5. But what a change, when the sun, surrounded by glowing 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 sunlight 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 rosy 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 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 provided 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 the 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. 1 (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 admitting of this manœuvre. 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 our 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 afternoon 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 the ice began to open out, and we were able to continue our voyage under steam in a north-westerly 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 accumulation 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, 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 débris. Loose drift-ice showed itself, Aug. 10, but the ship continued to steer between the floes towards the north. In the forenoon of that day we were again nearly “beset,” but happily escaped that fate after four hours’ warping. Aug. 11, our course was continued without impediment in a northerly direction through the loose drift-ice. The land, from which 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.
GWOSDAREW INLET.
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-Hungarian flag at the peak of the Isbjörn, and were able to greet Count Wilczek, Commodore Baron Sterneck, Dr. Höfer, and Mr. Burger half an hour afterwards on board the Tegetthoff. Coming from Spitzbergen in the Isbjörn (the ship of our precursory expedition of 1871) 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 depôt of provisions at Cape Nassau, at whatever personal risk to themselves. About two o’clock in the morning our guests returned to the Isbjörn, and both ships now sailed in company, and without meeting 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 depôt of provisions which we had established, compelled us to lie for eight days before the 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 Höfer; and as his observations on the phenomena of the country are those of a distinguished 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, frequently 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 of the 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 contemporaneous Fauna which we know from the carboniferous formation 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 (76°-77°) are found in analogous strata of the Ural, and are proved by the researches of Russian geologists to exist there as far as the fiftieth degree of latitude. Without stopping to 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 latitude, 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. From 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. The 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 oppositifolia), 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 (Saxifraga cœspitosa), with shorter stalks and yellowish-white flowers, growing in thick clumps, forms, together with the first-named variety and the more rarely appearing Saxifraga 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 nudicaule), and a rare willow (Salix polaris), 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 débris 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 characteristic 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 defence.”
11. Our involuntary leisure at the Barentz Isles enabled us to make some precautionary preparations for our future contests 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. Our space on deck, somewhat limited at first, had been considerably 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 accustomed to the flesh of seals; at first they growled at every one who offered it to them.
