THE AUSTRIAN POLAR EXPEDITION.

Globe, Volume II, Issue 170, 22 December 1874, Page 3

THE AUSTRIAN POLAR EXPEDITION.

Lieutenant Payer, one of the commanders of the Austrian Polar Expedition, publishes in the Neve Freie Presse the followiiiK account of the territory discovered by himself and his companions : —" Tne whole territory, so far as it has been explored, is about the same size as Spitzbergen, and is composed of several considerable districts—the principal being Wilczek-laad on the east and Zichy-land on the west—which are penetrated by numerous fiords and surrounded by many islands. A huge channel, Austria Sound, divides these masses lengthwise, proceeds northwards from Cape Hansa, and bends to the north-east under the 82nd depr .e of north latitude below Crown Prince Rudolph Land into a wide arm of the sea, which we were able to follow up as far as Cape Pesth in the extreme north. The predominating rock is dolerite. Its horizontal stages and steep truncated conical hills, which remind one strongly of the ambas of Abyssinia, gave ihe country a special character of its own. It is evidently of the same geological formation as northeastern Greenland. The average height of the mountains is from 2000 to 3000 ft: it is only in the south-west that they attain the height of about 5000 feet. All the deep depressions between the mountain chains are covered with glaciers of such gigantic dimensions as are only seen in the arctic regions. The coasts are bounded by precipices of from 100 feet to 200 feet. . ; . The vegetation is far inferior to that of Greenland, Spitzbergen, and Nova Zembla, and there is, perhaps, no poorer country in the world in this respect. Drift-wood, mostly rather old, was frequently met with, but nowhere in any great The land is apparently uninhabited, and in the south there are scarcely any animals to be

seen except polar bears. . . . We did not meet in the whole course of our explorations with a single place which could be used as a winter harbor by any future expedition. In proceeding northwardsjalongthewestern coast of Crown Prince Rudolph Land, a remarkable change manifested itself in the natural objects surrounding us. A blue-black watery sky appeared in the north, dull yellow mists collected under the sun, the temperature rose, the snow softened, and the rocks were covered with thousands of birds. Traces of bears, hares, and foxes were everywhere to be seen, and seals were lying on the ice. . . . Our footing now became uncertain ; the ice, which was only from one to two inches thick, bent under us, and after passing Cape Aiken we came to the open water. Before us was the dark sea, with its icebergs resting upon it like pearls. Heavy clouds hung down from above, through which the sun's rays shone straight on the glittering water; just above the sun was a second fainter sun, and the ice-covered mountains of Crown Prince Rudolph Land stood out with a rosy glow upon them from the undulating mists. . . . The sea was covered here and there with thin ic,2, and drift ice of moderate thickness extended from the west to the north-east on the horizon. Taking the early time of the year into consideration and the fact that a west wind was blowing, there seemed to be no reason why this part of the sea should not be navigable in the summer. , . . A ship brought to the northern coast of Zichy-land might, as far as we could see, proceed northward for a distance of from ten to twenty naval miles ; but to do this it would first have to get through Austria Sound, which is a hundred miles long. . . . What, however, was much more interesting to us than the useless question of the navigability of this remote portion of the Polar Sea waa the fact that we saw before us new and extensive territories which, covered with mountains, could be followed from the north-west to the northeast, and to above the 83rd degree of north latitude. The most northerly landmark of ' this territory is an imposing elevation which we called Cape Vienna. ... What we observed seemed to bear out to a certain extent Petermann's theory of an inner arctic archipelago. It is remarkable that there are numberless icebergs in these Polar sounds, while there are none in the sea of Nova Zembla. There is no positive proof of the existence of currents, but the absence of icebergs in the Nova Zembla Sea certainly seems to indicate that they drift to the north."