals. It was expedient there
fore to tie ourselves together with a long rope, and each of us,
as he took his turn in leading, constantly sounded the ice.
Passing by Cape Auk, which resembled a gigantic aviary, we
followed the line of Teplitz Bay, into which a stream of
glaciers, descending from the high mountains in the interior,
discharged itself Icebergs lay along the terminal glacier wall
which formed its shore. Ascending one of these masses, we
found granite erratics on its surface and saw the open sea
stretching far to the west. There seemed to be ice only on
the extreme horizon. As the ice-sheet over which our track
lay became thinner and more pliable, and constantly threatened-
to give way under us, the height and length of its piled-up
barriers increased also, and because the high glacier walls
made it impossible to travel over the land, we had no other
resource than to open up a track through the hummocky
ice by pick and shovel. At last even this expedient failed to
help us ; our sledge, constantly damaged, and as constantly
repaired, had to be unloaded, the dogs unharnessed, and
everything transported separately. Evening had now arrived;
ahead of us lay the two rock-towers, which we called Cape
Saulen, and open coast-water here began.
II. Beautiful and sublime was this far-off world. From a
height we looked over a dark " ice-hole,'' studded with icebergs
like pearls, and over these lay heavy clouds through which the
sunbeams fell on the gleaming water. Right over the true sun
shone a second, though somewhat duller sun ; the icebergs of
Crown-Prince Rudolf's Land, appearing enormously high,
sailed through the still region amid rolling mist and surrounded
by vast flocks of birds. Close under Cape Saulen (the Cape
of Columns) we came upon the steep edge of the glaciers and
dragged up our baggage with a long rope. While Orel got
ready our encampment for the night in the fissure of a glacier,
and completed as usual his meteorological observations and
soundings, I ascended a height to reconnoitre our track for
the next day. The sun was setting amid a scene of majestic
wildness ; its golden rays shot through dark banks of mist

5IO' AUSTRIAN. ARCTIC VOYAGES. [chap. vm.
and a gentle wind, playing over the " ice-hole," formed ever-
widening circles on its mirror-like surface. Land was no
longer visible towards the north, it was covered with a dense
" water-sky." A bird flew close past me ; at first I took it
for a ptarmigan, but it was probably a snipe. It ought to be
remarked that during the two days which we spent near this
"ice-hole" we never once saw a whale. As soon as with half-
closed eyes we had eaten our supper, we fell fast asleep, for
our longing to sleep was yet greater than our exhaustion and
our thirst. The dogs availed themselves of this opportunity
to devour Several pounds of bear's flesh and empty a tin of
condensed milk, which, however, did not' prevent them from
barking impudently the next morning for more.
12. The 1 2th of April was the last day of advance in a
northerly direction. Though the weather was not clear, yet
it was clearer than it had been for some time. When we
started we buried our baggage in the fissure of the glacier
where we had slept, in order to protect it from bears, which
roamed about on all sides. Our march lay over snowy
slopes to the summits of the coast range — from i,ooo to 3,000
feet high. The masses of mist lying on the horizon had
retreated before the rays of the morning sun, and all the
region with its lines of ice-forms was bathed in light ; and
southward, open water stretched to the shores of Cape Felder.
As we followed this lofty coast range, mountains v/ith glaciers
sloping down their sides towards the sea seemed to rise before
us. An hour before noon we reached a rocky promontory
1,200 feet high, afterwards called Cape Germania. Here we
rested, and from a meridian observation we found our latitude
to be 81° 57', Following the coast as it trended towards the
north-east, we came on a glacier with a steep inclination and
frequent crevasses, which compelled us to leave the sledge
behind before we attempted to cross it. But the increasing
insecurity of our track over fissures, our want of provisions,
and the certainty that since noon we had reached 82° 5' N. L.
by a march of five hours, at last brought our advance north
ward to a close. With a boat we might certainly have gone
sbme miles further.
13. We now stood on a promontory about 1,000 feet
high, which I named Cape Fligely, as a small mark of

312 AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES. [CHAP.
respect and gratitude towards a man of great distinction
in geographical science. Rudolf's Land still stretched in
a north-easterly direction towards a cape — Cape Sherard
Osborne — though it was impossible to determine its further
course and connection. The view we had from this height
was of great importance in relation to the question of an
open Polar sea. Open water there was of considerable extent
and in very high latitudes : of this there could be no ques
tion. But what was its character.' From the height on
which we stood we could survey its extent. Our expecta
tions had not been sanguine, but moderate though they were,
they proved to be exaggerated. No open sea was there,
but a " Polynia " surrounded by old ice, within which lay
masses of younger ice. This open space of water had arisen
from the action of the long prevalent E.N.E. winds. But
of more immediate interest than the question of an open
Polar sea was the aspect of blue mountain-ranges lying
in the distant north, indicating masses of land, which Orel
had partially seen the day before, and which now lay before
us with their outlines more defined. These we called King
Oscar Land and Petermann Land ; the mountainous ex
tremity on the west of the latter lay beyond tiie 83rd degree
of north latitude. This promontory I have called Cape
Vienna, in testimony of the interest which Austria's capital
has ever shown in geographical science, and in gratitude for
the sympathy with which she followed our wanderings, and
finally rewarded our humble merits.
14. Proudly we planted the Austro-Hungarian flag for the
first time in the high North, our conscience telling us that
we had carried it as far as our resources permitted. It was
no act asserting a right of possession in the name of a nation,
as when Albuquerque or Van Diemen unfurled the standards
of their country on foreign soil, yet we had won this cold,
stiff, frozen land with no less difficulty than these discoverers
had gained those paradises. It was a sore trial to feel our
inability to visit the lands lying before us, but withal we
were impressed with the conviction that this day was the
most important of our lives, and ever since the memory
of it has returred unbidden to my recollection.
15. The Dolerite of this region was of a very coarse-

VIII.] IN THE EXTREME NORTH. 313
grained character, and its rocks rose in terraces from out
of the white mantle of snow ; Umbilicaria arctica, Cetaria
nivalis, and Rhyzocarpon geographicum were the sole orna
ments of its scanty vegetation. The following document
we inclosed in a bottle and deposited in a cleft of rock : —
"Some members of the Austro-Hungarian North Pole
Expedition have here reached their highest point in 82'5°
N. L, after a march of seventeen days from the ship, lying
inclosed in ice in 79° 51' N. L, They observed open water
of no great extent along the coast, bordered by ice, reaching
in a north and north-westerly direction to masses of land,
whose mean distance from this highest point might be from
sixty to seventy miles, but whose connection it was impossible
to determine. After their return to the ship, it is the intention
of the whole crew to l,eave this land and return home. The
hopeless condition of the ship and the numerous cases of
sicknfess constrain them to this step.
"Cape Fligely, April 12th, 1874.
" (Signed) ANTONIO ZANINOVICH, Seaman.
" Edward Orel, Midshipman,
"Julius Payer, Commander':'
22

CHAPTER IX.
the return TO THE SHIP.
I. This done,- our thoughts now turned to the ship, between
which and ourselves lay i6o miles. But, the Tegetthoff— did
she lie still where we had left her, or had she drifted away I
Fastened together by a rope, we began our return by re-
crossing the glaciers, and on reaching the stores we had
deposited at Cape Germania, the first thing we did was to
prepare some water, for the beverage we had taken with us in
an india-rubber bottle, made of coffee, rum, and extract of.
meat, had only aggravated thirst, without adding to our
strength. It was late in the evening when we reached our
night-encampment near Saulen Cap (Cape Columns), in a
state of great exhaustion, cheered and alleviated by the
thought of our success. The utter loneliness of our posi
tion could not suppress the satisfaction we felt. After
digging up our still untouched stores, we went to rest for
three hours. Longer we dared not sleep ; the least breeze
might break up the ice and drive it out of the bight on the
north of Cape Auk. The insecurity of our position there
fore impelled us to make a very early start on the morning
of the 13th of April, with the thermometer at 12° F, As
we started, we awoke also to the extreme difficulties of the
return route, difficulties which the excitement of our advance
had made light of Orel, suffering from snow-bhndness,
marched along with closed eyes, and want of sleep now
began to tell on us all. Even our dogs were all worn out,
and -whenever a halt was made they lay down exhausted
in the snow. The sledge had constantly to be unloaded and
reloaded, and its fractures repaired. The surface of the

CHAP. IX.] THE RETURN TO THE SHIP.
smooth ice, encumbered bythe snow-slush which had accumu
lated on it, rendered our progress very burdensome, the
dull dreary weather, however, did not prevent the sea-birds
from gathering and wheeling around us in enormous flocks
During our noon-day halt, utterly distraught, I cooked our
dmner with sea-water; not one of us could touch it Our
road through wastes of snow from Cape Brorock to' Cape
Schrotter, seemed as if it would never end. However rapidly
we advanced, constantly counting our steps as we went along

.,^j^^ "WJI^ HI-

MELTING SNOW ON CAPE GERMANIA.
that Cape remained for hours the same dark spot on the
gloomy and snowy horizon. It was evening before we
approached it, and as we came within 300 paces of his frontier
we were received and welcomed by ambassadors from Haller'
It was curious and also characteristic to observe how a few
days without active employment and without discipline had
demoralised our old companions ; the party we left behind
were scarcely recognisable Blackened by the oil used in
cooking, wasted with diarrhoea, these men crept o.ut of their
tent listiessly to greet us on our arrival ; a few more days
would have sufficed to prostrate them with sickness. Yet

3i6 AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES. [CHAP.
they had strictly followed the directions I had given them,
arfd had used with moderation their stock of provisions. As
I have already mentioned, I had furnished them, before I
started on my expedition northward, with all the means of
ascertaining their position by observations, and of enabling
them to begin their return to the ship, in the event of my
failing to appear at the end of fifteen days ; but when I now
asked them what direction they would have taken in order to
reach the Tegetthoff, to my horror they pointed, not to Austria;
but to Rawlinson Sound ! ^
2. The observations of temperature which Haller furnished
me with, scrawled in hieroglyphics on a peas-sausage case,
showed a difference of about 4|° in favour of the extreme
north, and this difference was still more marked, when we
came to compare the readings which had been recorded on
board ship. The open water to the north was doubtless the
cause of this. But the same influence extended southward,
and as the snow-drifts over which we walked broke under us
with a diill, heavy sound, we began to fear lest the season
when the' snojv suddenly thaws and the land-ice breaks up
had begun, and that our return would be a matter of extrenie
difficulty. If there had been nothing else, this would have
sufficed to quicken our movements, but to this was added the
discovery that our stock of provisions, independent of dep6ts,
would last only .ten days more. By ridding ourselves of all
but absolutely necessary baggage, and leaving behind our
common sleeping bag and the tent for the dogs, we lightened
our sledge, so as to enable us to extend our day's march
considerably. 3. On the 14th of April, the thermometer marking 4° F.,
we left Hohenlohe Island in very bad weather, and made for
the Coburg Islands, which were scarcely visible. Our route
ran between hummocks, which gave the dogs an opportunity
they were not slow to use, of taking it easy after their recent
exertions. It had been our intention that the large sledge
should keep the same line which we had taken in our journey
northward, while I with the dog-sledge should visit places to
' It might have been expected that seamen would have been acquainted with
the use of the compass, though the instruments they had at their command were
too small to determine the declination with precision.

IX.] THE RETURN 'TO THE SHIP. 317

the right and left. This plan, however, was found unfeasible ;
for in addition to the difficulties and impediments incident to
the march, we had an accumulation of evils to contend with
Klotz's foot had become much worse, and all those who had
been left behind at Cape Schrotter were more or less snow-
blind, though hitherto our party had suffered little from eye
diseases. It was surprising that our dogs did not suffer from
this affection, close as they were to the glare of the snow and
without any protection against it. Snow-blindness occurs
even in Alpine regions. The severity of the attack depends
on the character of the snow ; the harder and smoother it is,
the greater is the reflection and the danger of inflammation ;
the retina of the eye is at last injured by the dazzling white
ness of the snow. Various remedies have been employed to
mitigate this evil ; even the rough-and-ready one of throwing
snuff into the eyes has been tried. In Europe, snow-blindness
is cured in a day or two by wet applications, but in the low
temperatures of the high North such a remedy cannot be
applied ; poultices are hardly possible in the tent, and a
simple bandage worn during the march is no preservative
against the constant burning sensations common to this
affection. It is clear that the range of remedies during a
sledge expedition must be very limited. The crew of Sir
James Clark R.oss suffered in an unusual 'manner from this
cause in their land expeditions. Richardson and Nordenskjold
dropped a weak tincture of opium twice a day into the eye,
and in about twenty-four hours the patient recovered, pro
vided he v/ere not compelled to march. Parry on board ship
used a solution of sugar of lead and cold water, applied
constantly for three or four days — a somewhat questionable
remedy, as it is apt to injure the cornea of the eye. Another
mode of treatment, which should take effect in six hours,
is unhappily not available in a North Pole expedition, as it
requires white of egg,, sugar, and camphor, beaten up till it
becomes frothy, and laid as a compress on the eye. Some
tribes of North America use the steam of hot water, the
Creek Indians a decoction from the resinous buds of the
Tacamahac — an application which causes much suffering.
The only real preservative is the constant use of coloured
spectacles, the metal mountings of which should be covered

3i8 AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES. [CHAP.
with wool, on account of the cold. The ordinary network
at the side should be avoided, as this dims, the glasses even
when the cold is not considerable ; whereas open spectacles
are only exposed to this inconvenience at very low degrees
of temperature, and can easily be cleared by the hand.
4. But to return to our journey. It was evening when the.
Coburg Islands (81" 35' N. L.) were reached. The Dolerite
rock of this small cluster of islands was of a remarkably
coarse-grained crystalline texture. We had frequently come
across the traces of bears and foxes during the march of this
day, though we actually saw neither bear nor fox. On the

ENCAMPING ON ONE OF THE COBURG ISLANDS.
15th of April, after a severe march, we got clear of the region
of ice-hummocks, and continued our southerly course with
our sledge-sail before the wind. We encountered a bear this
day, which, being allowed to approach within the distance
of thirty paces, fell dead under our fire. In a few minutes we
loaded the sledge with fresh meat, and again pursued our
journey. But excessive exertion, the want of sleep, and the
exclusive use of a meat diet, were meanwhile telling their
tale of reduced strength, though our appetites were great
almost beyond belief The excessive consumption of animal
food 1 without bread-stuff excited hunger and lowered our
^ Franklin, speaking of his experience during his first journey, says that their
diet of animal food had rather weakened than strengthened their powers. An

JX.] THE RETURN TO THE SHIP.

319

muscular power, while it irritated our nervous system. Our
supply of bark was rapidly decreasing, and Haller, Sussich,
and Lukinovich, who could not endure bear- flesh, were often
attacked with giddiness during the march, and placed on
"half-diet." In the following week our miseries were in
tensified by insufficiency of sleep ; in fact, we could not spare
time to sleep it out. Hence the afternoon hours of the march
were especially oppressive, and though the sledge with its
load was positively lighter, our strength to drag it had dimi
nished in still greater measure. It would be a great
mistake to imagine that exercise of itself, without necessary
rest, increases the capacity of marching. The loss of strength
is almost suddenly experienced, especially in return journeys,
when the excitement of discovery has passed away, and
nothing is left but the animal-like employment of dragging.
5. Our course lay under Andree Island ; we crossed over
the flat ice-dome of Rainer Island, and on the west saw
Back's Inlet filled with many icebergs. From this elevation
we once more beheld the snowy ranges of Crown-Prince
Rudolf's Land in the far distance, which soon, however, dis
appeared in an ocean of mist, whose white waves rolled over
the intervening ice-levels. As we again descended to the icy
surface of the sea, to our great astonishment we fell into
a hole covered over with snow, and got thoroughly wet, and,
after much wandering about, we found, towards evening, a
dry place (81" 20' N. L.) on which to pitch our tent. On the
i6th of April we found our latitude by an observation taken
at noon to be 81° 12', and when we reached, in the evening,
a point four miles to the north of Cape Hellwald, those
whose appetite had failed them could not march a step
further. 6. On the 17th of April, Orel, with the large sledge, con
tinued the march southwards, while I went on with the dog-
sledge, in order to ascend Cape Hellwald. The temperature
had fallen in the morning to - 18° F., and the outiines of the
icebergs vibrated and undulated under the influence of refrac
tion. Ice-hummocks,. on the distant horizon, insignificant in
Eskimo, on the other hand, often consumes 20 lbs. of the flesh of a seal in a day,
and seems to thrive on it— a proof how the mode of hving of a savage is no rule
for civilized man.

320 AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES. [CHAP.
size, were magnified into gigantic proportions; then again
many of these phantasmagoria seemed to form a long hne,
which broke up at the next step forward. Unyoking the
dogs on the shore of the island, I left the sledge behind, and
climbed the steep sides of a precipice of clay-slate, with its
laminae firmly frozen into a mass, and reached the summit
of the lofty promontory — Cape Hellwald — about 2,200 feet
above the level of the sea. On the tops of its basaltic
columns great flocks of divers congregated, which flew round
me without fear as I set up my theodolite, and then settled
close to me on the snow. I might have killed half-a-dozen of
them at a single shot. By and by, these birds, scared by the
appearance of the dogs, who soon joined me, took refuge
on some inaccessible rocks, but were not in the least dis
turbed when I fired at them. My lofty point of view
enabled me to have a general survey of the mountainous
country lying on the north-west, and to ascertain that I stood
on an island separated from lands on the west by Sternek
Fiord. Meantime Orel, far below me, was moving on with
the sledge, but so great is the advantage of dog-sledging,
that I descended and arrived at the same time as he did at
Cape Easter. By an observation taken at noon we found
our latitude to be 81°. In the afternoon the dogs in their
own sledge dragged half of our baggage, and notwithstanding
got on more quickly than we did with the large sledge.
Henceforward the order of the day was fasting, more or less
absolute ; for our stock of provisions consisted of bread and
bear's flesh for two days and a half, and the dogs could no
longer be favoured as they had been.
7, At a few miles' distance there rose before us the rocky
cones of Wiener Neustadt Island, with large glaciers descend
ing their sides. As it was beyond a doubt that the ascent of
one of these conical heights would open up an extensive
prospect, I fixed on the imposing Cape Tyrol as the most
promising for an ascent. Accordingly, on the i8th of April
Haller and I started, and after a toilsome march over glaciers,
reached its dark, weather-worn summit, 3,000 feet above the
level of the sea. Even here we perceived the traces of excre
ments of the fox, from whose craft the birds were protected
by the inaccessibility of the places where they bred. Though

IX.] THE RETURN TO THE SHIP. 321
we had cut up some bullets into slugs, we refrained from
shooting at the auks and divers perched on the rocks, as we
saw that our game could not be bagged even if we killed them.
Over our heads was spread the bright sky, below us a very
sea of mist, in which, though invisible to us, Orel was wending
his way towards the south. The distant glacier wastes of
Wilczek Land towered aloft on the east ; a cloudy shade
separated the heights of the peninsula of La Ronciere from the
colourless icy wastes of Lindemann Bay, and beyond the
picturesque Collinson Fiord there seemed to be a maze of
inlets and bights, bare rocks and broad table-lands. We
bitterly deplored that the necessity of returning to the ship

THE VIEW FROM CAPE TYROL. COLLINSON FIORD— WIENER NEUSTADT ISLAND.
prevented us from penetrating into this labyrinth of mountains
and sounds.
8. In our descent we passed over three basaltic terraces,
and came upon a rocky ledge covered with a thick carpet of
Usnea melaxantha— 2. fresh example of the great capability of
lichens to bear extremes of temperature, the great cold of
winter and the burning heat of the rock in summer. The
mists now began to rise, and for the first rime a greenish
landscape without snow gleamed out of the depth, on which
lay the warm glow of the sun. The scenery seemed to belong
to the Alps, and not the 8 ist degree of North Latitude The
contrast became the more striking, when the mists rolled away
and unveiled the icebergs and the ice-filled sound. When
we reached these green mountain slopes we found ourselves

322 AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES. [chap.
among grasses, the lower stalks of which were already
beginning to be green ; the few flowering plants {Saxifraga
oppositifolia, Silene acaulis, Papaver nudicale) were clustered
together in dense masses. We were now able to form some
conception of what summer might be here. Countless streams
issuing from the snow would force these spots to put on the
livery of summer, and rapid torrents would precipitate them
selves down gorges of snow and rock ; but at present all was
stiff and stark, save that stunted green herbage seemed to
show that we were in the fancied' paradise of Franz-Josef
Land, though when compared even with other Arctic lands it
was but a scene of desolation. Closer to the shore above the
level of the sea, in a belt of yellow sandstone, we found much
lignite firmly frozen in the ground, resembling drift-wood a
century old.
9. The search for our companions was for some time fruit
less ; and a driving snow might have separated us from them
for ever. At last, however, we found them gathered together
in the tent near Forbes' Glacier, in about 80° 58' N. L., and
as the party had been without tobacco for a fortnight, they
greeted Haller's collection of hchens as a welcome substitute.
10. During the last few days the cold had sensibly increased,
and we therefore determined to sleep during the day, and to
walk during the night. Our march in the night of April 18
was a memorable one to us. We were trudging along in the
face of a strong south-wester — which was extremely distress
ing to our highly sensitive frozen noses — and striving to pro
tect the soles of our feet by the rapidity of our movement
from being frost-bitten. After succeeding to a certain extent
in this, we began to find the snow very deep, and so soft
that we sank in at every step. This grew worse and worse \
water rose in the deeper layers of snow and penetrated our
boots, and as this could not be explained by the state of the
temperature, we had to step with distrust and hesitation, in
constant fear of unseen depths. At first we believed that the
water arose from streams flowing from underneath the glaciers,
or from the movement of these glaciers breaking up the
surface of the ice Hence we kept at a distance from their
terminal walls. But that the ice-sheet of the sea itself had
broken up, that unseen fissures surrounded us, and that the

5X.]

THE RETURN TO THE SHIP.

323

water under the snow was nothing but the water of the sea
forcing its way in — of this we had not the least conception, till
the sudden immersion of the leader of the party left no doubt
about the matter. Once Haller would have utterly dis
appeared unless he had been quickly rescued. As we picked
our way along, even with a long pole we found every now
and then no bottom. Klotz now took the lead with a long
" alpenstock,'' guiding us with the greatest dexterity among
these fissures, though often himself falling in. Greatly did we
rejoice when we reached unbroken footing. Some of the
party on this occasion were frost-bitten in the feet, but we

BREAKING IN.

could do little more for them than rub their feet with snow
and improve as we could their foot-covering. The sun was
now visible at midnight, and the mountains of Markham
Sound were tinged with rosy light.
II. Ahead of us in the south lay a dark water-sky, while
the land on either side was veiled in mist and fog. We tried
to persuade ourselves that this phenomenon might be
explained otherwise than by open water. Soon, however, we
heard the unambiguous sound of ice-pressure and of the
beating of the surf at no great distance, and when we went to

324 AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES. [chap. ix.
; • ; ~
rest, in 80° 36' N. L., it was with the feeling that we needed
new strength to meet the dangers which unquestionably
awaited us. We slept soundly for some hours in spite of all
our anxious fears, till we were aroused by the increasing noise.
We now advanced along the old sledge-track upon which»we
had fallen, Orel and I went first, and after we had gone a
few hundred paces the truth burst upon us : we saw the sea
ahead of us and no white edge beyond. Walls of forced-up
ice surrounded this water, which, stirred by a heavywind,
threw up crested waves ; the spray of its surf dashed itself
for a distance of thirty yards over the icy shore. Forthwith
ascending an iceberg, we looked over the dark waste of water,
in which the icebergs, under which we had passed a month
before, were now floating ; the more distant of them stood out
against the arch of light on the horizon, and those nearer to
us shone with a dazzling brilliancy under the dark water-sky.
That on which lay our depot of provisions was floating in the
midst of them ; and here we were, without a boat, almost
without provisions, and fifty-five miles distant from the ship !
A strong current was running southwards at the rate of three
or four miles an hour ; fragments of ice were driving before
the wind, as if they meant to delight us by their movements,
and as if there were no change for the worse to a handful of
men, who stood in reality before an impassable abyss.
12, But what were we to db ; what direction were we to
follow ,-" If we killed and ate our dogs and broke up our
sledge to find wood to melt the snow, we might live for eight
days longer. In this case we must ourselves carry our
baggage. But the most important question was. Whither ,'
In what direction did the ice lie still unbroken } Did the
land on the west afford a connected route to the ship ? Did the
sea before us communicate further south with the sea where
the Tegetthoff lay } There was but one alternative — escape by
land and over land ; and because open water could be traced
to the north-west beyond the bare reefs of the Hayes Islands,
and heavy clouds over Markham Sound seemed to indicate that
the ice had broken up in it also, I decided to try the way over
the glaciers of Wilczek Land, Everything depended on the un
broken state of the ice in the southern parts of Austria Sound,
Dejected as I was, I finished my sketch of this dreadful

%

I

326 AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES. [chap.
scene, while Orel went back to caution the men against
venturing on the young ice and to tell them to keep to the
old ice under the land. While the men were struggling with
the great sledge in the snow, I descended from my higher
point of view, and, soaked through by the surf, went along
the ice-strand in a south-easterly direction towards Wilczek
Land. The others followed, and though we came on many
fissures merely covered with snow, we yet reached terra firma
in safety, Orel skilfully guiding the movements of the sledge
according to the signs agreed on.

DRAGGING THE SLEDGE UNDER THE GLACIERS OF WILCZEK LAND.
13. But soon afterwards everything was veiled in mist ; the
temperature rose to 7° F., then came driving snow, whicji
gradually increased to a snow-storm, and in order not to be
cut off we were obliged once more to keep together. Dread
ful as the weather was, we could not venture to put up the
tent; march we must, in order to escape before the wind
destroyed the ice-bridges on the way back. We trudged along
under enormous glacier walls, enveloped in whirling snow..
Sounding all round, we escaped the abysses with difficulty.
We could scarcely even breathe and make head against the
wind. Our clothes were covered with snow, our faces were

IX.] THE RETURN TO THE SHIP. 327
crusted with ice, eyes and mouth were firmly closed, and the
dark sea beneath us was hidden from our view. We ceased
to hear even its roar, the might of the storm drowning every
thing else. Haller, a few paces ahead, continually sounded,
so as to keep us clear of fissures. We could scarcely follow
him or recognise his form. We saw nothing even of the
enormous glacier walls under which we toiled along, except
that at tunes we. caught a glimpse of them towering aloft.
At every hundred paces we halted for a few minutes to
remove the ice which formed itself on our eyes and round our
mouths. We stilled our hunger with the hope, that we should
find and dig out the body of the bear which we had shot a
month ago. But we dared not rest, nor await the abatement
of the storm, until we had crossed the glacier and felt the
firm ground, free from ice, beneath our feet. This we com
passed after a march of seven hours. Utterly exhausted, we
then put up the tent on a stony slope, got beneath it, white
with snow, wet through and stiffened with ice ; notwithstand
ing our hunger, we lay down to sleep without eating. Not a
morsel of bread could we venture to serve out from the small
stock of provisions that remained. Our prospects were
gloomy in the extreme. If open water, or even a broad
fissure at Cape Frankfort, separated us from the ship, we
must inevitably perish on the shores of Wilczek Land.
14. The snow-storm still continued to rage ; hunger, cold,
and moisture forbade sleep, and the dogs, covered with snow,
lay in front of the tent. On the 20th of April (the thermo
meter marking 3° F.), after a breakfast more suited for a
patient under typhus fever than for men hungry as wolves,
we left the tent in our still wet clothes, and while standing on
its sheltered side to wait till it was cleared, our clothes froze
into coats of mail. As we went on, the terrible weather blew
out of us almost all that remained of our courage and resolu
tion. It was evening before the storm abated, but we had the
good fortune to find the iceberg with our last dep6t in its
former position close to the shore. There were the 45 lbs, of
boiled beef, and, there, too, the bear lying two feet deep in
snow. It took us an hour to dig him out and load our sledge
with this frozen mass, which we were glad to call provision.
After each of us had devoured 3 lbs. of boiled beef and bear's

1I
!1

[1

imK^

,'JJbSs

f

i

t
1

^^ l'

rill Jii

,lVili.i.!r"

mi ,Ki

'iiii iir H

i'l 111

1 H' I 1 (

iiil

'lliiHiil'IMI

chap, IX.]

THE RETURN TO THE SHIP.

329

flesh, on we went To our inexpressible joy the open water
had retreated to the west, and we were able to get round it by
making a considerable bend. The numerous fissures which
crossed our path we succeeded in evading, and by ascending
icebergs were able to pick our way, till at last we arrived
safely at Cape Frankfort (80° 20' N. L.). At its base we
found, to our great satisfaction, the land-ice running without
break towards the ship. This amounted, in fact, to deliver
ance, and we celebrated our joy at the event by a glass of
grog. The next thing to be done was to search for the depot
of provisions on Schonau Island.

DIGGING OUT THE DEPOT.

15. On the 2 1st of April (the thermometer marking - 7° F.)
Orel led with the large sledge, while I remained behind with
tiie dog-sledge, in order, from an elevation at Cape Frankfort,
to complete the measurement of certain angles indispensable
for the maps I was constructing. We joined company again
nearly opposite Cape Berghaus, and together crossed a broad
reach covered with ice-hummocks. The weather was clear,
and brilliantiy-marked parhelia hung over the dark blue
background of the mountains. We again came on very deep
snow, and as we advanced with much difficulty and great
exertion, we got rid of the bear, after we had cut off from it
23

330 AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES., [chap.
every portion that could be used for food. The relief, how
ever, was not great, and we were repeatedly compelled to halt
and rest Lukinovich and the much-enduring Zaninovich
were taken with fainting-fits, the consequence of their exces
sive exertions. Indeed we were all more or less faint and
emaciated. During one of these halts, in order to quicken
their failing energies, I held forth to them on the astonishing
example of MacClintock's sledge journeys. The Dalmatians
freely expressed their admiration of those Englishmen, but
the Tyrolese were rather slow to believe,
1 6, Soon after midnight on the 22nd of April (the ther
mometer standing at - 6° F,) we reached Schonau Island,
round which the ice had broken up, so that we frequently fell
into the fissures. As we erecteJi our tent, the sun was setting
behind the violet-coloured edges of the ice-hummocks, while
the lofty pinnacle of Cape Berghaus stood out sharply marked
against the sky. The situation of the island we had reached
being extremely favourable, on the highest point of it, I took
some observations, which completed the surveys which I had
made during this expedition. Close to the eastward of us,
the ice had broken up round Hochstetter Island, Orel had
meanwhile put up the tent, and Klotz had dug out the dep6t
of provisions, which, to our great joy, we found had not been
disturbed by bears. The danger of starvation was at an end,
and after satisfying the claims of hunger we enjoyed a
delicious sleep of seven hours, and again set forth. We were
still twenty-five miles from the ship. This distance I now
determined to compass with the dog-sledge with all the speed
possible, in order to ascertain whether the TegettJioff xeva.2!m.ed
where we left her, Orel was to follow close with the large
sledge. The day was of unusual brightness. All the land,
which a month ago had been the home of storms and enveloped
in snow, now shone in the sunlight, and the walls of rock wore
their natural brown colour. My route lay close under Kol
dewey and Salm Islands. At first every fragment which had
fallen from a glacier on either of these islands was used as a
pretext by the dogs for turning out of the course, and the
trail of a bear seemed quite to distract them. It was to
little purpose that I went on first to show them the way. No
sooner was the 'least liberty allowed them, than they used it

IX,]

THE RETURN TO THE SHIP.

331

to make now for Cape Tegetthoff, then for Cape Berghaus,
and, in preference to every other point, for the sun! Ever
and anon Torossy dragged Jubinal out of the road, and this
unruliness lasted till we came on the old sledge track, which
was almost obliterated by the snow. Suddenly they seemed
to feel as if they had entered on a familiar region. With their
heads raised, and tails in the air, they now rushed along at
the rate of 180 paces in a minute, though I had now taken
my place on the sledge. The south-west corner of Salm
Island was beset by a crowd of apparently stranded icebergs.

THE MIDNIGHT SUN BETWEEN CAPE BEKGUAUS AND KOLDEWE\ ISLAND
Under the sheltered side of one of these colossal masses I
made a short halt and hghted the cooking-machine to thaw
some boiled beef, and enjoy a meal in common with my
canine companions, who regarded all my movements with
fixed attention. Just as I was intently observing a small
dark point on the horizon advancing in my direcrion — it was
Orel and his party— the iceberg, in whose stability I was
placing complete confidence, suddenly capsized, and, rolling
on to the ice, shivered into fragments. In an instant I was
surrounded by fissures, pools of water, and rolling pieces of

332

AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES.

[chap.

ice. Seizing the cooking-machine, which I had lighted, I
escaped with great difficulty, I had often observed, that icebergs
were surrounded by circles of shattered surface-ice, with sea-
water standing in their fissures. The overturning of icebergs,
which occurs, I apprehend, more frequently than is generally
imagined, easily accounts for the fact It is therefore advisable
to shun the immediate neighbourhood of an iceberg when the
tent has to be erected, and to avoid using the iceberg itself as
a place for a dep6t of provisions,
17, When I turned into the narrow passage between Salm
and Wilczek Islands, Orgel Cape, visible at a great distance.

THE "tegetthoff" DESCRIED.

was the only dark spot in the scene. At once the dogs made
for it and about midnight I arrived there. A few hundred
steps further, and I should stand on the top of it and see the
ship, if ship were there. With an anxious, heavy heart, I then
began the ascent. A stony plateau stretched before me.
With every advancing step, made with increasing difficulty,
the land gradually disappeared, and the horizon of the frozen
sea expanded before me — an immeasurable white waste. No
ship was to be seen — no trace of man for thousands of miles,
save a cairn, with the fragments of a flag fluttering in the
breeze, and a grave covered with snow-drifts. Still I climbed

IX.]

THE RETURN TO THE SHIP.

333

on. Suddenly three slender masts emerged — I had found the
ship : there she lay about three miles off, appearing on the
frozen ocean no bigger than a fly. The snow-drifts and
icebergs around her had hitherto concealed her from my eye.
I directed my telescope towards her, and every spar and sail
I saw seemed to promise a happy conclusion to our expedi
tion. I held the heads of the dogs towards the ship, and
pointed with my arm to where^ she lay, that they might share
in my joy. We soon descended, and took our way towards
her. At about a hundred yards off the watch detected us.
All on board but the men who composed it were asleep, for it

was night At first they were exceedingly alarmed to see
me alone, but having calmed their apprehensions, I went down
at once into the cabin to awaken the sleepers. Great. was the
joy caused by the account of the high latitude we had reached,
and of the discoveries we had made, which I endeavoured to
explain by the rough outiine of a map which I sketched. In
a few hours the stock of questions was answered and
exhausted, and everyone now left the ship to welcome the
approaching party, which was soon descried with the sledge-
flag flying. Hearty and joyful were the mutual greetings ;
and the appetite of the emaciated adventurers occupied this
night and for a week afterwards, all the attention of the rest
of the crew.^ We formed a strange group to look upon, but
' Our food, which we always took as hot as possible, had made our tongues and
gums as hard as leather, so that we could not discriminate what we ate. Our great
desire w^s not for flesh, but for white bread, potatoes, and milk.

334 AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES, [CHAP,
Klotz carried off the palm from us all. He had never shown
any weakness in counteracting the effects of weather and
exposure on his motley garments. His cap, a wondrous
piece of patchwork, resembled the winged helmet of a knight-
errant and of his boots nothing remained but the feet, over
which hung the legs of them in shreds and tatters. Carlsen,
when he saw him stepping along proudly and silently, forgot
for a moment his walruses, and compared him to Saint Olaf,
who could find only one horse in " Gulbrandsdalen " strong
enough to carry him.
1 8. During our absence the greatest activity had reigned
on board ship, Weyprecht and Brosch had finished their
magnetical observations, and measured on the ice the base,
which I have already mentioned, for the trigonometrical
portion of my surveys. The crew had begun the equipment
of the boats for our return to Europe, and packed up the
provisions in water-tight cases. The number of the sick had
diminished ; the frost-bites had yielded to a persevering course
of poultices and baths. The only unpropitious circumstance
was the accident which had befallen Stiglich, who had shattered
his right arm by accidentally discharging a rifle. Sores and
wounds in Arctic regions are difficult to heal, and especially
during the winter. Thanks to the care of our physician,
Stighch's severe wound healed more quickly than many a
slighter injury during the cold period of the year. The
sanitary condition had essentially improved, owing to the rich
supplies of fresh meat afforded by the chase. Even before
our arrival the ship's company had killed several bears.
Scarcely a day now passed without a bear coming near the
ship. On the 25th of April we shot one in the act of tearing
down with his fore-paws a cask sticking in the ice, and on the
following day another fell a victim to the curious attention
with which he was regarding some meat packed in a tin case.
Birds also, especially divers, appeared in greater numbers ;
the cliffs of Wilczek Island were no longer desolate as before.
Hence it was that we indulged in dishes of stewed birds and
roasted bear's-flesh. We had brought with us seven bears'
tongues ; each day brought an accession, and our culinary art
exercised itself on Ihe refined preparation of bears' tongues,
which, together with the brains of this animal, were esteemed

!X.] THE RETURN TO THE SHIP. 335
the greatest delicacies. Weyprecht, according to agreement,
had caused a boat and provisions for three months to be put
on shore, intended for the use of the sledge-party in the event
of the ship being driven from her moorings. As these pre
cautionary measures could now be dispensed with, the boat
and all these provisions were removed to the ship. Later
experience proved that the exploring party could not have
escaped in this manner, for the united strength of three-and-
twenty men was required to raise and place such a boat on a
sledge.

CHAPTER X.
THE THIRD SLEDGE JOURNEY.
I. The weather during the last days of April was truly
delightful; calms and bright sunshine made work and exercise
in the open air exceedingly pleasant, and the temperature
never fell below — 2° F. But even this amount of cold was
sufficient to retard the softening of the snow for some days,
and favoured the carrying out of a third sledge expedition.
Its intention was the exploration of the western portions of
Franz-Josef Land ; for the question of its extension towards
Spitzbergen was scarcely less interesting than its extension
towards the North. I should have liked to devote weeks to
the undertaking, but our impending return left a few days only
at my disposal.
2. On the 29th of April (the thermometer marking — 2° F.)
Lieutenant Brosch, Haller, and myself left the ship. Jubinal
and Torossy were selected to drag the small sledge, which was
equipped for a week's expedition ; Pekel accompained us as a
volunteer. The measurement of the angles necessary to com
plete my survey detained us so long on the heights of Wilczek
Island, that we could not make our start on the level ice till
the next morning. The power of the sun some days was so
great, that the temperature of the tent at noon, when there
was no. wind, rose to 63° F., while in the two preceding
months it was from 10° F. to- 13° F. If the temperature
during the day did not fall more than 6° below freezing-point,
we required no clothes beyond our woollen underclothing and
stockings. As we started in the morning of April 30, some
snow fell, and the mountains were covered with masses of
mist, which lay in horizontal layers half way up their sides.

337

CHAP, x.] THE THIRD SLEDGE JOURNEY.
Cape Briinn, however, which was our goal, lay before us, clear
and distinct and the long glacier walls, running to the west
of it round the edge of MacCHntock Island, were under the
constant play of refraction, and could be traced as far as
Cape Oppolzer, from which point they seemed to trend to the
north-west. 3, The snow-track of the Sound was still firm, so that our
dogs needed little help in dragging our baggage, especially
after we had buried provision for the return journey in
an iceberg. We had scarcely finished this labour when we
¦ discovered a bear's hole in the layer of snow at its base, and
immediately afterwards we beheld its occupant coming
furiously towards us. Several hasty shots were fired at him,
but the bear escaped, though evidently wounded. The
nearer we approached MacClintock Island, the more fre
quently v/e found fissures in the ice running parallel to the
coast and communicating with a small " ice-hole " in the
south about four miles off. Trusting, however, that during
the next few days these fissures would not open so much
as to prevent our re-crossing them, we went on and pitched
our encampment near the terminal front of one of the
glaciers of the island.
4 Our dogs continued now, as before, the implacable enemies
of bears. Matotschkin's sad end had not frightened them
into prudence and caution, doubtless because they counted
on our prowess against the common foe. To them nothing
could be a more joyous spectacle than a wounded bear. If
in his flight he became faint and exhausted they surrounded
him, bit at his legs, and did all they could to prevent his
getting away, and courage, as well as love of mischief, was
visible in all their actions. Pekel, small as he was, was the
leader in all attacks, and Torossy grew under his tuition to be
at length a formidable assailant So things proved now.
While we were busily preparing our supper in the tent a
young bear appeared on the scene ; before we could stop
them, out rushed the dogs on our visitor, who at first retreated,
while the dogs followed hard on his heels. As it generally
happened that the bear, after a time, turned on his pursuers
and gave them chase, we were somewhat alarmed for the
safety of the dogs, especially of Torossy, who sometimes was

338

AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES.

[chap.

so stupid as not to find his way back to the tent without
guidance. Just as we expected, the bear turned and became
the pursuer; Torossy taking the lead in the retreat Our
small stock of cartridges and superfluity of bears' -flesh might
have induced us to gaze at him while he gazed on us, if he
had only kept at a respectful distance ; but he would come
too near, and reluctantly we found ourselves under the necessity
of killing him and depriving him of the dainty morsel of his
tongue, Forster says that the flesh of the Polar bear tastes
like bad beef, an opinion which we are able to endorse and
confirm, as we had consumed in this expedition about four
bears apiece.
5. On the 1st of May (the thermometer standing at 4° F.)
we purposed to cross the Simony glacier and ascend the

MARKHAM SOUND, RICHTHOFEN PEAK FROM CAPE BRUNN.
pyramid-like Cap.e Briinn, whence we might hope to see at a
glance as much of the surrounding country as would have
required a journey of several days on the level to discover.
Unfavourable weather, however, prevented the execution of
this project, and we were obliged to keep in our tent. Lieu
tenant Brosch, whose duties in taking magnetical observations
stood in tbe way of his accompanying me in the previous
expeditions, had now the misfortune to injure his foot; and in
consequence of this accident I had to start next morning
(May 2) accompanied only by Haller, to attempt the ascent.
Fastened together with a rope, we passed over the Simony
glacier amid heavy snow-storms from the W.N.W,, and

339

X,] THE THIRD SLEDGE JOURNEY.
in a zigzag course went up the steep pyramid of Cape
Briinn. Never have I made a more disagreeable ascent.
A steep snowy gorge led through a crown of rocks to
the summit, which v/e reached after a march of five hours.
By an aneroid observation we found the height to be 2,500
feet. 6. If the ascent of a mountain in the face of wind and
penetrating cold demands all the self-command even of men
the most inured to fatigues, it required the additional stimulus
afforded by the view of an unknown land to give us endurance
and energy under such circumstances, to sketch, to take
azimuth measurements, and estimate the distances of import
ant localities. To, add to our difficulties, the theodolite was
constantly shaken by the wind, so that every angle had to be
observed repeatedly, in order that an available mean value
might be obtained. It was only after several hours of the
most severe labour that my work was completed. My
attention was directed chiefly to the southern parts of Zichy
Land, which formed a vast mountainous region beyond Mark
ham Sound, Half the horizon was bounded by cliffs and
heights gleaming with snow. The conical shape of the
mountains prevailed here also ; the only exception was Rich-
thofen Spitze, the loftiest summit, perhaps, we had seen in
Franz-Josef Land, which rose like a slender white pyramid
to the height of about 5,000 feet. The land was everywhere
intersected by fiords and covered with glaciers. Its boundaries
towards Spitzbergen, or Gillis' Land, could not be determined,
because even at the distance of seventy or ninety German
miles, mountain ranges were distinctly to be traced. It would
appear, therefore, that masses of land stretch in this direction
to at least the fiftieth degree, perhaps even to the forty-eighth
degree, of east longitude. We also discovered, that the lands
on the south of Markham Sound were separated by a fiord —
Negri Sound, This was already open, and since some darker
spots indicated fissures in the ice in Markham Sound, it is
probable that sledge-journeys can be only undertaken early in
the spring in Franz- Josef Land without the danger of being
cut off. At the time when we made our observations, it was
utterly impossible that such waters could be navigated by
any ship, not even if she could be placed amid these small

340 AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES. [chap. x.
unconnected "ice-holes." Haller, whose rheumatic tenden
cies unfitted him to bear wind and cold, had, meanwhile,
posted himself in a cleft of rock sheltered from the wind
beneath the summit, but I was quite satisfied with his running
to my help, in order to nib my frozen hands with snow,
when I was forced to drop the book in which I recorded my
labours, 7, But however great our delight at the discovery of these
unknown lands — trophies of our endurance — we were much
discouraged by the view towards the south. An enormous sur
face of ice extended before us — a sad outlook, as we thought
of our return homeward. Although one single- serpentine
thread of water, gleaming in the sun, stretched towards
the south-east, separating the land-ice from the field-ice,
yet it was but too certain that the next breeze from the south
would again close it. All save this was a close sheet of ice.
We spent some time in exploring the lower glacier region of
the island, so that it was towards evening before we reached
the tent Much as we desired to prosecute our explorations,
reflection forced us to limit them. In order to penetrate in a
north-westerly direction several days would have been needed ;
but as it had been arranged that we must at once begin our
return to Europe, we were constrained to abandon the thought
of such a scheme and return at once to the ship. On the
night of the 2nd of May we began our forced march of two-
and-twenty hours, during which we were often bathed in
perspiration, though the temperature on the 3rd of May varied
between 5° F. and — 4° F. The dogs alone drew the sledge with
ease, though it carried a load of 3 cwt., giving us such a
striking example of what they could do, that we felt persuaded
that a sledge, with a strong team of dogs, must be the best
form, beyond comparison, of sledge-travelling. In the even
ing we reached the Tegetthoff, and our sledge expeditions
came to a close, after we had travelled in this fashion about
450 miles.

THE "TEGETTHOFF" ABANDONED:
RETURN TO EUROPE.

CHAPTER I.
LAST DAYS ON THE "TEGETTHOFF."
I. We could now return with honour. The observations and
discoveries we had made could not be wrested from us, and
our many anxieties on this ground were at an end, henceforth
the greatest evil that could befall us was death on our home
ward voyage. The intervening days were given up to the
recruiting of pur exhausted powers ; Klotz called this time
the "plundering of the ship." Not very much time, indeed,
was left for this, but the short spell of good living, in which
we ah shared, transformed the ship into an abode of Epicureans.
But withal we redoubled our diligence to secure the results of
our toils and labours. Lieutenant Weyprecht deposited our
meteorological and magnetical readings, the log-books and the
ship's papers, in a chest lined with tin, and soldered it down,
and a few days afterwards I made exact duplicates of the
surveys, and of measurements, which I had taken, I took
especial care so to prepare these, that another person might
be able to construct from them a map of Franz-Josef Land,
should I myself perish on the return journey. These sheets
also were packed in a chest lined with tin and soldered, and
along with them were placed our zoological drawings and
about 200 sketches of the country, of the Arctic Sea and our
adventures, the flag too of the sledge journeys, and my
journals. Of the zoological • collection itself, only a small
selection of the specimens most easy of transport could be
taken with us.
2. The time passed away with unexpected rapidity ; the
days had scarcely begun before they seemed to have come to
an end. Everyone was busy in getting his clothes ready. In
the quarters of the crew, sewing went on without intermission.

344 AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES. [cHAP.
and piles of thread disappeared under their fingers, to appear
again in the strangest patterns worked on the old garments.
Avalanches of cast-off clothes hung over the hull of the ship.
The vessel — no longer trim as before — came to wear the look
befitting the catastrophe that awaited her. A great number
of bears' carcases lay on the ice,^ for only the brain, the
tongue, and the prime portions of the flesh found their way
to the kitchen, the remaining parts lay about half buried
under snow-drifts, given up to the dogs to tear to pieces, who
now for the first time found themselves exempted from rations
served out according to time and circumstances. A month
later, and such a field of carnage would have become a very
home of pestilence.
3. Short excursions with the dog-sledge enabled us to finish
our observations on the motion of glaciers, which the great
depth of the snow had hitherto made a matter of much
difficulty. The last of these expeditions took place on May
15th. On the spot on which we had first set our foot, we
took farewell of the grave of our departed comrade and of
the Land to which we had drifted through the happy caprice
of an ice-floe, and the discovery of which rendered a return
without humiliation possible. But with this farewell the
business of the expedition came to an end, all our thoughts
were now occupied with getting back to Europe, Of the
issue we dared not form the least conception ; but whether it ,
were deliverance or destruction, our lot must at any rate be
decided within three months, as for this period only we could
drag with us the most indispensable provisions,
4. On our equipment Lieutenant Weyprecht and I bestowed
much thought and care, and our measures were carried out
with the greatest exactness. All these were based on the
excellent apparatus for sledging already described ; the ad
ditional precautions were confined to the more convenient
stowing away of the provisions, and to the diminishing, as
much as possible, of the baggage. The rapid decrease of the
^ On May 5 a bear got away from us through a bad shot, but a second was
killed just as he had attacked Torossy, May 9, again, a bad shot scared away a
bear; on the eleventh one was killed by Herr Orel. This bear had already
received a ball in his shoulder, and a second in his head an inch and a half under
the right eye.

I-]

LAST DAYS ON THE "TEGETTHOFF,"

345

cold and the consequent rise of the temperature, even above
the freezing point, enabled us to reduce our clothing to a
minimum without endangering our health ; and no more
comfortable sleeping-place for Arctic explorers can be con
ceived than the interior of a dry boat, covered in like a tent
and provided with bed-quilts. There was more danger that
we should suffer from heat than from cold ; the apprehension
of insufficient provisions was better founded.
5. Three boats were selected for the return expedition.
Two of these were Norwegian whale-boats, 20 feet long, 5
feet broad, and 2^ feet deep. Lieutenant Weyprecht Dt
Kepes, Lusina, Orasch, Latkovich, Palmich, Vecerina and
Klotz, formed the complement of the one ; and Zaninovich^
HaUer, Lukinovich, Scarpa, Stiglich, Pospischill, Midshipman
Orel and I, the complement of the other. The third and
.somewhat smaller boat carried Lieutenant Brosch, Captain
Carlsen, Cattarinich, Lettis, Sussich, Marola and Fallesich.
Each of these boats rested on a sledge, and was laden with
the following articles : —

10 hght oars.
2 long steering oars.
I sail and mast.
I ice-anchor.
2 boat-hooks.
I harpoon and line.
I fishing-line.
I small hatchet.
I ice-borer.
I screw-driver.
I caulking-iron.
I saw.
6 reserve sledge screws.
1 bag of nails.
2 Lefaucheux rifles.
I Werndl rifle.
I case with 100 shot cartridges.
I case with Jo ditto.
2 cases of 50 Lefaucheux cartridges.
25 Wemdl cartridges.
8 sledge traces.
6 lamps.
6 weights for measuring provisions.
2 pairs of reindeer shoes.
2 oil cans.
I bag of nails. 24

20 boxes of lucifer matches,
I steel and tinder.
I compass.
I sextant.
I bundle of wicks.
I telescope.
I signal horn.
I 50-fathom line.
I box of lard.
I pair of tin-cutters.
I grindstone,
3 bungs.

Spare Clothes,
I pair of drawers.
I shirt.
I woollen undershirt.
I pair of trousers.
I spirit measure.
I pair of scales.
I spirit can.
I lever.
I funnel.

346

AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES.

[CHAP.

To each boat was attached a large sledge thus laden : —

Pemmican — 4 boxes of 50 lbs.
,, I box of 25 lbs,
,, 4 boxes of 5 lbs.

Peasmeal-

-2 chests of 100 lbs, packed in tin
I chest of 100 lbs, packed in paper

Potted Meat — i chest of 80 lbs.
Boiled Beef — 5 chests of 10 tins of 7J lbs.
„ 5. 4 t, 7i lbs.

Flour — 3 boxes of 33 lbs.
Bread — 2 b^gs of 83 lbs.
Chocolate — 3 boxes of 30 lbs.
Spirits — 3 casks, each weighing 77 lbs.
Salt — I box of 12 lbs.
Extract of Meat — 2 boxes of 5 lbs.
Tea — I box of 3 lbs.

Total

lbs. 200 2520
 245
200 100
 300 80
375 30
 405 99
166 90
231 12
lo 3
1 641

To this must be added 100 lbs. of bread for the dogs,
and a shovel and a complete cooking apparatus for each
sledge. Our load therefore amounted in provisions alone to
about 50 cwt, and including everything, to about 90 cwt
Parry, with twenty-eight men, in 1827 had for his journey
of sixty-one days two boats and four sledges, carrying a total
weight of 75 cwt. — about 2| cwt therefore for each man.
Notwithstanding great obstacles from the ice, his expedition
was, perhaps, more favoured than ours, for he passed over
ij degrees of latitude in thirty days.
6. Of our dogs, two only, Jubinal and Torossy, were avail
able to drag the small sledge ; i cwt. of bread was all we
could take for them, and for th'e rest they had to depend on
the product of the chase. Gillis was shot on account of his
intractability, and Semlja because of her ¦weakness. Only
Pekel was allowed to accompany us ; he only of the dogs had
the right of going about at liberty ; yet his life too was safe
as long as our provisions lasted. >
7. Our stock of clothes consisted of two woollen shirts,
one pair of woollen drawers, three pairs of stockings, leather

I.] LAST DAYS ON THE " TEGETTHOFF." 347
water-boots, a cap, and of a fur-coat to sleep in. Clean
woollen under-garments were much in request, and many a
manoeuvre was practised to get posse.';sion of them. Each
of the party carried besides a large knife, a spoon, and a pair
of snow-spectacles. Of luxuries none were permitted to us
but a tobacco-pouch to each man ; but filled with such art
that it was like a stone in weight We were not allowed to
line our coats with tobacco.
8, Our plan was simple — to reach the depot of provisions
on the Barentz Islands, which lay in an almost directly
southerly direction. After replenishing our stores there, we
proposed to follow the coast of Novaya Zemlya with the
hope of reaching one of those ships which the salmon fishery
in the rivers of that country detains there to the beginning
of harvest It was also not impossible that we might be
discovered before this, on the more northern coast of Novaya
Zemlya, by a Norwegian seal-hunter. The boats were to
keep together if possible ; but in case they should be separated,
the Wilhelm Islands were fixed on as the place of rendezvous
up to the middle of August. At first, night was chosen for
the march, and day was devoted to sleep ; the observance,
however, of this regulation was constantly prevented by
special circumstances. The success of the expedition de
pended on our crossing the ice-covered sea by the end of
August, The greatest difficulties were to be apprehended
from the melting of the snow, for although the thermometer
at the beginning of May fell 14° and even 17° below zero,
and sharp north-east winds somewhat retarded the thaw, the
mean temperature during the day approximated to zero, and
on May 16 it actually rose above it Two of our men, Stiglich
and Vecerina, were unfit for duty, and had often to be dragged
in the sledge. The rest of the men were healthy, and the
swelling of the feet, from which the sledge-party had suffered,
had disappeared.

CHAPTER IL
ON THE FROZEN SEA.
I, The momentous day came at last — the 20th of May, the
very day in 1855 on which Kane abandoned his ship ; ^ and
we hailed with joy the advent of the hour which was to
terminate dur life of inaction. Yet we could not see without
emotion the flags nailed to the masts of the Tegetthoff, and
the final preparations to leave the ship, which had been our
home for two weary years, and in which we had confronted
the perils of the frozen sea, its ice-pressures, its storms, and
its cold. These recollections crowded upon us as the moment
came to abandon her. Now too we had to part with our
Zoological, Botanical, and Geological collections, the result of
so rnuch labour ; the ample collection of instruments, the
books which had helped us over many a weary hour, and the
sixty-seven bear-skins which we had so carefully prepared —
all these had also to be abandoned. The photographs of
friends and acquaintances we hung on the rocky walls ashore,
preferring to leave them there rather than in the ship, which
must some time or other be driven ashore and go to pieces.
A document stating the grounds of our decision was laid on
the table of the mess-room.
2. We slept during this day, and in the evening sat down to
the last meal we were to enjoy on board the ship. About
nine o'clock, P.M., we assembled round the boats, ready for the
start. Dark masses of clouds obscured the sun, and our
route southwards led us into the gloomy monotonous region
^ 'With three boats, two of which were whale-boats, each 26 feet long and 7 feet
broad. His crew wore Eskimo clothing, and, strange to say, some of them had
gutta-percha masks. Parry's towards the North Pole in 1827, Kane's in 1855,
and our own, have much in common : but the greatest difficulties were on our side.

CHAP. II.] ON THE FROZEN SEA. 349
of ice-hummocks covered with snow — our world for the next
three months. The first day's work for twenty-three men,
harnessed to boat or sledge, was the advance of one mile ;
and even this rate of progress, small as it was, was not
constant. Many days it did not amount to half a mile ; the
sledge-sail was of little avail, for the deep snow retarded our
progress ; the sledges sank deep into it those on which the
boats were placed actually sticking fast We had to pass
three times heavily laden, and twice empty, over every bit of
the road, and half our number were scarcely able to move a
sledge or a boat. Such labours and exertions in deep snow
were truly distracting. Almost at every step we sank knee-
deep. Sometimes some unhappy fellows went in deeper still ;
of Scarpa, it was asserted that scarcely anything but his head
was visible while he dragged. Constantly we had either to
unload the sledge, or, harnessing ourselves all together for a
moment, drag it out of the deep snow-drift. For one-half of
the march we might get on without special impediment, the
other half was spent in vain efforts to push the load on, amid
" Aussingen," ^ to time the strong pull and the pull all together.
The perspiration often streamed down our faces, for the sky
was overcast, and the air exceedingly sultry. After the
exertion of some days, raw wounds appeared on the shoulders
of several. After a bit of our track had been passed over
three times in the way described, it was like a path in the
snow hollowed out by the shovel, so that we had spent our
strength in levelling it, but hardly in satisfactory progress.
To add to our trials, we suffered intensely from thirst, and
those among us who were unaccustomed to the fatigues of
sledge-travelling, sank down in the snow at every halt and
greedily ate of it. If such were to be the course of our
journey, would escape be possible ,'' Not a man among us
imagined that we could be saved, except by some extraor
dinary and happy turn of fortune, small signs of which
were at present to be seen. To escape from this depressing
fear, we deliberately avoided every allusion to the future,
3. The dogs, under the superintendence of Carlsen, took
their part in the transport of the baggage, but showed them-
' " Aussingen " is a sailor's word for a particular rhythm to which they pull iu
time.

350 AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES, [chap.
selves very lazy and intractable under his management, and
seemed to take a pleasure in plunging their loaded sledge
deep into the snow, out of which it was beyond the old man's
power to free them without help. Nor was their own strength
equal to going over the track twice at least even with only
one cwt. each time. If, therefore, their services were to be
turned to account, they must be led by some one whom they
obeyed, who could help them by shoving or dragging, who
could set up the sledge when it overturned, and was strong
enough to keep constantly lifting the heavy bags, and who
could pass over the same piece of road four or five times,
if necessary. This duty was taken in turn by Haller and
myself, and we succeeded in transporting in this way daily all
the bread and the spirits, weighing together from 8 to lO cwt,
and, in some cases, at a later period, even the entire load of a
great sledge divided into parts. I mention this in order to
show the great services which our dogs, though their number
was small, rendered during the march,
4, In the first week after the Tegetthoff was abandoned,
whenever Weyprecht encamped at the end of the day's march,
Haller, Zaninovich and I returned in the dog-sledge to the
ship in order to replenish the stores we had consumed. The
distance, which we had taken a week to pass with all our
baggage, was done by the help of the dogs in an hour or two.
In these different visits we did our utmost to fulfil the com
missions .of our companions. We rummaged the hold, though
in many of the cases we opened nothing was to be seen but
a dressed bear-skin. In one of these trips we fi.Ued a small
cask with a concentrated decoction of all the tea which was
left behind, and the rum we found was used to .give it the
proper strength. When we returned to the boat-parties
before the morning start, this still lukewarm decoction of tea
and rum met with great approbation, but the greatest was re
served for the remains of the condensed milk we brought with
us, not merely because it was milk, but because to us it was
the only milk in the world. Round the remains of the bears
we had killed we always found flocks of sea-gulls screaming
and quarrelling. Sometimes too we saw bears prowling round
the ship at a distance, waiting till their time for plunder came.
They seemed to wait for the moment when they should be

II.] ON THE FROZEN SEA. 351
able to take permanent possession of a fortress which had been
so long hostile to their race.
5. But we had the benefit of their company through the
earlier part of our journey. May 23, a bear was shot by
Weyprecht, and forthwith the gulls, who always turned up
whenever there was anything eatable to be got, consumed the
remains with astonishing rapidity, even to the bones. On the
26th, when I was about two miles from the advanced parties,
fetching something which had been left behind, I suddenly
sighted a bear at about lOO paces distant, lying in the snow
and apparently asleep. The dogs too got sight of him, and I
had much trouble in keeping them in, till I overturned the
sledge to act as a breast-work. As the bear rose and stood on
his hind legs I fired, but though severely wounded, he managed
to crawl away. The dogs, rushing off with the sledge behind
them, assailed the wounded animal with a fury which would
have been fatal to them, if the sledge had been checked by
any obstacle. Torossy specially showed a complete ignorance
of how matters stood, and was saved by Jubinal from the
paws of his assailant. Whenever the bear came up to the
sledge, Jubinal swung round with it, till I came up so close as
to make sure of killing it with my last cartridge. On the
31st, Klotz shot a bear which came within ten paces of the
boats ; but notwithstanding this addition of fresh meat, the
stores we brought in the dog-sledge from the ship maintained
their charm.
6. A few days after the abandonment of the ship, dark
masses of clouds, indicating open water, were seen in the
south-west, which doubtless proceeded from the fis.sures we
had observed three weeks before from Cape Briinn. There
was good ground, therefore, to hope that we should get
beyond the land-ice in a few days, and reach the network of
ever-changing " leads," If we succeeded in this, we might
then launch the boats in one of these water-ways, and follow
ing the windings of its course between the fields of ice, escape
to the south with greater rapidity. Our most sanguine expec
tations were exceeded when, on the 28th, we reached unex
pectedly a small flat island, the very existence of which was
unknown to us — Lamont Island, Ascending the highest
point of it, we saw an " ice-hole " stretching to the south-east,

352 AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES. [CHAP.
in which was floating an enormous table-shaped iceberg.
This " ice-hole " was not more than a mile from the southern
extremity of the island, which was itself still surrounded by
forced-up blocks of ice. A dri-ving snow-storm detained us
on the 29th on the island, and we contented ourselves with
gathering pieces of drift-wood lying on the shore. On the
30th we delayed no longer in our attempt to advance to the
edge of the floes and launch our boats. But our calculations
were doomed to disappointment ; after a toilsome search of
several days to find a suitable spot from which to launch our
boats, we were convinced that this was for the present impos
sible, because the edges of the " ice-hole " wece surrounded
with broad barriers of broken ice, rendering the passage of

IN THE HARBOUR OF AULIS.

the boats and sledges impossible, Weyprecht and Klotz had
meanwhile started to reconnoitre, and their report on their
return showed that sledging, for the present at least, was at
an end. The ice-hole before us extended far eastward, and
the attempt to outflank it would have led us through walls of
ice piled up to the height of fifty feet We went back, there
fore, to the more level surface of ice we had left, and pitched
our camp, which we called the " Harbour of Aulis ; " for, like
the Greeks of old, we had here to wait for more favourable
winds. Winds only could open the ice before us and widfen
the " leads " into a navigable condition. We had never kept
at any great distance from our boats while engaged in trans
porting their heavy loads, but henceforward we were careful

II.] ON THE FROZEN SEA. 353
to keep close to them, as we had every reason to look for the
speedy breaking up and separation of the ice. We were now
in 79° 46' N. L., and therefore only five miles from the ship.
Cape Tegetthoff was still distinctly visible on our northern
horizon. 7. The space in the boats being insufficient for the crew and
all the baggage we had to take, Weyprecht determined to send
back Orel and nine men to bring away the jolly-boat, which
had been left behind, and I went on in the dog-sledge to help
in the work of removing more stores from the ship. It took
me just three hours to do the distance, which it had cost the
advanced parties eight days to accomphsh. The activity of
the dogs received a fresh stimulus from their coming on the
track of a bear running in the direction of the ship, and when
we came within 1,000 yards of it, there we saw our enemy,
who, however, thought it more prudent not to await our attack.
On the 7th of June the equipment of the jolly-boat was
completed, and we returned fo our companions with a load of
3 cwt of boiled beef, shot and other necessaries. The old
track, now well trodden down, proved a great advantage to us.
If we had deviated a single step, we should at once have
stuck fast, for the character of the snow had altered, and
where it lay in masses it had become mere sludge The tem
perature, which at the end of May had varied between 25°
and 19° F., rose, on June i, to freezing-point and remained
steady at that point for some time Even during the weeks
of midsummer the temperature rose only a few degrees above
freezing-point. On the 3rd of June it rained for the first
time, and gradually the weather assumed the character of
fogs and driving mists so common to the Arcric Ocean.
Clear days were of rare occurrence, and, occasionally only, the
sun shone for a few hours. On our return to the boats we
found their crews were sitting up and looking out like young
birds in a nest, to see what we had brought from the ship.
Tobacco was regarded as a right royal gift, and Dr, Kepes, to
whom I gave a shirt-sleeve well stuffed out with the precious
weed, regarded himself as a Croesus,
8, Meantime our longings to launch grew apace ; anxiously
we looked for the widening of a fissure to enable us to advance
southward. We attempted again and again to approach the

354 AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES. [CHAP.
" ice-hole," but always found insuperable difficulties to bar the
way. The effort to get one of our boats into a dock we had
hewn in the ice nearly ended in its loss, and nothing was left
to us but to repeat the flank march along the fatal " ice-hole "
to the "harbour of Aulis," there to watch for the breaking-
up of the ice. Throughout the day we sat penned up in the
boats, worn-out with a feeling of indescribable weariness,
each morning longing for the end of the day, and at every
meal thinking when the next would be ready. It seemed as
if the time for launching the boats would never come. When
the hoarse melancholy scream of the burgomaster-gull sounded
through the stillness of the night, it seemed like a demon
voice from another world, proclaiming that all our efforts
would avail nothing to deliver us from the icy power which
held us in its grasp. A visit from a bear was a welcome
change in the monotony of our life.
9. We were now in the middle of June. Winds from the
south still prevailed, and we were close to the ship at the
expiration of some weeks ; the third part of our provisions
was consumed, and of the 250 German miles between the
ship and coast of Lapland we had accomplished but one mile
and a quarter. If this should continue to be the rate of our
progress, we had the prospect of reaching home in twenty
years ! Yet gloomy as things appeared, there were moments
when we were tempted to think that the end of our trials had
come at last. Thus, on the 17th of June, an " ice-hole " opened
close to us ; instantly we prepared to take advantage of it
The day was perfectly clear, and though the temperature in
the shade stood at freezing-point (F.), it was to us an African
heat. We threw down the walls of ice, levelled a track for the
sledges, and that night we stood, with all our baggage, at the
edge of the open water, and, on the morning of the i8th of
June, we at last succeeded in launching our boats and putting
all our baggage on board. The sledges, fastened to the boats,
were towed in their wake. The dogs were put in the different
boats, Jubinal alone taking kindly to his new abode, seeing
doubtless that he would have to sleep no longer on snow.
After drinking some tea with the last remains of our rum, we
pushed off, steering towards the south, and it was a sure sign
of the elevation of our spirits, that three-and-twenty tobacco-

il.]

ON THE FROZEN SEA.

355

pipes were immediately put into active operation. Our pro
gress, however, was but small, scarcely more than one mile an
hour, which was fully accounted for by the deep lading of the
boats and the towing of the sledges. We might have sailed
about three miles, steering in a southerly direction, when a
heavy floe stopped us, and, progress for the time being im
possible, we drew the boats up on the ice and went to rest.
Soon after, snow began to fall, and a west wind set in, which
gradually veered to the south, and the floes were again forced
together, and we found all the "leads" closed up when we
attempted to move on in the morning. Again we had to

WE LAUNCH AT LAST.

wait, but with this difference, that we were now at the mercy
of the wind, which might drive us with the floe, on which we
happened to be, wherever it pleased.
10. On the 19th of June we had to lie still in our boats,
but next day we were able to push them to the edge of a
fissure, into which we let them down, unlading them and
lading them afresh on the opposite side ; our progress during
the day thus amounted to a mere change of encampment
from one floe to another floe. The absence of navigable
"leads" prevented our advancing further. Our position
remained unaltered for the next two days, the only event

3S6 AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES. [CHAP.
that occurred being the shooting of a seal {Phoca Groenlan
dica), which sufficed to make the soup we had for supper
somewhat more palatable. He had fallen to the gun of
Weyprecht, who proved to be the luckiest of us all in seal-
hunting, in which only the persevering succeed. Every seal
that was shot was of course a saving of the stock of our
provisions, and hence the killing of these animals was a
matter of extreme importance to us, and the preservation of
our lives depended in a very great measure on our success.
II. Nothing can give a better idea of our life at this period
than a few quotations from my journal : — •
" June 23. — Things have improved a little towards the
south; in the forenoon of this day we passed over two water-
holes and two floes, thus advancing about a quarter of a mile.
The intervention of a third floe hindered us from penetrating
into another ' ice-hole.' After midnight the ice again opened,
and we sailed several hundred paces further.
" June 24. — Early in the morning Orel shot a seal of
unusual size. We dragged on for half a mile over a large
field of ice to its southern edge, but found, on our arrival
there, that an accumulation of smaller floes barred our advance.
"June 25. — We could not sail a bit further; winds from
the north-east prevailed; our latitude was 79° 16'. After
leaving the ice under the land, the depth of the snow con
siderably diminished, so that the sledges on which the boats
were placed could be dragged on much more easily than
before. There were, however, no pools of thaw-water on the
ice, though we had observed such much earlier in the preceding
year, '¦'June 26. — Several hours occupied in passing over ice
fields and small 'ice-holes.' During the halt at noon a bear
came within twenty paces of us, but seeing so many men in
motion, ran off. The ice appeared to be last year's ice, and
was much crushed, Orel at noon took the latitude by sex
tant and artificial horizon, and found it 79° 41' — bitter
disappointment " June 27. — With a fresh north-east wind we sailed to-day
over a larger 'ice-hole,' our latitude at noon being 79° 39'.
In the afternoon we dragged our sledges for a quarter of a
mile over an ice-field, and our baggage had so diminished

II.]

ON THE FROZEN SEA.

357

that I had to drag with the dog-sledge not more than 7 cwt
In the lee of large ice-fields, which act like islands, we find
sometimes somewhat more open water-ways.
" June 28, — Two ice-fields and two ' ice-holes ' were crossed
to-day. Progress, though small with the boats, would have
been simply impossible with a ship, which could not, like
boats, be dragged over floes. Falls of snow and gleams of
sunshine alternate with each other. While the rest slept a
watch was always posted outside the boat to observe the
behaviour of the ice, and to give us timely notice of the
approach of a bear.

MARCHING THEOUGH ICE-HUMMOCKS

" June 29. — Two or three small ' ice-holes ' and some ice
fields were crossed to-day. The last ice-field we dragged
over was of considerable extent. To-day, for the first time,
we made the attempt with great success, to force the boats
through narrow 'leads' by means of poles. Another seal
was got Every one of us had now learnt, by force of habit
to eat half a pound of seal blubber with our tea at noon, and
to eat it with pleasure It was some comfort to the more
delicate and sensitive to be assured that it tasted like butter,
and many experiments had been made on the edibility of the
fins during the last few days. Kane came to consider seal -fin
as a kind of salad. We cooked it in our soup, and the dogs
at last went beyond us in the high estimate they placed on

358

AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES,

[chap.'

this article of diet It is worth remarking, albeit it seems to
be a contradiction, that though we had all an abhorrence of
fatty Substances during the sledge-journeys in the coldest
period of the year, we now took to them with great relish
when the weather was warm. In fact we never felt better
than after a noon-day meal at which we had consumed a
considerable quantity of blubber. Our digestion was particu
larly good, and those who suffered from stomach complaints,
produced by the continuous use of pease-sausage, ceased to
be so affected. The real ground of this abnormal preference

HALT AT NOON.

of fatty substances was doubtless the fact that we had now
abundance of drinking water, and did pot suffer therefore
from thirst.
" Jutie 30. — A small ' ice-hole,' and then a large ice-field
were crossed, and as we were in the act of passing over a
' lead ' filled with bfoken ice, it suddenly closed, and we had to
draw our boats up again, and to wait till the ice should part
asunder. The snow has become quite soft, and we find water
at the bottom of a hole, and employ it for the first time for
cooking. Cape Tegetthoff and Salm Island are still visible

II.] ON THE FROZEN SEA, 359
The dogs to-day drew 12 cwt, and are quite exhausted. I
had my hair cut by Klotz, and, with many apologies for my
poverty, offered him some water in compensation — an offer he
declined. In the Arctic Seas, even to the doctor, a glass of
water is a handsome fee,"
So it runs on for weeks together in my journal ; and if it
be tiresome for readers to follow such repetitions, how much
more wearisome must it have been to live through and expe
rience them ! Yet if it were possible for our situation to become
worse, it did so during the first half of the following month.
12. On the 1st of July the whole of our day's labour con
sisted in passing over a fissure. The observations taken at

CROSSING A FISSURE.

noon gave 79° 38' as our latitude, so that during the last four
days we had gained one single minute only. Next day we
lay amid fragments of floes closely packed together, and
there were neither " ice-holes " nor fields of ice over which we
could pass. On the 3rd of July we crossed some fissures with
great difficulty and traversed' two small ice-fields, but a wind
from the S.E, set in, and our observations showed 79° 38' N.
latitude ; while we discovered from our longitude that we
were only four miles to the east of the ship. The small
amount of drift discernible in the ice, with such strong winds,
was a sad sign of its closely packed condition,
13. With imperturbable patience we continued to drag our
heavy loads over the ice, and on the 4th imagined that we
25

36o AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES. [chap.
had penetrated a mile in a southerly direction ; but the wind
from the S.E, blew so persistently that when we took our
observations on the following day we found our latitude 79°
40J', and that we had thus been actually driven back towards
the north-west, and that the toils of the last three weeks had
been fruitless. On the 5th and 6th the ice lay before us in
piled-up masses rendering progress impossible, and we were
compelled to rest, consuming our provisions without getting
one step further. Our seal-hunting also on those days was
seldom successful. For hours the hunters lurked round the
edges of ice-holes, sometimes without seeing a single seal
come to the surface ; and when at last the animal did make
its appearance, it very often sunk after it was hit, before a
boat could be launched. Those we saw on the edges of ice-
holes showed a dexterity in diving out of the way of mischief
which failed, as things were, to excite our admiration. The
bears, even more than the seals, showed a prudence and
caution which their previous behaviour had not led us to
expect. On the first of those days a bear came pretty near
us, but the dogs, alas ! rushed at him and drove him away.
Henceforward when the dogs were not dragging they were
secured with ropes, but our prudence came too late.
14, On the 7th there was no change. The day passed
away in moving from one floe with rotten edges to another
somewhat more firm. We only shoved our boats a few
hundred yards through the lakes of thaw water which had
formed themselves on the ice. Our latitude was 79° 43',
15. On the Sth we got away in a narrow "lead" a few
hundred paces southward, but after getting so far we were
stopped by thickly-packed ice, and again we had to draw
our boats out of the water and recommence our life of pain
ful expectancy — watching for the ice to open. No one of
the party suffered so much from this depressing state of
things as Carlsen. For more than twenty years the old and
tried " ice-master " had lived amid floes and ice-blinks, man
fully and successfully fighting against the hardships of the
Arctic Seas, and now that frailties had increased on him, he
saw himself compelled to such toils and privations as would
have taxed his strength even in his prime. The old polar
navigator bore his burthens without murmur or complaint.

n.]

ON THE FROZEN SEA.

361

though it was painful to others to see the signs of exhaustion
in his appearance. He no longer spoke of the polar bears
and walruses, which he had entranced by a glance of his eye
or bewitched with one of his words of magic. Even the
puritanical zeal with which he once rebuked and lectured the
Slavonians for playing cards on " God's holy day " had grown
somewhat cold, and his fears lest the conversations of the
lively Southerners should end in blows became even more
intense. 16. It was a strange life this abode for weeks of summer in

boats covered over with a low tent roof. Oars by way of
furniture, and three pairs of stockings for each man's mattress
and pillow. My journal describes these days : " Four boats
are lying on the ice, crammed with sleeping men: and so
great is the heat in them, that no one needs his fur coat, and
snow placed in any vessel becomes water in a few hours. If
Torossy has not ushered in the day by barking, the cooks do
it when they bring the bowls of soup to the boats with the
cry 'Quanta!' Then ensues a short scene of confusion:

362 AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES. [CHAP.
spoons and tin-pots have to be searched for and found, till at
length quiet is again restored, after a little ransacking, and
each man has his pot full of hot soup in his hand, consisting
of meal, pemmican, pease-sausage, bread-dust, boiled beef, seal,
and bears' flesh ; when the soup is flavoured with seal-blubber
it is called ' Gulyas.' The soup is consumed amid perfect
silence — not a word is spoken ; what indeed was there to be
said, which was not already known, or which had not been said
a hundred times before ? Each one knows the other's hi.story
from his cradle downwards, A stillness like death reigns over
all the surrounding forms of ice, and the frozen ocean stretches
out beneath a vast shroud, A sunless leaden sky spreads over
all, not a breath of air stirs, it is neither warm nor cold, slowly
melts the snow, and this pale realm of ice forms a world of
danger and difficulty, against which are matched the strength
and sagacity of three-and-twenty men !
" Again all have taken their places in the boats to bale out
the thaw water, the great enemy of their health — and of their
solitary pair of boots. He whose turn it is to hunt the seal
squats at the edge of a floe before a fissure, which admits
a few square feet of water, in which no seal will show himself,
because he has scarcely room to turn in it
" To the others, their abode in the boats is a time of mani
fest weariness and ennui. Happy the man who has any
tobacco, happy he who, after smoking his pipe, does not
fall into a faint ; happy too the man who finds a fragment of
a newspaper in some corner or other, even if there should be
nothing contained in it but the money-market intelligence,
or perhaps directions to be followed in the preparation of
pease-sausage. Enviable is he who discovers a hole in his fur
coat which he can mend ; but happiest of all are those who
can sleep day and night Of these latter some have stowed
themselves away under the rowing seats, and above them
reposes a second layer of sleepers, but nothing is visible of
either party but the soles of their feet. No paradise of bliss !
Noon comes : a little tea is made over the train-oil fire, each
gets one cup of it and a handful of hard bread-crumbs — a
kind of dog's food which the impartial ' committee of pro
visions ' measures out with Argus-eyes. The fourth part of
the skin of a seal is thrown into each of the four boats, and

II.] ON THE FROZEN SEA. 363

the blubber on it is eagerly devoured. Some, for the sake of
the fins, the ribs, or the head, become guests of the dogs.
Flocks of gulls settle impudently near us, screaming and
fighting for every morsel they can reach. Some of us try to
catch them with nets, but no sooner are the nets up than the
gulls disappear,
"The formality of dinner is over, and we have come to
such a pass that even the tea excites the nerves of the com
munity, and some Troubadour will then raise his voice with a
bravura such as might have been heard on San Marco, The
end of the Franklin expedition, and the history of the two
skeletons which were found in the boat, is told again for the
twentieth time — a story which never fails to produce a harrow
ing effect, and to rouse the firm and resolute to yet greater
efforts and self-command,
"The most animated conversation, however, or rather a
constant chattering, is going on meantime in the soot-begrimed
tent of the cook. A difference of opinion arises about the
precise time when the kettle was to be scraped out, or about
the curtailing of the allowance in the last distribution of salt,
or as to the delinquent who made a wood-fire on a cask of
spirit, or who, instead of untying, cut the string of the sledge
packing ; many flourishes of speech are bandied to and fro,
which at any rate speak well for the oratorical gifts of the
disputants, "There is still, however, one solace left us, the solace of
smoking. Some indeed have already exhausted their whole
stock of tobacco. He who has half a pouch of it at his
disposal is the object of general respect, and the man who can
invite his neighbour to a pipe of tobacco and a pot of water
is considered to do an act of profuse liberality. Tobacco
becomes a medium of exchange among us, and provisions are
bought and paid for with it its value rising every day. There
is no difference between day and night and Sundays are only
distinguished by dressing the boats with flags."
17. In this enforced idleness passed away the days between
the 9th and 15th inst., save that on the 14th we changed our
place by three hundred yards, in order to select a more con
venient spot for seal-hunting and to keep up the appearance
of travelling— but in truth only the appearance, for in reality

364 AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES. [chap.
our situation had become truly dreadful. There were no
events of sudden occurrence either to excite or alarm us, but
time flowed on, and our constantly diminishing stock of pro
visions, like the steady movement of the hands of a clock,
spoke with a plainness of speech, that could not be resisted,
of the doom impending over us. Hitherto we had patiently
endured the severe labours of dragging our heavily-laden
boats and sledges from floe to floe, of launching the boats in
the small fissures, and again drawing them on to the floes,
when the ice became closely packed, often too carrying all the
provisions and baggage as we slowly crept along. The least
progress was sufficient to fill us with joy and thankfulness.
Meanwhile the ice on all sides lay closely packed, and many
times we had to wait for a week in our boats on a floe, till the
"leads" were pleased to open, while every empty tin case
proclaimed, with fearful distinctness, the diminishing of our
provisions and the gloominess of our prospects ; and now a
steady wind from the south destroyed the little progress we.
had made. After the lapse of two months of indescribable
efforts, the distance between us and the ship was not more than
nine English miles ! The heights of Wilczek Island were
still distinctly visible, and its lines of rocks shone with
mocking brilliance in the ever-growing day-light. All things
seemed to say that after a long struggle with the supremacy
of the ice there remained for us but a despairing return to
the ship and a third winter there, stript of every hope, and
the Frozen Ocean for our grave !
18. Such reflections and prospects were not calculated to
raise our spirits or promote calm and dehberate thought,
and it was happy for us that the earth was round, and
that we were thus prevented from seeing how much ice lay
between us and the open sea. No measures were left un
tried which promised to facilitate our progress or prolong
our lives. We ceased to cook with oil, and used spirit
instead, in order to lighten the boats. The rations of bread
were diminished ; even our faithful companion little Pekel
fell a victim to necessity. Seals played a greater part still
in our cuisine, and everything seemed to depend on the
successful use of the four hundred ball-cartridges which
still remained in store. On the iSth of July a walrus

II.] ON THE FROZEN SEA. 365
showed himself close to the boats, but when we made a
rush upon him to finish him he disappeared under the
waters, and heavy rain drove us back again into the boats.
Up to this time all signs of a happy termination of our
venture seemed to have disappeared ; but the hour of our
liberation and escape was nearer than we thought,
19. On the evening of the iSth of July, after finishing
our supper, a line of small " leads " running to the south
west opened itself, and we forced our way for about a mile
against wind and current coming from the same direction.
Next day, July 16, the wind blew from the north-west and
after our boats had been nearly crushed by the ice closing in
some smaller " ice-holes," we ran into a broader and longer
"lead." At noon of this day our latitude was 79° .39', and
we had gone so far that the highest points of Cape Tegetthoff
and Wilczek Island were barely discernible — blue shadows
surrounded by an edge of yellow vapour, and over the
whole a heavy water sky.
20. Up to this date we had been compelled to cross every
. fissure, a procedure as exhausting for us as it was detrimental
to the boats. The least impediment, such as the stoppage
of a " lead " by some pieces of ice, had sufficed to cause us
hours of laborious efforts. The ice lay thick and close, and
its floes were firmly frozen together. But now it was not
only somewhat opened, but seldom cemented by frost, and
the efforts of fifteen or twenty men generally sufficed to shove
apart any two floes with long poles, or remove any barrier
which closed a " lead." If the " leads " closed in so that
there was danger lest the boats should be crushed, the crew
jumped out and hauled them up on the ice.
The accompanying sketch exhibits one of the scenes that
occurred almost daily — the pushing the floes asunder with
long poles, in order that the boat might pass between them,
while the rotatory motion of the floe closes the fissure in the
foreground, so that another boat has to be drawn on the ice
as quickly as possible. The baggage of the boat is repre
sented partly as packed on a sledge, or partly lying on the
snow, and the men and dogs stand ready to drag it over the
floe to the next place of launching. Two other boats, which
have found the " lead " open, are on before, and one of them

I I
I'n.'il I

'i|

'.!

I I

 1,1' I'
I I' ' ' I
'I ',11 I'lii

I' I
1,1 "

 .'IlVI 'i ''" <
i; ¦:¦'¦¦''''

I ill'. V
ii/ji 'I'l i|iii<i'
'ill'
I, Jn. ,1 I'll

.'''¦''¦'V'ljfl'''".''"¦ !'lJ!''i,i'i''i''iiii' ''l|i!|i<iil|i'|!il' .'J;i'i'ii''f,
;i|  iVV"''l ;i !'
''M:''|l.,.'l|:!''l

ii,...i,i ' '
''i ' -I ¦ ,
' i'''h'';ii,)iii'i'

'I

', III ' I
1 ''.jfi'iiiii I' .,

|| I'

! v"'  'i»



Il I

I* 1 1

V.

W i

'n'l ¦ '
I i|

I 11

' ''I iW

CHAP. II.] . ON THE FROZEN SEA. 367
is lying at an ice-field which has to be crossed, waiting for the
others to come up.
, 21, It sometimes happened that we could not push the floes
asunder, and we were then compelled to cross them ; and in
those cases where the floes were a mile or more in diameter,
our progress took the form of sledging. The provision was
sent on for some distance to the nearest water, and the boats,
which remained behind under the care of the less able-bodied
pf our party, were lifted on to the sledge when it returned
by the rest of the crew, and firmly secured. The smallest of
our boats was shoved through the snow while the dogs with
their sledge transported the bags of bread and the spirit.
22. An advance of four miles a day now sufficed to satisfy
us, and we had acquired such precision in our arrangements
before starting that three hours sufficed to accomplish them.
If the sledges came on obstacles from the ice, the pioneers
hurried on with picks and shovels to remove them. Lakes on
the ice were made little of; we waded through them with
much equanimity, and any one who fell into a " lead " while
the day's labour was going on seemed to take the accident
very coolly. On the 17th of July we had passed, in the way
I have described, three ice-fields and three small " ice-holes;"
but on the following day we made very little progress, because
a wind, setting in from the west packed the ice closely. We
were therefore overjoyed to find our latitude to-day 79° 22', a
result which could only be ascribed to the late north winds ;
but we could not quiet our fears, lest a wind from the south
should deprive us of our dearly-bought advance.
23. We now penetrated into a region full of icebergs, many
of which were covered with earth and moraine dirt, which
made them look at a distance, amid the dazzling uniformity
of the ice, like rocky cliffs. In the evening a she-bear was
seen close to us, which came full tilt at our dogs; at thirty
paces off she was hit, but not mortally, and fell ; but getting
up again, ran off to an ice-hole, and remained long enough on
its surface to be secured by the harpooners. She afforded us
as much food as four small seals, and some of our party, with
the voracity of beasts of prey, scraping the flesh off the bones
for their private use, carried it about with them wrapped in
their pocket-handkerchiefs, and ate about a pound of it raw

368 AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES. [chap.
every day at noon, as long as it lasted, after merely washing
the carrion in sea-water,
24. On the 19th of July we again passed over several small
ice-fields, and on the 20th and 2 1st one several miles in
diameter. We were favoured with a north-west wind, and on
the 20th of July our latitude was 79° 11', our longitude 61"
3', and our progress was so brilliant on the 22nd (79° i' L.),
that we were compelled to draw the boats twice only out
of the water, and warping through narrow " leads," came again
to larger "ice-holes," over which we were able to sail. Our
spirits were greatly raised, and we went on full of hope that
we should soon come into longer water-ways, which would
exempt us from the toils of crossing floes with the sledges.
On the 23rd sudden squalls from the E.N.E., accompanied
with heavy showers of rain, detained us in our covered boats,
and our whole business on this day was collecting the rain
water in an empty spirit-cask and drinking it as grog. On the
24th we again made good progress. The rain fell in torrents,
and we were wet through and through, and at night we lay
down to rest reeking. The rain continued, but good progress
was made almost without interruption during the next three
days. We bore all the discomforts with joy, because the
rain powerfully and rapidly dissolved the ice^ Our clothes
were constantly wet, but we eagerly snatched every gleam
of sunshine to dry our stockings or our saturated boots.
25. The cooks, when they called us in the morning, now
constantly drew such pictures of the day's prospects, that we
might have been tempted to believe that during the night all
the ice had disappeared ; but this pleasing illusion was rudely
dispelled whenever we stepped out of the boats into the open
air. These good men, having no compass to consult, always
flattered themselves with the notion that where water was to
be seen, there also lay the south. But alas ! there lay the ice-
hummocks, and there, too, lay the boats and sledges to be
dragged as before, Klotz went a little further ; it was his
opinion that we ought always to take to the water without
fear, even if it stretched to the north, in order, as he said,
to get home round the North Pole.
26. On the 27th we had reached 78" 48' N. L., but a wind
^ It was Parry's experience also that nothing melts the ice like rain.

II.] ON THE FROZEN SEA, 369

from the south-west set in, and after two days of constant
toil, alternately launching and drawing up the boats, we
found, on the 29th, that we had been driven back to 78° 50'
N, L. But in many cases the movement of ice is unaccount
able, and on the 30th this was verified ; for, notwithstanding
the prevalence of the south-west wind, we had drifted to
78° 32' N, L., 61° 3' E, L. The weather at this time was thicker
and duller than usual, and the horizon from our boats extended
but a few hundred paces, so that we had considerable diffi
culty in choosing the most navigable " leads." The view did
not extend above two miles, even when we climbed to the
top of one of the hummocks, and mists generally lay on its
outskirts. In clear weather we had always steered in the
direction of a water-sky which promised open sea, even though
we had to make detours to the south-west or south-east. But
now such a foggy obscurity lay over every " ice-hole," however
small, that the outline of its edges was hardly discernible at
a few paces off, and, under these circumstances, we could only
pull the boats round, till we came to the first opening in the
enclosing ice,
27, Winds from the south continued during the following
week, and heavy rains again fell, and we had much laborious
dragging through the fog on the 31st of July and the 1st of
August. Our stock of bread, which had been reduced to
powder by the constant lading and unlading, was meanwhile
so thoroughly soaked that on the 2nd of August we stopped
for half a day on a floe {7^° 28' N. L., 61° 49' E. L.) to dry it in
the sun, which, after a long absence, gladdened us by showing
himself We took the opportunity also to dry our clothes and
our stockings. On such a day as this the scene around us
entirely lost its gloomy sepulchral character ; the heavens
were brilliantly blue, the ice lay around us in dazzling light,
and the deep ultramarine of the sea-water peeped forth
from the "leads." Henceforward we had less occasion to
cross large floes. Our route gradually changed its character ;
" leads '¦ and " ice-holes " occurred far more frequently, and
the channels between them, winding through drifring islands
of ice, were sometimes three or four miles in extent Along
these we glided under sail and oars, and when we came to a
temporary halt, Weyprecht, with his compass, mounted one

370 AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES. [CHAP.
of the ice-hummocks to examine the water-ways and deter
mine which we should follow. Our rate of progress was
much increased, an acceleration due to the change in the ice,
effected slowly but surely by sunshine and rain. The enormous
masses of snow were wasting away ; the thaw-water, gather
ing in countless streams, spread as lakes on the hollows of the
floes, and oozed through fissures in the ice into the sea. The
edges of the floes, undermined by the action of the waves,
fell in, or were worn away by the pressure, and a single warm
day or shower of rain sufficed to dissolve what remained of
them. Hence, if the difficulty of drawing boats on to the ice
was lessened, the danger of breaking through it in the process
was greater, and we ran the risk of seeing all the cases con
taining our provisions sink in the sea before our eyes. As the
ice-fields diminished in size and thickness, the number and
breadth of the " leads " increased. The alternation, of heavy
south-east winds and calms helped on the destruction of the
ice, and our progress was great in proportion. From the 3rd
to the 7th of August each day we accomplished greater
distances. The ice gradually changed from pack-ice to drift-
ice, impenetrable only where it lay in thicker masses. When
fogs came on, we generally decided, after wandering about for
a little, to wait on or near a floe for finer weather. We np
longer restricted our labours to certain times of the day.
In the highest spirits, we toiled incessantly at rowing or
dragging the boats, or shoving the floes asunder with our
long poles.
28, On the 7th our progress might be estimated at twelve
miles. It was the first day we had got on without dragging
the sledges and crossing floes, and when we halted at noon
am.id some loose ice, we saw, to the south, a fluctuation in
the sea level, and the ice alternately rising and falling. " The
swell of the ocean ! " exclaimed all with joy : " we are close
to the open sea " — the open sea being to us at that moment
deliverance. Our amazement at finding it at such a latitude,
78° N. L., was so great that, notwithstanding that indisputable
sign, we could scarcely believe our eyes, and we "were filled
with indescribable excitement For a moment only that
excitement was diverted to other and very different objects —
two bears suddenly appeared on the scene, swimming about

II.]

ON THE FROZEN SEA,

371

100 paces from us. Two boats were at once manned, and the
chase began. But the bears swam faster than the boats could
be pulled by the four men in each boat; sometimes they
raised themselves high out of the water as they turned to
look at their pursuers. Suddenly one of them disappeared,
while the other made for a floe and climbed on to it. As he
stood and impudently stared at us, a shot was fired at him,
and he immediately decamped, swimming with great rapidity
to another distant floe. But as no trace of blood was to be
seen on the ice, and our companions drinking their mid-day
tea were scarcely to be distinguished, we considered it unsafe

BEARS IN THE WATER.

to pursue him further. In the evening we stopped again
before a dense group of small floes, which like the rest of the
ice had become rotten ; the one whereon we were preparing
to encamp for the night broke into several pieces just as we
were raising our boat on to it. We were, however, fortunate
enough to save our provisions,
29. Though we had been accustomed so long to oscillate
between extremes, we now felt that the hour had come, when
we might count with certainty on being liberated from the
fetters of the ice, and all our hopes gained new life. Yet
once more they seemed doomed to be disappointed. On the

372 AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES. [chap.
7th, before we turned into sleep, the prevailing north wind had
gathered so much ice around us that we were fairly shut in.
Next day (August 8), after the efforts of many hours to force
through the multitude of small floes by which we were jammed
in, we discovered that we should be unable to move, unless
the wind changed to the south-west. Our exertions on the 9th
were equally unsuccessful. It was not dense masses of ice, under
whose walls we had so often felt ourselves imprisoned, that
now held us captive, but miserable flat floes. Their diameter
was from fifty to sixty paces, and though they hardly appeared
above water, they were not the less impenetrable hindrances.
The movement in the sea, that had so elevated us, was scarcely
perceptible, and our faith in the nearness of the ocean was
consequently much shaken,
30. Again rain fell in abundance, and we remained in
the boats waiting for the- breaking-up of the ice. It was
scarcely possible to go any distance from them, for the ice of
the surrounding floes was so thin, that we could not venture
to walk on them lest we should break through. Fissures
abounded, but no seals were to be seen in them. This forced
abode in our boats was almost unendurable. We could not
always sleep, and only a frugal few had any tobacco left to
smoke. Some of our party had for a long time smoked dry
tea-leaves in the form of cigarettes, or had filled their pipes
with match paper. All the tinder had been long used up in
this way, and a dreadful trial it had been to the olfactory
nerves of those who would not so indulge. Haller went
further still, and smoked paper in the close covered boat I
besides many leaves of his note-books, he still had a quantity
of packing-paper, but, in the interest of the community, I
was compelled to interfere against its use in this fashion. He
found some compensation in another occupation, which had
the merit at least of being inoffensive to others — mixing
together his rations of tea, salt, and bread-dust, he converted
the mixture into a soup. These days seemed as though they
would never end ; there was a continual taking off and pulling
on of boots ; some sat in the boats gaping about vacantly in
all directions ; some .standing on the ice gaped as vacantly ;
all mental activity was concentrated in two wishes, that the ice
would break up, and that the time for the next meal would

II.] ON THE FROZEN SEA,

373

come round. No one had any private reserve of provision.
The days were gone when a stocking filled with bread
might be seen hanging from the belt of one, or the ribs of a
bear in the hand of another. And yet amidst all the hunger,
which we felt the more acutely from our abundant leisure,
some among us had actually become as plump as quails, and
f we had been found dead on the floes, it would have been
thought, that we had died in consequence of over-eating, so
stout had most of us become. But dreadful was the solemn
lapse of time. August was well advanced ; the knowledge
that we had provisions for only one month more, and the
shortness of the season for action that still remained, failed
not to impress upon us all that the crisis of our fate was at
hand. For three weeks past the formation of young ice had
begun, both on the ice and on the sweet-water lakes on the
floes. Even during these summer months, the temperature in
the night had frequently fallen two or three degrees below
freezing-point, and the cold now began to join the fragments
of old floes into formidable obstacles. The caprice of a wind
might again carry us off towards the north, as it had done
two years ago, but carry us too, to certain inevitable destruc
tion. On the 9th of August we found our latitude 78° 9' — a
higher degree than we had expected. But what would a lower
degree have availed us, had not the open sea been near us —
the open sea, on which hung all our hopes, ever since the
word had been uttered ,-' The joy of that day's discovery was
fed and sustained by the low murmur of a distant surf, which
either imagination or our senses, rendered acute by the
presence of danger, continued to hear in the south,
31. Thus passed the days from the loth to the 13th of
August, the calking of our boats forming our only distraction.
Eagerly and earnestly we gazed on the water-sky in the south
and on every change in the ice,^ On the lOth our latitude was
78° & and our longitude 60° 45', E. ; on the 13th our latitude
was 77° 58', and our longitude 61° 10' E. On the 12th the ice
had become somewhat looser. We advanced a mile to the south^
but were then again beset It rained during the whole day, and
in the night, the temperature fell several degrees below freez-
' The virind maintained its westerly character, and we drifted, as we had so often
before, to the right of its direction.

374

AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES.

[chap.

ing-point Ice an inch thick was formed on the 13th over the
surface of the fresh-water lakes, and when we went, either to
drink from them or to perform our toilet, we had to break
through a coating of ice. All these were so many signs that
Summer had bid us adieu and that the short Autumn of the
north had begun. This day, too, we had the first impression
of the returning cold,
32. At last during the night of the 14th, the ice somewhat
opened and we could go on or way. Just before we started,
in the early morning, a seal was shot which the dogs had

CALKING THE BOATS.

discovered and attached : it was the eighteenth and last we
shot since we abandoned the ship. With much labour in
shoving we forced a passage through a long succession of
'' leads " and halted for a short rest at midnight in front of a
larger " ice-hole," to refresh our strength with some pieces of
blubber, seasoned with alcohol and thaw-water. Drift ice
lay all round us, and we had the presentiment, that the hour
at last had come which was to set us free from the ice. All
things rise in our estimation, when we are about to bid them
farewell, and it was with some pain that we felt all at once, that
in a few minutes we should bid adieu to the realm of ice,
which lay behind us in all its magical grandeur. We now

n-l

ON THE FROZEN SEA.

375

moved on under sail : the " ice-holes " increased in size, the
ice diminished, and the swell of the ocean was perceptibly
greater. Our latitude at noon next day was 77° Af^. A large
" ice-hole " opened before us, and with a sea running high, the
¦ boats, making a good deal of water, we sailed into it — it was
the last ice-hole. The last line of ice lay ahead of us, and
beyond it the boundless open sea !
33. About six o'clock in the evening we had reached the
extreme edge of the ice-barrier, and once more, but for the

FAREWELL TO THE FROZEN OCEAN.

last time, drew our boats on a floe. Again our ears heard the
noise of the waves — the voice of life to us. Again we saw
the white foam of the surge, and felt, as if we had awoke
from a death-like slumber of years to a new existence. But
if our joy at deliverance was great, not less great was our
astonishment to have reached the ice-barrier in the high lati
tude of 77° 40', and with it the hope of final escape We
went to rest for some hours, but were roused by the watch
about two o'clock in the morning. The east wind had gathered
some heavy masses of ice around us, which rose and fell with
26

376 AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES. [CHAP. IL
the swell of the ocean, and we were already several hundred
yards from the water's edge. Any delay in escaping as quickly
as possible would require the labours of many days to set us
free again. After much shoving with the poles, and lading and
unlading, we again got beyond the line of ice. The frozen ¦
ocean lay behind us, and on our last floe we made preparations
for our voyage on the open sea.

CHAPTER IIL
ON THE OPEN SEA.
I. There lay the open Ocean before us ; never were its
sparkling waves beheld with more sincere joy, than by the
small band of men, who, escaping from the prison house of
the ice after fearful struggles, now raised their arms on high
to greet its glad waters. The 15 th of August was the day of
our liberation — ^the festival of the Assumption of the Virgin
— and our boats were dressed with flags in its commemoration.
But it was no time for the rest and recreation of a Holy
Day : graver duties pressed upon us. The boats had to be
ballasted, and were with difficulty made to take on board the
baggage, the water-casks, and the crews. Our four sledges, to
which we owed so much of our success so far, were of course
left behind. The dogs too were put on board, not, however,
without much hesitation, when the contingencies of the
voyage were considered.
2. With three hurrahs, we pushed off from the ice, and our
voyage commenced. Its happy issue depended on the weather
and on incessant rowing. If a storm should arise, the boats,
laden as they were, must sink. We were soon convinced that
the dogs, which suffered greatly from sea-sickness, would
dangerously incommode us in the boats by destroying, their
trim. There was, in fact, no room for them in our over
crowded boats, nor water, nor provisions. We could not
bring ourselves to abandon them, and our only form of grati
tude for their services was, alas ! the painful one of putting
them to death. A floe, by which we passed, became the
grave of these our true friends, our companions in all situa
tions, and our helpers in all dangers ! It was indeed a painful

378 AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES. [oHAP.
moment, when Jubinal was taken out of the boat to meet his
death. It was the loss of a true comrade, who had never
departed from my side, and who had patiently borne all the
labours and toils imposed on him. Poor Torossy too, born
in' the Arctic regions, amid the ice-pressures, was not a little
lamented, 3. With boundless satisfaction, we saw the white edge of
the ice gradually become a line, and at last disappear. Every
one felt, that finding the ice-barrier in so high a latitude, was
the crowning blessing to which we must ascribe our liberation.
At the distance of a mile from the edge of the ice, the temper
ature of the water had risen to 30° F,, and that of the air to
39° F, The sunbeams were reflected with such intensity from
the smooth surface of the sea, that we felt the long unknown
sensation of heat, and were obliged to cast off some of our
garments, 4. We shaped our course south-by-west, towards the Barentz
Islands, intending to take in supplies of provisions from the
depdt formed by Count Wilczek, and then to coast along
Novaya Zemlya in search of a ship engaged in the fisheries,
which we hoped to find either at Admiralty Peninsula, or
Matoschkin Straits, or in Dunen Bay. Norwegian vessels,
engaged in the capture of the walrus, might be looked for as
far south as Matoschkin Straits, and the Russian salmon-fishers
still further to the south. The nearest land was fifty miles off,
and everything depended on our reaching its friendly shores
before the weather changed for the worse. In the event of
stormy weather there would be no other alternative than to
throw our provisions overboard in order to lighten the boats.
5. Putting forth all our strength, we rowed steadily for some
days. Weyprecht took the lead in his boat, and the others
followed him as quickly as possible. The crew of each boat
was divided into two watches, who were relieved every four
hours. It frequently happened that one boat fell behind the
others, and was lost sight of in a fog or mist. Trumpets and
horns were then sounded, till the laggard boat, by renewed
efforts of her crew, came up with the others. On the
i6th, a breeze from the north sprang up, and we used our sails
with good effect for some hours. At last Novaya Zemlya was
sighted — some silvery points above the level of the sea, which

III.] ON THE OPEN SEA. ,379
our people took at first for the reappearance of the ice in the
south ; they proved to be the snowy summits near Cape
Nassau, At this headland the mountains running along the
coast suddenly cease, and the land trending to the north-east,
assumes the monotonous character of glaciation almost with
out mountains, as far as the lonely shores where three
centuries ago Barentz slept his last sleep,
6, Our progress had no longer the paralysing insignificance
of former days. This day at noon our latitude was 76° 46',
and on the 17th, the picturesque range of mountains south of
Cape Nassau, rose through the morning mists close before us
steeped in violet and crimson hues. A fog arising, we rowed
along by compass in the midst of it, the boats seemed to float
in the air amid the fog. During its continuance a current
caused us to deviate so much to the south-west, that when at
noon the land was again visible, we discovered that we had
gone beyond the place where the dep6t had been formed, and
found by the chart, that we were in 75° 40' lat, and 58" long.
But as the loss of time, in going back a distance of a hundred
miles, was out of all proportion to the amount of provisions
we could have taken in our overladen boats, we determined
at allrisks to hold on our course.
7, Before us, in the far distance, now ros e above the horizon
the higher parts of Admiralty Peninsula ; to these we now
steered. As we passed along we made a vain attempt to land
on the north of Gwosdarew Bay, We found the shores full
of cliffs, between which a heavy surf was breaking, and could
thus form some notion of the perils we should have encoun
tered, had we attempted to land on the Barentz Islands.
Two years ago the edge of this coast had been covered with
firm ice, and the depdt had been formed by the aid of sledges.
But now not a fragment of ice was to be seen on the west
coast of Novaya Zemlya, and the rocky shore could only be
approached by boats.
8. The differences between the chmate in the years 1872 and
1874, were also in other respects very remarkable. In 1872
the mountains of the country were mostly covered with snow,
but in 1 874, it lay only on the higher parts of its glaciers, and
in latitude 76° N., where we had found thick ice, the tempera
ture of the sea was 39° F., and of the air 43° F. The pheno-

38o

AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES.

[chap.

mena of the chmate of 1871, as we observed them in the
voyage of the Isbjorn, were similar to those of 1874; and
this peculiar mildness was experienced on the eastern coasts
of Novaya Zemlya by Captain Wiggins, who when navigating
the sea of Cara as far as the mouth of the Ob, was shut in
there by the ice for a few weeks only,
9. The inaccessibility of most of the places on the coast
had hitherto obliged us to continue our course without going
on shore to rest, although our arms were stiff and swollen
with our exertions in rowing. No vessels as yet had been

LANDING ON THE COAST OF NOVAYA ZEMLYA.
seen, and what we thought to be a ship turned out, when we
rowed closer to it to be only a small iceberg. There was
therefore no other alternative than to coast along in a southerly
direction, cutting across the bays, and keeping as near the
shore as possible On the night of the 17th we pulled over
the broad Gwosdarew Bay, which was filled with countless
fragments of glaciers. Some of the smallest of these we
took on board our boats to replenish our fast decreasing
supplies of water. Ever since our coming under the coast of
Novaya Zemlya, we had entered a region where auks abounded
which whizzed over our heads with small crayfish in their bills
in their flight to the land, or sat so indolently on the water.

Ill,] ON THE OPEN SEA. 381

that they seemed determined not to get out of the way of the
boats. Many were bagged, but we made no halt to shoot
them. Twice only in the day we rested for about ten minutes
to take our food. Onwards we pressed, each boat striving to
get before the others. On August 17 the sun set for the first
time about midnight, and in the afternoon of the i8th we
landed at a spot to the south of black Cape, remarkable for
the luxuriance of its vegetation. To our eyes, accustomed to
the monotonous white of snow and ice, it appeared like a
garden. There was nothing to remind us of a polar region
either in the land, or in the temperature, or in the weather.
Its broad bay, if it had been without its circle of glaciers,
would have appeared like an Italian gulf. It was now ebb
tide, and wading in the water we shoved our boats, using the
oars as rollers, over the muddy shore. It was the birthday of
our gracious monarch, which we celebrated in the best manner
we could — we dressed the boats with flags, washed ourselves
in a little fresh-water lake, and flavoured our weak tea with a
small quantity of alcohol.
10. This was the first land on which we had set foot for
months. Completely exhausted we lay down on its damp
turf and listened to the pleasant sound of the surf Flames
soon rose from the pile of drift wood we collected, while some
of us ascended the neighbouring ravines, and even gathered
flowers.^ There were quantities of forget-me-nots, and of
coltsfoot {Tusselago farfard), which was dried and smoked,
and pronounced to be excellent tobacco. But our paradisiacal
happiness could not be of long duration. The necessity of
finding a ship as quickly as possible was urgent and soon
roused us from our deep sleep, while the thunders of the
glaciers of Novaya Zemlya proclaimed to us that bad weather
was not far off.
1 1. On the 19th, we coasted along Admiralty Peninsula ;
the thermometer giving 50° F. in the air, and 43° F. in
the sea. Its shores rising in a succession of terraces were
indisputable evidence of its gradual elevation above the sea-
1 Baer brought home from Novaya Zemlya ninety species of Phanerogams.
According to an observation of Mojssejew, June 18, 1839, the thermometer in the
sun stood at 93° F., and 59° F. in the shade.

382 AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES. [chap.
level,^ and the flatness of the shores and the shallowness of
the sea, interspersed with rocks, easily explain why they have
so. often been dangerous to ships approaching them in a fog.
As we came further south the charts proved more trustworthy.
At noon of the 20th at Cape Tischernitzky we reached
latitude 74° 21'. We passed a number of picturesque bights
on the coast, with mountains, whose tops were covered with
clouds, and whose green banks extended along the shores.
These are the favourite wintering spots of Russian expeditions,
and in some places we saw ruined huts. On the 21st a fresh
wind sprung up from the east. The sea rose, and as we sailed
fast before the wind the boats took in a good deal of water,
and we were thoroughly wet ; the boats too got separated.
We accordingly ran into the bay under " Suchoi Nos " (73°
47' L.) to wait till the wind fell and the other boats should
join us. The boat commanded by Lieutenant Brosch, was
exposed to much danger from the lowness of its gunwale,
when the sea was at all high ; an addition rniade to it by
a strip of canvas stretched round the boat proved ineffectual.
We quickly dried our clothes at a fire made of drift-wood and
erratics of brown coal which we found, but were much dis
appointed that no reindeer were to be seen, though we were
surrounded by excellent feeding-grounds for these animals.
The stew, which we made from the spoonwort we gathered,
and some pemmican, was but a poor substitute for the venison
we had hoped to enjoy. Neither were there any auks to be
seen, and the divers shot under the water like stones when
ever we came within distance. The other boats having joined
us we again put to sea, though the weather was threatening
and a high sea running. In latitude 73° 20' we ran into
Matoschkin Bay, hoping and expecting to find a vessel
engaged in the fisheries. But no vessel was to be seen,
nothing but the outlines of an Arctic mountain-land. Carlsen
also, whom Weyprecht had despatched to explore the straits
so full of turnings and windings, returned without the
^ On older charts it is still separated by a sound from the mainland. The layers
of drift-wood, which we found everywhere at a considerable height above the level
of the sea, show beyond a doubt that the coast of Novaya Zemlya has gradually
risen ; but as in those latitudes this wood rots only after centuries, we have no
measure to estimate the rate of this movement.

III.] ON THE OPEN SEA. 383
intelligence we hoped for. Before Carlsen rejoined us we ran
into a cove — Altglaubigen Bucht — and erected, on a con
spicuous headland, a cairn, on which we placed a signal post
made of drift-wood. In this cairn we deposited a document,
briefly describing the course of our expedition up to that
date, in order to leave some trace of it in a region which is
visited annually by ships. The discovery of this statement
in the course of the next summer would prevent our country
men at home from sending out vessels to rescue us in higher
latitudes, if we meanwhile should perish,
12, The prospects of our being saved had, in fact, con
siderably diminished, for all our hopes had been centred in
finding a vessel in Matoschkin Straits, and these, as I have
just said, were doomed to be disappointed. Carlsen now
returned with the information, that, in the narrow seas he had
visited, he had met with nothing but a whale-boat, lying keel
upwards, round which were footmarks of not very recent date.
There was no doubt, therefore, that the fishing vessels had
withdrawn from our high latitudes. At night a storm from
the north-east roared over the cliffs surrounding the cove, and
the surf breaking on the rocks reached our boats.
13. It was noon on the 23rd before we could continue our
voyage. Our provisions would last for only ten days more, so
that our fate must shortly be decided. Further delay was out
of the question ; there was but one hope for us — to press on
and find a ship in Dunen-Bai (the Bay of Dunes). Should
this too prove deceptive, we must then make the desperate
venture of crossing the White Sea, direct to Lapland — a
distance of 520 miles. To follow the vast circuit of
the coast-hne would have been impossible to us with our
stock of provisions, and at that season of the year. The
next days too plainly taught us what would have be
come of our small boats had we been forced to attempt that
passage, 14. We now rowed and sailed alternately down the flat
coasts towards " Ganseland," amid stormy weather, during
which the boats were often separated, and we almost" ex
hausted our strength in baling out the water. We lost sight
completely of Weyprecht's boat on the open sea, and of the
others under the coast. That in which Orel and I were.

384 AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES. [chap. ill.
appeared to have out-sailed them, and we, therefore, on the
morning of, the 24th drew to shore in a dark rocky cove to
await the approach of our missing friends. Wet through and
through we sprang into the shallow water, and by a great
effort drew the boat to land. We then kindled a fire with the
drift-wood we gathered, and after making and eating a kind of
dumpling we sank down to sleep on the wet stones, amid the
smoke from our fire, thoroughly exhausted. So passed away
four hours. When we awoke we ascended a height, and as
there was not a single vestige of a boat to be seen, we deter
mined to put to sea again. Near Cape Britwin (Lat. 72° 40'),
the wind and sea fell, and the boats again joined company.
It was now deemed necessary to make an equitable division
among the crews of the provisions that remained, and this
being done, we took to our oars once more, and pulled into
the boundless waste of waters — into the mystery that hung
over our destiny.
15. But the hour of our deliverance was nearer than we
thought. It was evening as we glided past the black weather
worn rocks of Cape Britwin, the ledges of which were covered
with flocks of birds, revelling in the spray of the surf Then
about seven o'clock a cry of joy as from one voice arose from
the boats. A fifth small boat with two men in it lay before
us, apparently engaged in bird catching. They pulled towards
us, not less amazed than we ourselves were, and before either
party could explain itself, we turned a corner of the rock —
there lay two ships.
16. It is with a certain kind of awe and reverence that
a shipwrecked man approaches a ship, whose slender build is
to deliver him from the capricious power of the elements.
To him it is no lifeless machine, but a friend in need, yea,
a higher creation than himself Such were our feelings as we
neared tlft two schooners which lay a few hundred yards off
in a rock-encircled bay. To us at that moment these vessels
were the sum total of the whole world ! Dressing our boats
with flags, we followed the strangers in their boat, and made
fast to the schooner Nikolai, whose deck was in a moment
crowded with bearded Russians, who stared at us with
mingled feelings of wonder and sympathy, and whose captain,
Feodor Voronin, stood like a patriarch among them to welcome

iiiiiiiiilijililiiliiliiiliiilliliiiiiililllllillli

386 AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES. chap.
us. Ten days sooner and our poor dogs might have gambolled
on the deck with us 1
17. No grandees could have been received with more dignity
than we were. At the sight of the two Ukases, which we '
had received from St Petersburg, and which required all
inhabitants of the Russian Empire to furnish us with all the
help we needed, these humble seamen bared their heads and
bowed themselves to the earth. We had an example before
us to show how orders are obeyed by the subjects of that
Empire a thousand miles from the place where they were
issued. But we were received not only in this reverential
manner, but were welcomed with the greatest heartiness,
and the best of everything on board was spread before us
— salmon, reindeer flesh. Eider-geese eggs, tea, bread, butter,
brandy. The second skipper then came on board, and
invited us to visit him : the first of a series of invitations.
Dr, Kepes was very pressingly invited, for he had a sick
man on board his vessel, and our doctor returned with an
honorarium of tobacco in his hand. These simple Russian
seamen of the Arctic seas freely produced their little stock
of good things to give us pleasure, and one of them after
observing me for a long time, and thinking that I did
not express myself sufficiently .strong])'- for a happy man,
persuaded himself that something was the matter with me,
and that I wanted something. Forthwith he went to his
chest, and brought me all the white bread he had and the
whole remaining stock of his tobacco. Though I did not
understand a word he said, his address was full of un
mistakable heartiness, and so far needed no interpreter.
18. Since we abandoned the Tegetthoff, we had passed
ninety-six days in the open air, and, including the sledge
journeys which preceded the abandonment of the ship, about
five months. The impressions of a return to life were felt
by us with silent yet deep thankfulness of heart for as the
poet says : — "Das Schweigen ist ihr bester Herold."
It gave us infinite satisfaction to gaze on things the most
insignificant, and as we thought of our adventures, our dis
coveries, and our deliverance, many of us asked his heart

III.] ON THE OPEN SEA, 387
in a whisper: What will be said of this in Austria ? Lusina,
as the only one among us who spoke Russian, was constituted
our interpreter, and through him we learnt that great events
had happened during our absence : that there was general
peace in Europe ; that Napoleon was dead ; and we learnt
too that the greatest interest in our destiny had been excited
in Austria ; that the Russian government had issued orders to
all their vessels employed in the Arctic fisheries to do their
utmost to find us, and contribute to our rescue ; that Count
Wilczek had returned in safety — the skipper of our schooner
having met him at the mouth of the Petschora, just as he was
setting out for Obdorsk, and lastly, that a Norwegian fishing
vessel had been beset in the ice in the autumn of 1872 at
the Barentz islands — very near to where we were, and had
been crushed ; that four of the crew had escaped in a boat,
and after the most dreadful sufferings, had travelled over land
to the country of the Samoyedes in the extreme north of the
Ural Mountains,
19. The ships we found in " Dunen Bai," — the Bay of Dunes
— came from Archangel, and were engaged in the salmon
fishery, at the mouth of the Puhova River. They had taken
very little, and their purpose was to remain where we found
them for fourteen days' longer, and to spend about the same
number in fishing and hunting at the southern extremity of
Novaya Zemlya. This programme was not exactly to our
taste. To spend a month in a fishing-vessel, just as we awoke
to the remembrance of all the comforts and pleasures there
are in the world, to sleep in the hold where cholera lurked
among bear and reindeer hides, amid heaps of salmon and
reindeer flesh, among nets and oil casks— such a prospect was
not to be thought of Accordingly, we agreed with Captain
Voronin, that he should leave off his fishing and take us
without delay to Vardo, in Norway, that we should give him
in return for his services three of our boats, two Lefaucheur
rifles, and guarantee him the further compensation of 1,200
silver roubles.
20, At last we could go to sleep, the much-needed, much-
desired sleep, undisturbed by the fear lest we should be starved
to death at last. On that evening, when I opened my journal,
I found these words : " Shall we be saved this day ? shall we

388 AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES. [CHAP.
 V 
be alive ? Fifteenth May on board the Tegetthoff." I had
written these words by the merest chance on the blank leaf
reserved for the 24th of August, and it was singular that we
should be rescued on that very day. For a long time I could
not sleep amid the murmur of Russian words, which I
mechanically endeavoured to imitate and to interpret as I lay
amid the dead salmon, till at last I fell asleep, my last con
nected thought being, that I had not to row any more. Next
day Voronin and his trusty harpooner, Maximin Iwanoff,
insisted on Weyprecht and myself occupying their own cabin,
and as we could utter no other Russian word than ' khorosho '
(good), we were obliged to do as they wished. The ship was
now watered, and the nets which had been stretched out were
hauled on board, the crew, as they worked, singing their wild
" Volkslieder " excellently well,
21, On the 26th we left the small quiet bay, the scene of
our happy rescue, and with a favourable wind from the north,
the vessel ploughed her way through the waves of the White
Sea, Now began the time of letter writing ; many of us,
indeed, had commenced this employment even before we left
the boats. On the 27th and 28th, we had stormy weather
from the north-west, and the high seas we saw told us what
our fate would have been had we tried to cross this sea in our
small boats. On the 29th, we sighted Black Cape on the
" Murmann coast," and for two hundred miles we ran under
the low, rocky coast of Lapland, We often fell in with ships
sailing from or to Archangel, and in our own eyes we seemed
the only barbarians amid the commerce and civilization of the
world. We sent deputations to every ship that came within
hailing distance to beg tobacco or sheets of writing paper,
without, however, betraying our incognito. W^e desired to be
the first to give news of ourselves by the telegraph. Contrary
winds compelled our captain to tack often, and the delay
seemed to our impatience purgatory itself.
22. At length on the 3rd of September — the 812th day
from the day we sailed from Bremerhaven — we sighted the
little seaport of Vardo. Forthwith the Austrian flag was
displayed at the foretop of the Nikolai, while each of us, clad
in his fur-coat, stood with beating hearts on deck ready to
land. Soon she ran into the little harbour, and about three

III.] ON THE OPEN SEA. 389
o'clock in the afternoon of that same day we put our feet on
Norwegian soil with the glad thought that our dangers and
our toils were over at last. While Weyprecht attended to
our money affairs, I hastened, amid the wondering looks of
the inhabitants, to the telegraph station to despatch the news
of our happy rescue and safe arrival, and as each message
sped on its way, our hearts glowed with joy as we thought
that in a few minutes friends and countrymen would learn
the good tidings and share in our joy.
23. On the 5th the mail steamer from Vardo to Hamburg
took us on board, and stopping at Tromso, we put ashore,
with many adieus, our friend and companion Captain Carlsen.
He had been one of those who believed that we should
return home by Behring Straits ; but here he landed, a
touching instance of the vanity of human hopes. Apart from
his linguistic acquirements — for he had learnt to speak several
languages on board the Tegetthoff — the hardy old Arctic
voyager went ashore with three things only ; his carefully
preserved reindeer coat, his wig, and trusty walrus spear.
But all our hearts burned to reach home — home for its own
sake ; for no presentiment had any of us of the honours that
awaited our arrival there. The favours shown to us by our
monarch, the enthusiasm which greeted the news of the
discoveries we had so marvellously made, the sympathy so
abundantly expressed for our sufferings, made us feel that we
were rewarded far beyond our deserts, and that we had gained
the highest men can gain — the recognition of their services
"by their fellow-countrymen.

APPENDIX. I,
METEOROLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS.
The meteorological observations were always taken by the officers of
the watch, by Lieutenant Brosch, Midshipman Orel, the boatswain
Lusina, and Captain Carisen. Krisch, our engineer, who shared in
this labour during the first winter was exempted from it in the second
year, owing to his failing health. Readings of the thermometers
were taken every two hours ; observations to ascertain the moisture
of the air were made by the psychroineter during the summer months ;
the direction and force of the winds, the amount of precipitation, the
form and character of the clouds were carefully noted down. As
their labours were zealously and conscientiously carried out for one
year and a half, and chiefly in regions never before visited, the results
are of peculiar importance,^ The direction and force of the winds
seemed in the first year to be nearly in equilibrium, save that in the
south air-currents from the south-west generally prevailed, while in
the north the prevailing air-currents were from the north-east
Thunder-storms never occurred ; even on the northem .shores of
Siberia they are seldom experienced. The forms of the clouds in
Arctic regions have never the sharply-defined contours of those in
more southerly latitudes. In summer they increase in fulness, and
in winter they consist chiefly of vapours and frosty mists which throw
dark inky hues over the brightness of the nights. The proverbial
clearness of the heavens, of which Koldewey, Kane, Middendorf,
and Wrangel speak, is found in the high north, as also in the tropics
only over the greater masses of land, " The clouds," says Weyprecht,
" have either the uniform dull grey aspect of elevated fog, or they
assume the cirrus form, and the latter is not as with us the fleecy
mass rising high above the horizon, but consists of masses of mist
rising little above it, which very seldom assume the sharply-defined
forms vvhich are seen in more southern regions. Instead of clouds
gloomy fogs prevail, sometimes rising high, sometimes also close to
the ground as if they were nailed to it. Four-and-twenty hours of
^ These have not as yet been published.
27

392 APPENDIX.

clear weather rarely occur ih summer ; generally after shining for a
few hours the sun disappears behind dense fogs. Dull and gloomy
as these fogs are, they maintain the conditions which we find in the
regions of ice, — they prevent the escape of the sun's heat and they
act more potently on the ice than its direct rays." With respect to
the winds he adds : " Until the autumn of the second year, the
winds were of a very variable nature. In the neighbourhood of
Novaya Zemlya we had many south-east and south-west winds ; in
the spring the winds were more from the north-east. A prevailing
direction bf the wind was only discernible when we lay in our
second winter under Franz-Josef Land. Here all snow-storms and
about 50 per cent, of the winds come from east-north-east. These
w^nds were mostly accompanied by clouds, which were dispersed
only when the wind veered more to the north. The force of the
wind is mitigated by the ice. Very frequently fog masses are seen
driving rapidly at no very great height above the ice, while below
them there is almost a calm. In the January of the two years we
passed in the north, it was very interesting to observe the struggle
between the cold winds from the north and the warmer winds of the
south. The approach of warm winds from the south and south-west
brought masses of snow, and in a short time produced a rise of
temperature amounting to 67° to 79° F."
Falls of snow take place at all seasons of the year ; but as they
generally occur accompanied with strong winds, it is not very easy
to determine the depth of the layers. Apart from extreme cases of
snow-drifts the mean depth of the snow on the ice during winter
was about three feet, and it is more considerable under the land than
at a distance from it. Rain falls almost exclusively only during the
few months of summer, and generally in fine showers, never in the
sudden torrents of southern latitudes. More rain fell with us in our
second than in our first sumtner.
I was impossible, owing to our continual change of place, to give
the barometrical means for any particular locality ; in the following
table, therefore, the monthly mean only is noted. The thermometers
we used were placed at the distance of five-and-twenty paces from
the ship, so that they were pretty well isolated from any influence
due to it, and they were raised four feet above the surface of the
snow.i Readings of the minimum thermometer were taken at noon every
day in the year, and of the black-bulb thermometer at different
times of the day during. the summer. The time of the day when the
temperature reached its maximum was irregular during the winter ; it
^ Thermometers should always hang freely ; when they are enclosed in cases they
give false values, especiallyif the cases should be filled with snow. In our first
winter we were obliged on account of the ice-pressures to suspend our thermome
ters on the ship in such cases, and there can be no doubt that their readings were
too high. Sometimes, however, they were too low, when the thermometers came
in contact with the snow on the ship. Scoresby, Parry, and we ourselves observed
that the temperature of the snow-covering sometimes sunk in clear winter nights
some degrees below the temperature of the air.

APPENDIX.

393

occurred about two o'clock in the afternoon when the spring was well
advanced. As I have already inserted in the course of the narrative
the temperatures of each day in the month, it will be enough for the
purposes of a general survey to give here a summary of the mean
monthly temperatures and of the maximum and minimum extremes : —

Mean of the
Barometrical

Mean of the
Monthly

Maximum. R.

Minimum. R.

Measurements.

Temperature.

1872.

Illy 
—


- 2-4
August
750-99
+ 0-41
+ 6-i
- 5-6
September
748-92
- 7-34
+ 0-4
-i8-6
October .
.
7SI-8
-I3-S
-1- 2-0
-26-s
November .
.
757-27
-19-52
- 2-3
-28-7
December , . . .
757-ti
-23-95
-14-9
-28-7
1873-
January , . . .
753-69
-i8-i
— 2-1
-35-1
February
741 '62
-27-95
- 1-8
-36-9
March .
748-21
-25-52
-14-4
-33-9
April .
753-04
-17-49
- 6-S
-30-9
May
756-58
— 7-12
- 1-9
-18-4
June ,
751-3
— 0-41
-1- 8-1
- 8-6
July, ,
750-23
+ 1-26
+ 6-4
- 1-8
August.
749-33
+ 0-32
¦<- 4-4
- 4-6
September
747-79
- 3-32
+ 1-3
-12-4
October
745-64
- 13-93
- 2-9
-23-1
November ,
748-2
— 21-21
- 6-2
-31-8
December ,
744-98
-23-08
— IQ-l
-34
1874.
January , . . ,
732-97
— 19-6
- 1-7
-36-7
February ....
744-92
-22-83
- 1-7
-35-5
March 
742-25
- 18-46
— I-o
-36-9
April .
751-15
- 12-32
- 2-8
— 22 '8 1
Note. — The temperatures are given in Reaumur degrees. By adding one-fourth,
the numbers given in the three last columns will be reduced to Centigrade degrees.
394

APPENDIX.

II.

DIRECTION AND FORCE OF THE WIND,
FROM OBSERVATIONS ON BOARD THE "TEGETTHOFF.'

• Mean Direction and

Mean Direction and

Force.

Force.
Direction.
Force.
Direction.
Force.
1872.
May 31 . , .
Ns^W
0-53
July 15 . .
August 31 . .
September 30 ,
October 31 . ,
November 30 .
December 31 ,
N53°ES56°W S4S°W
S23°E S7i°E
S44°E
1-36J-15
0-540-430-260-64
June 30 . .
July 31 , .
August 31 . ,
September 30
October 31
November 30 ,
December 31 ,
S79°E
N74°W S48''E
S53°EN42°E
NS4°E
N66"E
0-97
0-820-310-14 1-82
i-ioI -21
1873-
1874.
-January 31 . .
S64°W
I -24
January 3 1
S7o°E
0-93
February 28 ,
N32°E
0-26
February 28 .
N47°E
1-16
March 31 , .
N37°E
0-63
March 31 , ,
N59''W
0-83
April 30 . .
N6i°E
0-53
April 30 , .
N8o°E
0-94
INDEX

.\ctinise, 269
Alcohol, the best fuel, 225
Amphipoda, 268
Amygdaloids, 261
Annelides, 270
Antlers of reindeer, superstition respect-
. ing, 107
Arctic petrel, 267
Arctic sea, temperature of, 6, 68, 93
Ascent of Cape Briinn, 338
Auk, the, 267, 290, 380; Cape, 306,
308
Aulis, the harbovu- of, 352
Auroras, 64, I20, 154, 179; described,
202 ; sign of bad weather, 203 ; in
fluence of, on the magnetic needle,
205 ; described by A¥eyprecht, 206
Austria Sound, 271, 281, 289, 292

B

Balloon, use of, recommended, 36
Barentz, referred to, 12, 28; food of
his party, 288 ; islands, described by
Prof, Hofer, 86 ; incorrect maps of,
100; sighted, 378
Basaltic formation of Franz- Josef Land,
260
Bay-ice, 2
Beaches, raised, 264, 381
Bear Island, 56
Bears, 97, 119, 144, 151, 154, 158, 238,
240, 272, 276; -Kinter hole, 276, 282,
285, 288, 293, 318, 334, 337, 344,
353, 360, 367, 370
Bears' flesh, 338
Bessels, Dr., 51
Birds, 98, 154, 162, 179, 232, 266, 290,
306, 315. 320, 334
Black Cape, Novaya Zemlya, 381

Books in Tegetthoff, 129, 186
Boots, sail-cloth, 232
Bottles, thrown out, 148
Britwin, Cape, 384
Bryopogon jubatus, 265
Buellia stigmatea, 265
Bunting, snow, 267

Cairn erected, 383
Calking the boats, 373
Cape Look-out, 58; Frankfurt, 280 ;
Nassau, 64 ; North, 65
Carlsen, Captain Olaf, 29, 77, 124, 132,
182, 360, 389
Cartridges, 130
Cattabrosa algida, 265
Cattarinich, 255
Cerastium alpinum, 265
Cetraria nivalis, 265, 313
Climate of Novaya Zemlya, 379
Clothes, suitable, 45, 232
Coal, consumption of, in Tegetthoff,
128; brown, 61, 260, 282; house
broken up, 1 19
Coast-water, navigating in, 12
Coffins, the three, 89
Cold, 246, et seqq. ; effect on man, 250,
251
Colour of ice, 5 ; of sea, 14
Coltsfoot, gathered in Novaya Zemlya,
381
Commander, qualities requisite for, 37
Condensation, 44, 127, 195
Cooking apparatus for sledging, 224
Cost of Polar expedition, 45, 46
Constants, magnetic, 271
Course of Tegetthoff, 147
Crevasse, fall of sledge into, 300
Crew of Tegetthoff, 76, 135, 136, 137,
195

396

INDEX.

Crinoidse, 270
Crown Prince Rudolfs Land, 294
Crow's-nest, erected in Tegetthoff, 18
Crustacese, 268 \
Currents, sea, 18 ; of the Obi and
Jeinsy, 68 ; air and equatorial, meet
ing of, 64 ; warm, 67
Cyperacites, grass of, as foot-coverings,
233

D

Darkness, effects of, 133, 149, 190
Deflection on coast of Greenland, 18
Depot of provisions, 327, 330
Diarrhoea, a consequence of extreme
cold, 251
Divers, 290, 320
Divine service celebrated in Tegetthoff,
131
Docks in ice, 19
Dogs, 89, 103, 118, 161, 191, 193, 220,
233, 237, 297, 330, 337, 340, 346,
359, 360 ; death of, 377
Dolerite rocks, 181, 261, 276, 282, 305,
312, 318
Dove, Greenland, 267
Dove, Prof, on the temperature at the
Pole, 27 ; glaciers named after, 290
Dress of the Arctic sledger, 231
Driftwood, 61, 63, 66, 265, 383
Diinen Bay, 383, 387

Easter Sunday, 285
Eclipse of the sun, 160
Eider duck, 267
Equipment for return journey, 345
Erratics, 261, 308
Evaporation from ice, 7
Expedition, second German, 13; cost
of various expeditions, 45; equip
ment of, 34

Fables of old navigators, 23, 26
Fenzl, Prof., 265
Finnmark, 52
Fish described, 266
Flag, Austro-Hungarian, planted, 82-5°
N.L., 312
Flea crab, 268
Fhgely, Cape, 311
Floe, or field-ice, 2, 3, 4; age of, 4;
colour of, 5

Food, allowance, 42, 130, 131
Forget-me-nots in Novaya Zemlya, 381
Fossils in Spitzbergen, 60
Fox, white, as food, 288
Franklin, diet of his party, 288
Franz-Josef Land surveyed, 23 7 ; climate,
260
Frost-bite, 151, 241, 252; remedies for,
252
Fugloe, 54
Furs, 231
Fury, the, 42

G.
Gadus, 266
Geikie's Great Ice Age, extract from,
8
Germania, 15; Cape, 310
Geological formation, Spitzbergen, 60
Gillis' Land, 66
Glacier, Dove, 263 ; Forbes, 264 ; Mid
dendorf, 263 ; insects, 264
Glaciers, of Novaya Zemlya, 17; of
Spitzbergen, 60; calving of, 8; in
Franz-Josef Land, 262 ; height of,
ib. ; colour of, ib. ; motion of, ob
served, 344
Gloves, 231
Grasses, 265
Greenland, described, 259
Grog, necessary, 245, 255, 329
Gulf stream, 28, 50, 51, 67, 68
Gull, burgomaster, 160, 267, 354;
robber, 162, 267; Ross's, 179, 267
Gulyas, soup, 362
Gyrophora anthracina, 265

H
Haller, 255, 304
Hansa, the, 15
Health in Tegetthoff, 134, 151, 154, 173,
20I
Hellwald, Cape, 320
Hippolyte (Payeri), 267
Hofer, Prof., his description of Barentz
Isles, 86
Hohenlohe Island, 295
Holothurise, 270
Hoods, knitted, 231
Hope Island, 57, 60
Horizon visible from Tegetthoff, 18
Homsundstint, 58, 60
Hyalonema, 268
Hydrochloric acid as remedy for frost
bite, 252
Hyperstentite rocks, 261

INDEX.

397

Ice, bay, 2 ; barrier, 62, 63 ; blink,
7 ; birds, 160 ; bergs, height of, 9 ;
places where they collect, ib.; over
setting of, 10, 331 ; drift southwards
like biers, 81 ; forty feet high, 84,
166; in Austria Sound, 258; detach
ment of, 264; in Rudolfs Land, 299,
308
Ice-fields, 2, 4
Ice-foot, 2
Ice-holes, I, 28
Ice-needles, 5
Ice-prei;sures, 102, 103, 11 1, 139
Ice (sea), specific gravity of, 6
Ice-sheet over Arctic regions, i
Iceland Knot, 267
Iceland moss, 88
Imbricaria stygia, 265
Instruments required for sledge journey,
221
Isbj'orn, description of, 51; beset, 55;
meets Tegetthoff, 85, 89
Isopada, 268 J
Journal, passages from, 106, 356—359
Jurassic formation in Spitzbergen, 60

K
Kaiser Franz-Josefs Land discovered,
17s; explored, 213, 253, 258—270
Kepes, Dr., 267
Kittiwake, 267
Klotz, his singular appearance, 334
Knot (Iceland), 267
Korethrastes, 270
Krisch, death of, 215, 255

M
M'Clintock, on sledge travelling, 24 ;
his adventures related to the men,
330
Mangetic constants observed, 271
Magnetic readings, 343
Mallemoke, 267
Matoschkin Schar, 64
Meals, usual, 130
Medusas (Beroe) found, 63
Mess-room described, 130
Meteorological observations, 343
Middendorf Glacier, 263, 299
Moss, 265 N
Navigation, in coast water, 12 ; only
possible in summer, 13 ; best season
for, 14
Nassau, Cape, 64
Night, the Polar, 190
Nikolai, rescue by the, 384
Noise made by ice-pressures, no, 141,
178
Noon, December 21st 1873, 189
Nordenskjold, Prof., 261 ; Fiord, 244
Normans, the, the first Polar navigators,
21
North-East Passage, 21 — 23
North-West Passage, 21 — 24
Novaya Zemlya Sea, 65, 66, 67, 80, 99,
171; survey of necessary, 99; coast
of, 379 ; climate of, ib.
Novaya Zemlya, glaciers of, 9

O

Orel, 274, 280, 281, 282, 295, 301,
308, 313, 314, 320, 326
Ostjak dogs, 234
Owl, snowy, 267

Lamp used, 45
Land, new, discovered, 175 ; visited, 181
Land-ice, 3
Languages, four, spoken in Tegetthoff,
132
Leads or waterways, I
Leigh Smith, Mr., his photographs,
. 261
Lichens, 265, 276; used as tobacco,
322
Lignite, 322
Liparis gelatinosus, 266
Littrow, Cape, 244
Lumme, the, 267
Liitke, 29

Pachtussow, 29, 228
Pack-ice, 2
Papaver medicate, 265, 322
Paper smoked instead of tobacco, 372
ParheUa, 99, 156, 178, 329
Parry referred to and quoted, 12, 288,
317
Pay of different Arctic crews, 39
Penny, 29
Petermann, Dr., on the influence of the
Gulf Stream, 28
Petroleum used, 128; frozen in lamp,
146

398

INDEX.

Plancius, his theory of an open Polar
sea, 28
Plants, collection of, 265 ; tropical, found
in Spitzbergen, 28
Plasticity of glacier ice, 263
Polar question, 33
Polar sea (open), its existence cjues-
tioned, 25, 28 ; Seas, North and
South compared, 14
Pole, North, 20, 27
Polynia, 312
Polypes, hydroid, 270
Provisions fail, 373 ; remnant of, divided,
384
Prince Charles's foreland, 58
Pycnogonida, 268
Pyrites formed, 167

R

Rain, its effect in breaking up the ice,
368, 370
Return to Europe resolved on, 179, 200
Reward offered by the English and
Dutch for the discovery of the North-
West Passage, 33
Rhizocarpon geographicum, 265, 313
Rocks of Franz-Josef Land, 261
Rorqual (whale), 63
Ross, Sir James, 13, 16
Ross, Sir John, 42, 44, 288
Rotge, 267
Russians, kindness of, 386

Sledges drawn by men and dogs, 219;
equipment of, 222-234 ; description
of, 223 ; loading of, 226 ; boats for,
229 ; in a snow-storm, 327 ; aban
doned, 377
Sleeping bag described, 225
Smith's Sound, route through, 35
Snow-blindness, 317
Snow-eaters, 253
Snow-huts described, 225
Snow-line, 60, 262
Snow, fallen, described, 5 ; block, 254 ;
constant downfall of, 188 ; in extreme
cold, 250
Snow, red, 60
Sonklar glacier, 253
Sound propagated freely in Polar re
gions, 250
Sound, crackling at edge of ice, 6
Soundings, table of, 172
Speed, rate of, 15
Spitzbergen, 58, 259
Sponges, 268
Sporastatia Morio, 265
Spring (1873), 153
Stove used on Tegetthoff 128
Summer (1873), 162; end of second,
174
Sun-nse (1873), 149; (1874), 219
Sun, power of, 163
Sweet-water ice, 2
Swell of the ocean, 13 ; heard, 370

Salm Island, 275
Sandoe, Island of, 54
Saxifrage on the Barentz Isles, 87; in
Franz-Josef Land, 265
School on the Tegetthoff, 137
Scoresby, 29, 32
Scurvy, causes of, 134; signs of, 196;
in various expeditions compared, 197
Sea-ice, specific gravity of, 6
Sea-swallow, 267
Sea-temperature, 5, 68
Seals, 173, 266, 356, 364, 374
Ship, best shape of, 15 ; small pre
ferred, 16; tonnage of different Arctic
ships, 41
Shrimps, 267
Silene acaulis, 265, 322
Sketches, 343
Sketching on the ice, 156
Sledge journey, first, 235; second, 271 ;
third, 336
Sledge travelling, 216^221; clothing
for, 230

Tactics of a ship in ice, 15
Tea recommended, 228 ; comfort of,
355
Tegetthoff, 15, 75 ; leaves Bremerhaven,
74 ; crew of, described, 76 ; at Trom
soe, ib. ; beset, 82 ; meets the Is-
bjSrn, 85 ; finally beset, 92 ; table of
course of, 147 ; sliored up, 165 ; aban
doned, 348
Tegetthoff, Cape, 235, 239, 241, 254,
353
Temperature of sea, 5, 68, 93 ; varia
tions of, in ship, 128; low, 188, 316
Thaw water, 263, 370
Thirst, Arctic, 253
Tobacco, valuable, 353, 363
Tonnage of different Arctic ships, 41
Torossy, 3, 234, 276
Trace for each sledge-dog, 233
Tromsoe, 54, 76, 77
Tropical plants found in Spitzbergen,
28
Tusselago farfara, 381
Tyrol, Cape, 265

INDEX.

399

U

Ukase granted by the Russian govem
ment, 77
Umbellula, 269
Umbilicaria arctica, 265, 313
Usnea melaxantha, 265, 321

Vegetation of Kaiser Franz-Josef Land,
264
Victory, stores of the, in 1829, 42
Vienna, Cape, 312
Volcanic formation of Arctic regions,
260
Voronin, Feoder, Captain of the Nikolai,
384, 388

Weyprecht, Lieut., 65, 68, 259, 271,
334
Whales, 62, 63; white, 266
White Sea crossed, 388
Willoughby, 26
Wilczek, Graf, 49, 69, 85; Island, 181,
183, 255, 257, 27s
Wine necessary, 43, 135 ; chemical, 43 ;
increased allowance of, 214
Winter harbour, 19
Winter night, length of, 200 ; darkness
of, 186
Wintering spots of Russian expeditions,
382
Wiillersdorf, Urbair, Admiral, his re
marks on the course of the Tegetthoff,
¦ 168

W

Walrus, the, 266
Water-sky, 7

Zaninovich falls into a crevasse, 300
Zoological collection, 343

THE KND.

MR. SEWARD'S LONG-LOOKED-FOR BIOGRAPHY.

The undersigned take pleasure in announcing that they have now ready
THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF
WILLIAM HENRY SEWARD
(1801-1S34),

-With a later Memoir by his Son, FREDERICK -W, SE-WARD,
late Assistant Secretary of State.

\* The public have long looked for the publication of this exceedingly
interesting work. It gives a true insight into the career of the great Goveenoe,
Sbnatoe, and Sboeetaet, the Philaettheopibt, Statesman, and Pateiot, whose
history is so closely identified with that of his country.
^p" Among the illustrations of those who figure in the work, besides those
of Mr. and Mrs. Seward, there will be portraits on steel of John Quincy Adams,
Henry Clay, Thurlow Weed, Abraham Lincoln, Horace Greeley, Gerrit Smith,
Charles Sumner, Hamilton Eish, Salmon P. Chase, Charles Francis Adams,
Anson Burlingame, William M. Evarts, Andrew Johnson, Edwin M. Stanton,
and other Patriots and Statesmen ; also a view of Eogers's celebrated statue of
Mr. Seward, recently unveiled in New York.

The work makes 822 pages, and is sold by Subscription only.

The price in Cloth, per Volume, $4.25; in Sheep, $5.25; in Half Turkey, $6.25;
in Full Turkey, $8.25.
D. APPLETON k CO., Publishers, 549 & 551 Broadway, N. Y.

AFPLETOJfS MAGAZIJVES.

APPLETONS' JOURNAL
A MONTHLY MISCELLANY OF POPULAR LITERATURE.

3SrE"S7i7" SERIES.

TWENTY-FIVE CENTS PER NUMBER. THREE DOLLARS PER ANNUM.

Appletons' Journal is now published monthly; it is devoted to popular literature and all matters of
taste and general culture — published at a price to bring it within the reach of all classes. It contains su
perior fiction, in the form of serials and short stories; papers graphically descriptive of picturesque places;
articles upon men of note, and upon the habits of different peoples ; essays upon household and social topics ;
articles of travel and adventure; scientific and industrial articles written in a graphic and popular style.
In brief, the aim is to be comprehensive, including in its plan all branches of literature and all themes of
interest to intelligent readers. Each number is illustrated.
Terms: Three dollars per annum, postage prepaid, to all subscribers in the United States; or
Twenty-five Cents per number. A Club of Four Yearly Subscriptions -will entitle the sender to an extra
subscription gratis; that is, five copies will be sent one year for twelve dollars. For $7.20, Appletons'
Journal and The Popular Science Monthly (full price, eight dollars), postage prepaid.

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.
CONDUCTED BY E. L. YOUMANS.
This periodical was started (in 1872) to promote the diffusion of valuable scientific knowledge, in a
readable and attractive form, among all classes of the community, and has thus far met a want supplied by
no other magazine in the United States.
Containing instructive and interesting articles and abstracts of articles, original, selected, translated,
and illustrated, frora the pens of the leading scientific men of different countries; accounts of important
scientific discoveries, the application of science to the practical arts, and the latest views put forth concern
ing natural phenomena, have been given by sava^its of the highest authority. Prominent attention has
been also devoted to those various sciences which help to abetter understanding of the nature of man, to
the bearings of science upon the questions of society and government, to scientific education, and to the
conflicts which spring from the progressive nature of scientific knowledge.
The Popular Science Monthly is published monthly in a large octavo, handsomely printed on
clear type, and, when the subjects admit, fully illustrated. Each number contains 128 pages.
Terms: $5.00 per annum, or Fifty Cents per Number. Postage free to all Subscribers in the United
States.

THE ART JOURNAL:
An International Gallery of Engravings^
BY DISTINGUISHED ARTISTS OF EUROPE AND AMERICA ;
With Illustrated Papers in the Various Branches of Art.
The Art Journal is a quarto monthly publication, superbly illustrated and printed, and specially
devoted to the world of Art — Painting, Sculpture, Architecture, Decoration, Engraving, Etching, Enam
eling, and Designing in all its branches — having in view the double purpose of supplying a complete illus
trated record of progress in the Arts, and of affording a means for the cultivation of Art-taste among the
people. Each number is richly and abundantly illustrated on both steely and wood, and no pains are spared
to render this " Art Journal " the most valuable publication of the kind in the world. It contains the
Steel Plates and Illustrations of the London Art Journal, a publication of world-wide fame (the exclu'
sive right of which, for Canada and the United States, has been purchased by the publishers) ; with exten
sive additions devoted principally to Americafi Art and American topics. Published vzontkly. Sold
only by Subscription. Price, 75 Cents per Number ; $9.00 per Annum, postage prepaid.
Subscriptions received by the Publishers, or their Agents. Agencies: 22 Hawley St, Boston; 922
Chestnut St., Philadelphia; 22 Post-Office Avenue, Baltimore; 53 Ninth Sl, Pittsburg; 100 State St.,
Albany; 42 State St., Rochester; 103 State St., Chicago; 30 W. 4th St., Cincinnati ; 305 Locust St^, St.
Louis ; 20 St. Charles St , New Orleans ; 230 Sutter St,, San Francisco.
D, APPLETON 6- CO., Publishers, 549 6^ 551 Broadway, N, K

THE INTERNATIONAL SCIENTIFIC SERIES.
3Sr O ¦W R B -A. 3D "ST .
FORMS OF WATER, in Clouds, Rain, Eiyars, Ice, and Glaciers. By Prof. Johm TvuniLL, LL. D.,
F.E.S. lyol. Cloth. Price, $1.60.
PHYSICS AND POLITICS; or, Thoughts on the Application of the Principles of " Natural Selection "
and " Inheritance " to Political Society. By Walthk Bagehot, Esq., author of " The English Constitution."
1 vol. Cloth. Price, #1.50.
FOODS. By Edward Sm:th,M.D.,LL.B., F.R. S. 1vol. Cloth. Price, $1.75.
MIND AND BODY. The Theories of their Relations. By Alex. Bain, LL. D., Professor of Logic in the
University of Aberdeen. 1 vol., 12mo. Cloth. Price, $1.50.
THE STUDY OF SOCIOLOGY. By Herbert Spencbr. 1 vol., ISmo. Cloth. Price, $1.60.
THE NEW CHEMISTRY. By Prof. Josiah P. Cooke, Jr., of Harvard University. 1 vol., 12mo. Cloth.
Price, $3.00.
THE CONSERVATION OF ENERGY. By Prof. Balfour Stewart, LL. D., F.E.S. 1vol.,
l«mo. Cloth. Price, $1.60.
ANIMAL LOCOMOTIONj or, Walking, Swimming, and Flymg, with a Dissertation on ASronautics. By
J. Bell Pettiqebw, M.r>., F.R.S., F. R.S.E., F.EC.P. E. 1 vol., 12mo. Fully illustrated. Price, $1.76.
RESPONSIBILITY IN MENTAL DISEASE. By Henry Maulslev, M. D. 1 vol., I'ihno. Cloth.
Price, $1.50.
THE SCIENCE OF LAW. By Prof. Sheldok Amos. 1 vol., 12mo. Cloth. Price, $1.76.
ANIMAL MECHANISM. A Treatise on Terrestrial and Aerial Locomotion. By E. J. Marey. With
117 Illustrations. Price, $1.75.
THE HISTORY OF THE CONFLICT BETWEEN RELIGION AND SCIENCE.
By John Wm. Dbapkb, M.D., LL.D., auttor of "The Intellectual Development of Europe." Price, $1.75.
THE DOCTRINE OF DESCENT, AND DARWINISM. By Prof. Oscar ScmiDT, Stras-
bui^ University. Price, $1.50.
THE CHEMISTRY OF LIGHT AND PHOTOCRAPHY. in its Application to Art, Science,
and Industry. By Dr. Hermann Vogkl. 100 Illustrations. Price, $2.00.
FUNGI ¦ their Nature, Influence, and Uses. By M. C.Cooke, M. A., LL.D. Edited hy Rev. M. J. Beekhley,
M. A., F. L. S. With 109 Illustrations. Price, $1.50.
THE LIFE AND GROWTH OF LANGUAGE. By Prof. W. D. Whitney, of Yale College.
Price, ^1.50.
MONEY AND THE MECHANISM OF EXCHANGE. By W. Stanley Jbvons, M.A.,
F. R. S., Professor of Logic and Political Economy in the Owens College, Manchester. Price, $1.75,
THE NATURE OF LIGHT) 'with a General Accouni; of Physical Optics. By Dr. Eugene Lommel,
Professor of Physics in tbe University of Erlangen. With 188 Illustrations and a Plate of Spectra in Chromo-
lithography. Price, $S.00,
ANIMAL PARASITES AND MESSMATES. ByMonsieur Van Beneden, Professor of the
University of Louvain, Correspondent ofthe Institute of France. With 83 Illustrations. Price, $1.50.
Qf^ FERMENTATIONS. By P. Schutzenbergeh, Director at the Chemical Laboratory at the Sor
bonne With 28 niustrations. Price, $1.50.
THE FIVE SENSES OF MAN. By Julids Bernstein, 0. O. Professor of Physiology in the Uni
versity of Halle. With 91 Illustrations. Price, $1.75.
THE THEORY OF SOUND BN ITS RELATION TO MUSIC. By Prof. Pietro
Blasbrna, of the Royal University of Rome. With numerous Woodcuts. 1 vol., 12mo, Cloth. Price, $1.50.
PROSPECTUS.
D. Appleton & Co. have the pleasure of announcinfj that they have made arrangements for pu>)lishin^, and have recently
commenced the issue of, a Series op Popular Monographs, or small works, under the above title, which will embody the
results of recent inquiry in the most interesting departments of advancing science.
The character and scope ol this series will tie best indicated by a relerence to the names and subjects included in the subjoined
listj from which it -will be seen that the cooperation of the most distinguished professors in England, Germany, France, and the
Umted States, has heen secured, and negotiations are pending for contributions from other eminent scientific writers.
The works will be issued simultaneously in New York, Lon don, Paris, Leipsic, Milan, and St. Petersburg.
The International Scibntibtg Series is entirely an American project, and was originated and organized by Dr. E. L.
Youmans, who spent the greater part of a year in Europe, arranging with authors and publishers. The forthcoming volumes
are as follows :

No.

'¦

1*

2.

4f ii

3.4.

. iiii

S.6.

ii

7.

ii

8.

ii

9.

iiit

10.

il

12.

ii

13.

ii

14.

il

15.

11

16.

II

17.

il

18.

11

19.

II

20.

II

21.

11

22.

Prof. W. KiNGDON Clifford, M. Ay 7%e First Principles ofthe
Mead Sciences explained to ihe Ifon-Sfaihemaiieal.
Prof. T. H. Huxley, LL. D., F. R. S. , Bodily Motion and Cm-
sciousn^ss.
Dr. W. B. Carpbmtbe, LL.D., F.R.S., The Physical Geogra-
phy of ihe Sea.
Prof. Wm. Odling, F. R. S., Tlie Old Cliemistry viewed from
ihe New Sland-poijit.
W. Lauder Lindsay, M. D., F. R. S. E., Mind in the lower
Animals.
Sir John Lubbock, Bart., F. R. S., On Anis amd Sees.
Pro£ W. T. Thiselton Dybh, B. A., B.&c, Form and Sabtt in
Flowering Piante,
Mr. J. N. Lockyer, F. R. S., Specirum Anahjsis.
Prof. Michael Foster, M. D., Prcioplarm and the Cell Theorj/.
H. Charlton Bastian, M. D., F. R. S., The Brain as an
Organ of Mind.
Prof. A. C. Ramsay, LL.D.,F.R. S., -Kir(A Scalplure; Bills,
Valleys, Mountains, Plains, Rivera, Lakes; how Uiey were
produced, and liow they luive heen destroyed.
Prot Rudolph Virchow (Berlin University), Morbid Physiolo
gical Action.
Prof. Claude Bernard, History ofthe Theories of Life.
Prof. H. Saist-Claire DBVtLLB, An Introduction to General
Chemistry.
Prof. WuRTZ, Atoms and the Atomic Theory,
Prof. Db Quatbefages, The Human Race.
Prof. Lacaze-Duthiers, Zoology since Cuvier.
Prof. Berthelot, Chemical Synthesis.
Prof. C. A. Young, Ph. D. (of Dartmouth College), The Sun.
Prof. Ogden W. Rood {Columbia College, New York), Mod
em Chromatics and its Relations to Art and Industry.

Dr. Eugene Lommel (University of Erlangen), The Nature of
LiglU.
Prof, J.Rosenthal, General Physioloay of Mu-tcles and Nerves.
Prof. James D. Dana, M.A., LL.D., On Ceplialization ; or,
Bead-Characters in the Gradation, and Progress of Life.
Prof. S. W. Johnson, M. A., On tlie Nutriiion of Plants.
Prof. Austin Fltnt, Jr., M.D., Tlie Nervous System, and its
Relation lo the Bodily Fvni:tions.
Prof. Bernstein (University of Halle), The Five Senses of Man.
Prof. Ferdinand CnHN (Breslau University), Thalhpliytee
(Alga;, Lichens, Fungi).
Prof. Hermann (University of Zurich), On Respiration.
Prof. Leuckart (University of Leipsic), Outlines of Animal
Organization,
Prof. Liebreich (University of Berlin), Outlines of Toxicology,
Prof. KuNDT (IFniversity of Strasburg), On Sound.
Prof. Rees (University of Erlangen), On Parasitic Plamts.
Prof. Steinthal (University of Berlin), OiUUnca of the Science
of Language.
P. Bert (Professor of Physiology, Paris), Forms of Life and
other Cosmic al Candilions,
E. Alglavb (Professor of Constitutional and Administrative
Law at Douai, and of Political Economy at Lille), The
Primitive Elements of Political Constitutions.
P. Lorain (Professor of Medicine, Paris), Modern Epidemics.
Pro£ ScHuTZENBERGER (Director of the Chemical Laboratory
at the Sorbonne), On Fermentations. _
Mons, Fp.bidel, The Functions of Organic Cliemistry.
Mods, Debray, Predints Metals.
Prof. Corfield, M. A., M. D. (Oxon.), Air in its Relation io
Heallh.
Pro£ A. GiARD, General Embryology.

D. APPLETON &f CO., Publishers, 549 Ss' 551 Broadway, N. V.

APPLETONS'
AMERICAN CYCLOPEDIA.
Entirely rewritten by the ablest writers on. every subject. Printed frorn new type,
and illustrated with Several Thousand Engravings and Maps.
The work originally published under the title of The New Ameeioan Cyclopedia was
completed in 1863, since which time the wide circulation whioh it has attained in all parts of
the United States, and the signal developments whioh have taken place in every branch of
science, literature, and art, have induced the editors and publishers to submit it to an exact
and thorough revision, and to issue a new edition entitled The AiEEBicAif Cyclopedia.
Within the last ten years the progress of discovery in every department of knowledge
has made a new work of reference an imperative want.
The movement of political affairs has kept pace with the discoveries of science, and their
fruitful application to the industrial and usetul arts and the convenience and refinement of
social life. Great wars and consequent revolutions have occurred, involving national changes
of peculiar moment. The civil war of om- own country, which was at its height when the
last volume of the old work appeared, has happily been ended, and a new course of com
mercial and industrial activity has been commenced.
Large accessions to our geographical knowledge have been made by the indefatigable
explorers of Africa.
The great political revolutions of the last decade, with the natural result of the lapse of
time, have brought into pubhc view a multitude of new men, whose names are in every
one's mouth, and of whose lives every one is curious to know the particulars. Great bat
tles have been fought, and important sieges maintained, of which the details are as yet
preserved only in the newspapers, or in me transient publications of the day, but which
ought now to take their place in permanent aud authentic history.
In preparing the present edition for the press, it has accordingly been the aim of the
editors to bring doivn the information to the latest possible dates, and to furnish an accurate
account of the most recent discoveries in science, of' every fresh production in literature, and
the newest inventions in the practical arts, as well as to give a succinct and original record
of the progress of political and historical events.
The work has been begun after long and careful preliminary labor, and with the most
ample resources for caiTying it on to a successful termination.
None of the original stereotype plates have been used, but every page has been printed
on new type, forming in fact a new Cyclopa3dia, with the same plan and compass as its
predecessor, but with a far greater pecuniary expenditui'c, and with such improvements in
its composition as have been suggested by longer experience and enlarged knowledge.
The illustrations, which are mtroduced for the first time in the present edition, have
been ddded not for the sake of pictorial effect, but to give greater lucidity and force to the
explanations in the text. They embrace all branches of science and of natural history, and
depict the most famous and remarkable features of scenery, architecture, and art, as well as
the various processes of mechanics and manufactures. Although intended for instmotion
rather than embellishment, no pains have been spared to insure their artistic excellence ;
the cost of their execution is enormous, and it is believed that they will flnd a welcome re
ception as an admirable feature of the Cyclopsadia, and worthy of its high character.
This work is sold to subscribers only, payable on dehvery of each volume. • It is
completed in sixteen large octavo volumes, each containing about 800 pages, fully illustrated
with several thousand Wood Engravings, and with numerous colored Lithographic Maps.
PRICE AND STYLE OF BINDING.

In extra cloth, per vol. . . $5.00
Jn library leather, per vol. . . 6.00
In half turkey morocco, per vol. . . 7.00

In half russia, e.xtra gilt, per vol. . $8.00
In full morocco antique, gilt edges, per vol, 10.00
In full russia, per vol. .... 10.00

.„*** Specimen pages of the Amekioan Ctolopedia, showing type, illustrations, etc.,
will be sent gratis, on application.
D. APPLETON & CO., Publishers,
549 & 551 Broadway, New York.

Memoirs of Geueml William T. Sherman.
'WRITTEN BY HIMSELF.
Complete in two volumes. Small Svo,. ^oo pages each. Price in blue cloth, $5.50;
sheep, $7.00; half turkey, ^Z.Cfl; full turkey, $12.00.

From the Richmond Whig.
"He writes well. His style is terse, pointed, incisive. He expresses his opinions
of both men and things with independence and freedom."
Frotn the Boston Post.
"The book written by General Sherman is as striking a record of military experi
ence as the modern world has ever read. It is rare that a great commander is a good
writer, the same hand not often being gifted with the capacity to hold the sword and
the pen with equal skill." From the Springfield Union.
" General Sherman's style becomes picturesque and vivid in treating of the march
to the sea, which, indeed, has been seized upon by all our writers as the most rom.antic
passage ofthe war." From the Philadelphia Daily Telegraph.
" With few exceptions, the book is remarkably temperate, and it is an eminently
readable and most interesting narrative of a brilliant military career."
From the Saturday Evening Gazette.
" We recognize him as one of the brilliant soldiers of his era, and as a man to whom
his country is very largely indebted for what he now informs us was the conception, as
well as the carrying out, of one of the master-strokes of the war."
From the Kennebec yournal.
"They are written in an off-hand, vigorous style; abound in anecdote, and give
the best account yet published of one of the most important campaigns of the late
war." From the New Home Journal. ,
"Viewed as a military work, the autobiography is a genuine phenomenon, and oc
cupies as unique a position in literature as Bos well's ' Life of Dr. Johnson.' "
From the N. V. Herald.
" Sherman shows that he can wield the pen as well as the sword. His style is as
much his own as that of Csesar br Napoleon. It is a winning style. We see a gifted
man teUing his life in a plain, artless fashion, but with trenchant rhetoric."
From the Tribune.
" Ofthe events ofthe Civil War, in which he has won his illustrious fame, he has
given a singularly lucid and instructive description ; his strictures on military affairs
are judicious and weighty; but to many readers his portraitures of scenes and incidents
of less wide-spread publicity, revealing by side-glances the traits of a powerful and, in
some sense, a unique personal character, will prove the most interesting portions of
the work." From the N. V. Times.
" These memoirs are by far the most interesting and important contribution yet
made to the military history of the rebellion by any of the leading actors in the great
struggle. The personal history of so marked a man must always possess extraordinary
interest. When it is related by the man himself, and in that peculiarly racy style
which General Sherman's letters and speeches have made familiar to the public, it not
only becomes absorbing but fascinating." From the Evening Post.
" General Sherman has told his story with the most entire unreserve, and the story
is one which Americans will be proud to read. We cannot help a feeling of satisfac
tion in being of the same race and the same country with such a man. We have here
the picture of a person resolute yet cautious, bold yet prudent, confident yet modest —
a man of action to his finger-ends, yet withal something of a poet; we see all through
the book the evidences of a chivalrous mind and of an intellect of singular force and
precision." D. APPLETON & CO., PnDlisliers, 549 & 551 Broadway, N, Y.

RECENT PUBLICATIONS.

DISEASES OF MODERN LIFE. By Dr. B. W. Richardson, F. R. S.
I vol., i2mo. Cloth. $2.00.
" ' Diseases of Modem Life ' is a work which throws so much light on what it is of the utmost impor
tance for the public to know, that it deserves to be thoroughly and generally re^i."— Graphic.
"The literature on preventive medicine has received no more valuable contribution than this admirably-
written treatise by one of the most accomplished physicians of Great Britain, who has concentrated upon
his task a great amount of scientific research and clinical experience. No book that we have ever read
more fully merits the attention ofthe intelligent public, to whom it is addressed."— 77;« World.
COMIN' THRO' THE R YE. i vol., 8vo. Paper covers, 7S cents.
" A very amusing and well-written story. The history of the youth ofthe Adairs is extremely amus
ing, and told in a bright and witty manner. . . One of the pleasantest novels of the season." — Morn
ing Post. t. 1 r. J J
" It is a clever novel, never dull, and the story never hangs nre. ' — Standard.
"There is a great deal of power in 'Comin' thro' the Rye.' The heroine grows up before our eyes from
the ' tom-boy ' stage of girlishness to an excellent specimen of loving and truthful womanhood. There is
originaUty in the tragic plot, and an unceasing current of rather rollicking fun, which saves the tragedy
from becoming too sombre." — AtheniEum.
MEMOIR AND CORRESPONDENCE OF CAROLINE
HERSCHEL. By Mrs. John Herschel. With Portraits. i2mo. Cloth.
$1.75.
" The unlimited admiration excited by the noble, heroic virtues, and the uncommon talents of the sub
ject ofthe memoir, is overborne by the intense sympathy felt for her long life of unselfish and unregretted
devotion to others." — Chicago Tribune.
"In the volume under notice are combined, to a high degree, all those rare and varied excellences,
which is to say that the book is one ofthe most charming that has appeared for some time past._ Caroline
Herschel, although at the present day comparatively little known, vt'as famous in her generation." — In
quirer. GENERAL HISTORY OE GREECE, from the Earliest Period to the
Death of Alexander the Great. By the Rev. George W. Cox. i vol., i2mo.
Cloth. $2.50.
"We envy those schoolboys and undergraduates who will make their first acquaintance with Greek
history through Mr. Cox's admirable volume^ \t ought to supersede all the popular Histories of Greece
which have gone before it." — The Hour.
" The appearance of this work is an event of some importance in the history of educational books.
When a man proposes to write a History of Greece, even a school-history, he proposes a great matter.
, . . The book is worthy, in every way, of the author's reputation. . . It is altogether a most inter
esting and valuable book." — Educational Times,
'* Mr. Cox's history has many claims on our attention. Its style is extremely spirited, and often highly
eloquent and picturesque ; and it is the only Greek history in our language written in a style to attract
and impress the young imagination and memory." — English Churchjnan.
A SHORT HISTORY OF NATURAL SCIENCE and of the
Progress of Discovery from the Time of the Greeks to the Present Day. By
Arabella B. Buckley. With Illustrations, i vol., i2mo. $2.00.
** Miss Buckley, the friend of Sir Charles Lyell, and for manyyears the secretary of the great geologist,
in this volume has given a continuous, methodical, and complete sketch ofthe main discoveries of science
frora the time of Thales, one of the seven wise men, B. c. 700, down to the present day. The work is
unique in its way, being the first attempt ever made to produce a brief and simple history of science. The
author has entirely succeeded in her labors, evincing judgment, learning, and literary skill." — Episcopal
Register.
A HAND-BOOK OF ARCHITECTURAL STYLES. Translated
from the German by W. Cotlett-Sanders. i vol., Svo. With 639 Illustra
tions. $6.00.
" There is a great amount of information in the book, in a small compass. For one who simply wishes
to gain a full knowledge of the various styles of architecture, written in a clear and interesting manner,
the volume has not its equal nor rival in the English language. This knowledge will be facilitated by the
profuse illustrations, of which there are not less than six hundred and thirty-nine, nearly all handsome
specimens of engraving, among which figure a large number of famous buildings, ancient and modem." —
Evening^ Mail,
" This is a very well devised and constructed treatise on a subject which cannot but mterest all men
of taste and culture. It is issued in a handsome form, and will commend itself not less to the non-profes
sional than to the professional reader. The author begins with the earliest architectural types and forms
of India, and proceeds to describe the successive phases of the art as they were developed in Egypt, As
syria, Greece, and the Gothic regions. The subject is treated with care, intelligence, and sufficient com
pleteness for all practical purposes." — N. H, Journal.
D. APPLETON & 00., 549 & 551 Broadway, N. Y.

9002 00991 7593