The North-East passage now became the idea. That it could be accomplished via Siberia, Lieutenant Payer believed, and the Austro-Hungarian Arctic expedition was soon an accomplished fact. Doctor Petermann said the work accomplished by the little expedition were very valuable, and it was decided to supplement it. The steamship Tegethoff was fitted out: the equipment was most complete, many well-known Arctic voyagers lending their assistance. Captain Carlsen was pilot, Captain Weyprecht commanded, and Lieutenant Payer was the land explorer.
The Tegethoff left Bremen on the 13th of June, 1872, and came in sight of Novaya Zemlya on the 29th of July. In August the Jabjörn yacht joined company; but little in the way of exploration was undertaken until August, when the yacht, with Count Wilczek, left the Tegethoff to her own devices. The gallant vessel pushed on, and was beset by the ice very soon on the north coast of Novaya Zemlya, where in many and great dangers the winter passed. On the 29th of October the sun disappeared for 109 days! The winter over, the months of May, June, and July were spent in trying to saw the Tegethoff out of the ice; but all the efforts made were futile. The north wind in July sent the ice southward, but in a month the return drift set in with southerly winds, and no hope of the breaking up of the ice was entertained. In August, 1873, the crew sighted land; it was approached, and named after Count Wilczek, the originator of the expedition.
The gloom of Arctic night prevented any more exploration. The vessel continued to drift northward, and at length the floe was driven on an island, where it remained with the vessel, three miles from the shore. The second winter now began. In January the cold was very severe: the oil froze, the lamps went out, and the brandy even was congealed into a solid mass. Bears paid the voyagers frequent visits, and many were shot; but all males, no female bears appeared.
In March, Lieutenant Payer and his party went on a sledge-journey in a north-west direction to Hall Island. The whole region seemed “devoid of life”—ice and great glaciers everywhere. The cold was intense. This party returned, and another journey was undertaken to the north with the sleighs, equipped as directed by Sir L. McClintock. This expedition resulted in the discovery of Franz-Joseph Land, as it was named after the Emperor. It is like Eastern Greenland—a “land of desolation,” with high mountains and vast glaciers, of a greenish-blue colour. The vegetation is extremely poor, and the country is uninhabited.
Further on they reached another territory, which they named Crown Prince Rudolf Land, the habitation of millions of sea-birds, and thousands of bears, seals, and foxes. A great glacier was crossed, but as it was quitted an immense fissure engulfed the sleigh with the stores, while the others only narrowly escaped by cutting the traces. Lieutenant Payer hurried back for assistance, and at length dogs, men, and sleigh were pulled up, safe and nearly sound. Rounding Auk Cape, the explorers reached open water by the shore.
Pressing on to latitude 81 degrees 57 minutes north, the party reached their farthest point. From an elevated position the explorer made his observations, which led him to the conclusion that there is no open polar sea, yet that the ocean is not always covered with ice. There is a medium which a favourable year would improve, and render navigation, near the shore, possible. Having deposited a record of the visit, the party returned over the hundred and sixty miles they had come.
One more little journey was made, and then the thoughts of the officers and men turned to home. On the 20th of May the ship’s colours were nailed to the mast, and the retreat was commenced. Provisions were packed in boats, the boats placed on sleighs, but little progress was made at first as all hands were required for each sleigh in turn. Two months were occupied in making a distance of eight miles—and a third winter in the ice seemed probable.
At last, in July, they made a mile a day. In August they reached the edge of the pack, when the sleighs were abandoned, and the dogs killed, as no room could be spared. The boats then crossed open water to Novaya Zemlya, and at the end of three months from leaving the ship sighted a Russian vessel. The Nickolai brought them to Vardoe in Norway, where the voyagers landed in September, 1874.
The success of the expedition was unquestionable, for land was discovered two hundred miles north of Nova Zemlya. The success of the sleighing is due to Sir L. McClintock’s advice.
(The Tegethoff we see drifted north—other vessels we have read of drifted south. Does not that indicate a simultaneous movement of ice around the Pole on both sides? The American side going south as the ice-floe on the Asiatic side ascends—as glaciers in Switzerland which are connected, advance and recede in turn. This idea would go to prove that no open sea exists there; the ice covers the whole of the Polar Ocean, and moves north and south correspondingly. This is, however, only speculation, but as the Tegethoff is said