“It was past midday on June 17th when I turned out to prepare breakfast. I had been down to the edge of the ice to fetch salt-water, had made up the fire, cut up the meat and put it in the pot, and had already taken off one boot, preparatory to creeping into the bag again, when I saw that the mist over the land had risen a little since the preceding day. I thought it would be as well to take the opportunity of having a look round, so I put on my boot again and went up on to a hummock near to look at the land beyond. A gentle breeze came from the land, bearing with it a confused noise of thousands of bird-voices from the mountain there. As I listened to these sounds of life and movement, watched flocks of auks flying to and fro above my head, and as my eye followed the line of coast, stopping at the dark, naked cliffs, glancing at the cold, icy plains and glaciers in a land which I believed to be unseen by any human eye and untrodden by any human foot, reposing in Arctic majesty behind its mantle of mist—a sound suddenly reached my ear so like the barking of a dog that I started. It was only a couple of barks, but it could not be anything else. I strained my ears, but heard no more, only the same bubbling noise of thousands of birds. I must have been mistaken, after all; it was only birds I had heard; and again my eye passed from sound to island in the west. Then the barking came again—first single barks, then full cry; there was one deep bark, and one sharper; there was no longer any room for doubt. At that moment I remembered having heard two reports the day before which I thought sounded like shots, but I had explained them away as noises in the ice. I now shouted to Johansen that I heard dogs farther inland. Johansen started up from the bag where he lay sleeping and tumbled out of the tent. ‘Dogs?’ He could not quite take it in, but had to get up and listen with his own ears while I got breakfast ready. He very much doubted the possibility of such a thing, yet fancied once or twice that he heard something which might be taken for the barking of dogs; but then it was drowned again in the bird-noises, and, everything considered, he thought that what I had heard was nothing more than that. I said he might believe what he liked, but I meant to set off as quickly as possible, and was impatient to get breakfast swallowed. I had emptied the last of the Indian meal into the soup, feeling sure that we should have farinaceous food enough by the evening. As we were eating we discussed who it could be, whether our countrymen or Englishmen. If it was the English expedition to Franz Josef Land which had been in contemplation when we started, what should we do? ‘Oh, we’ll just have to remain with them a day or two,’ said Johansen, ‘and then we’ll have to go on to Spitzbergen, else it will be too long before we get home.’ We were quite agreed on this point; but we would take care to get some good provisions for the voyage out of them. While I went on, Johansen was to stay behind and mind the kayaks, so that we should run no risk of their drifting away with the ice. I got out my snow-shoes, glass, and gun, and was ready. Before starting I went up once more to listen and look out a road across the uneven ice to the land. But there was not a sound like the barking of dogs, only noisy auks, harsh-toned little auks, and screaming kittiwakes. Was it these, after all, that I had heard? I set off in doubt. Then in front of me I saw the fresh tracks of an animal. They could hardly have been made by a fox, for if they were, the foxes here must be bigger than any I had ever seen. But dogs? Could a dog have been no more than a few hundred paces from us in the night without barking, or without our having heard it? It seemed scarcely probable; but, whatever it was, it could never have been a fox. A wolf, then? I went on, my mind full of strange thoughts, hovering between certainty and doubt. Was all our toil, were all our troubles, privations, and sufferings to end here? It seemed incredible, and yet—Out of the shadow-land of doubt, certainty was at last beginning to dawn. Again the sound of a dog yelping reached my ear, more distinctly than ever; I saw more and more tracks which could be nothing but those of a dog. Among them were foxes’ tracks, and how small they looked! A long time passed, and nothing was to be heard but the noise of the birds. Again arose doubt as to whether it was all an illusion. Perhaps it was only a dream. But then I remembered the dogs’ tracks; they, at any rate, were no delusion. But if there were people here we could scarcely be on Gillies Land or a new land, as we had believed all the winter. We must, after all, be on the south side of Franz Josef Land, and the suspicion I had had a few days ago was correct, namely, that we had come south through an unknown sound and out between Hooker Island and Northbrook Island, and were now off the latter, in spite of the impossibility of reconciling our position with Payer’s map.

“It was with a strange mixture of feelings that I made my way in towards land among the numerous hummocks and inequalities. Suddenly I thought I heard a shout from a human voice, a strange voice, the first for three years. How my heart beat and the blood rushed to my brain as I ran up on to a hummock and hallooed with all the strength of my lungs! Behind that one human voice in the midst of the icy desert—this one message from life—stood home and she who was waiting there; and I saw nothing else as I made my way between bergs and ice-ridges. Soon I heard another shout, and saw, too, from an ice-ridge, a dark form moving among the hummocks farther in. It was a dog; but farther off came another figure, and that was a man. Who was it? Was it Jackson, or one of his companions, or was it perhaps a fellow-countryman? We approached one another quickly. I waved my hat; he did the same. I heard him speak to the dog, and I listened. It was English, and as I drew nearer I thought I recognized Mr. Jackson, whom I remembered once to have seen.

“I raised my hat; we extended a hand to one another, with a hearty ‘How do you do?’ Above us a roof of mist shutting out the world around, beneath our feet the rugged, packed drift-ice, and in the background a glimpse of the land, all ice, glacier, and mist. On one side the civilized European in an English check suit and high rubber water-boots, well shaved, well groomed, bringing with him a perfume of scented soap, perceptible to the wild man’s sharpened senses; on the other side the wild man clad in dirty rags, black with oil and soot, with long uncombed hair and shaggy beard, black with smoke, with a face in which the natural fair complexion could not possibly be discerned through the thick layer of fat and soot which a winter’s endeavors with warm water, moss, rags, and at last a knife, had sought in vain to remove. No one suspected who he was or whence he came.

“Jackson: ‘I’m immensely glad to see you.’

“‘Thank you; I also.’

“‘Have you a ship here?’

“‘No; my ship is not here.’

“‘How many are there of you?’

“‘I have one companion at the ice-edge.’

“As we talked, we had begun to go in towards land. I took it for granted that he had recognized me, or at any rate understood who it was that was hidden behind this savage exterior, not thinking that a total stranger would be received so heartily. Suddenly he stopped, looked me full in the face, and said, quickly:

“‘Aren’t you Nansen?’

“‘Yes, I am.’

“‘By Jove! I am glad to see you!’

“And he seized my hand and shook it again, while his whole face became one smile of welcome, and delight at the unexpected meeting beamed from his dark eyes.

“‘Where have you come from now?’ he asked.

“‘I left the Fram in 84° north latitude, after having drifted for two years, and I reached the 86° 15′ parallel, where we had to turn and make for Franz Josef Land. We were, however, obliged to stop for the winter somewhere north here, and are now on our route to Spitzbergen.’

“‘I congratulate you most heartily. You have made a good trip of it, and I am awfully glad to be the first person to congratulate you on your return.’

“Once more he seized my hand and shook it heartily. I could not have been welcomed more warmly; that hand-shake was more than a mere form. In his hospitable English manner, he said at once that he had ‘plenty of room’ for us, and that he was expecting his ship every day. By ‘plenty of room’ I discovered afterwards that he meant that there were still a few square feet on the floor of their hut that were not occupied at night by himself and his sleeping companions. But ‘heart-room makes house-room,’ and of the former there was no lack. As soon as I could get a word in, I asked how things were getting on at home, and he was able to give me the welcome intelligence that my wife and child had both been in the best of health when he left two years ago. Then came Norway’s turn, and Norwegian politics; but he knew nothing about that, and I took it as a sign that they must be all right too. He now asked if we could not go out at once and fetch Johansen and our belongings; but I thought that our kayaks would be too heavy for us to drag over this packed-up ice alone, and that if he had men enough it would certainly be better to send them out. If we only gave Johansen notice by a salute from our guns he would wait patiently; so we each fired two shots. We soon met several men—Mr. Armitage, the second in command; Mr. Child, the photographer; and the doctor, Mr. Koetlitz. As they approached, Jackson gave them a sign, and let them understand who I was; and I was again welcomed heartily. We met yet others—the botanist, Mr. Fisher; Mr. Burgess, and the Finn Blomqvist (his real name was Melenius). Fisher has since told me that he at once thought it must be me when he saw a man out on the ice; but he quite gave up that idea when he met me, for he had seen me described as a fair man, and here was a dark man, with black hair and beard. When they were all there, Jackson said that I had reached 86° 15′ north latitude, and from seven powerful lungs I was given a triple British cheer that echoed among the hummocks. Jackson immediately sent his men off to fetch sledges and go out to Johansen, while we went on towards the house, which I now thought I could see on the shore. Jackson now told me that he had letters for me from home, and that both last spring and this he had had them with him when he went north, on the chance of our meeting. We now found that in March he must have been at no great distance south of our winter-hut,11 but had to turn there, as he was stopped by open water—the same open water over which we had seen the dark atmosphere all the winter. Only when we came up nearly to the houses did he inquire more particularly about the Fram and our drifting, and I briefly told him our story. He told me afterwards that from the time we met he had believed that the ship had been destroyed, and that we two were the only survivors of the expedition. He thought he had seen a sad expression in my face when he first asked about the ship, and was afraid of touching on the subject again. Indeed, he had even quietly warned his men not to ask. It was only through a chance remark of mine that he found out his mistake, and began to inquire more particularly about the Fram and the others.

“Then we arrived at the house, a low Russian timber hut lying on a flat terrace, an old shore-line beneath the mountain, and 50 feet above the sea. It was surrounded by a stable and four circular tent-houses, in which stores were kept. We entered a comfortable, warm nest in the midst of these desolate, wintry surroundings, the roof and walls covered with green cloth. On the walls hung photographs, etchings, photo-lithographs, and shelves everywhere, containing books and instruments; under the roof clothes and shoes hung drying, and from the little stove in the middle of the floor of this cozy room the warm coal fire shone out a hospitable welcome. A strange feeling came over me as I seated myself in a comfortable chair in these unwonted surroundings. At one stroke of changing fate all responsibility, all troubles were swept away from a mind that had been oppressed by them during three long years; I was in a safe haven, in the midst of the ice, and the longings of three years were lulled in the golden sunshine of the dawning day. My duty was done; my task was ended; now I could rest, only rest and wait.

“A carefully soldered tin packet was handed to me; it contained letters from Norway. It was almost with a trembling hand and a beating heart that I opened it; and there were tidings, only good tidings, from home. A delightful feeling of peace settled upon the soul.

“Then dinner was served, and how nice it was to have bread, butter, milk, sugar, coffee, and everything that a year had taught us to do without and yet to long for! But the height of comfort was reached when we were able to throw off our dirty rags, have a warm bath, and get rid of as much dirt as was possible in one bout; but we only succeeded in becoming anything like clean after several days and many attempts. Then clean, soft clothes from head to foot, hair cut, and the shaggy beard shaved off, and the transformation from savage to European was complete, and even more sudden than in the reverse direction. How delightfully comfortable it was to be able to put on one’s clothes without being made greasy, but, most of all, to be able to move without feeling them stick to the body with every movement!

“It was not very long before Johansen and the others followed, with the kayaks and our things. Johansen related how these warm-hearted Englishmen had given him and the Norwegian flag a hearty cheer when they came up and saw it waving beside a dirty woollen shirt on a bamboo rod, which he had put up by my orders, so that I could find my way back to him. On the way hither they had not allowed him to touch the sledges, he had only to walk beside them like a passenger, and he said that, of all the ways in which we had travelled over drift-ice, this was without comparison the most comfortable. His reception in the hut was scarcely less hospitable than mine, and he soon went through the same transformation that I had undergone. I no longer recognize my comrade of the long winter night, and search in vain for any trace of the tramp who wandered up and down that desolate shore, beneath the steep talus and the dark basalt cliff, outside the low underground hut. The black, sooty troglodyte has vanished, and in his place sits a well-favored, healthy-looking European citizen in a comfortable chair, puffing away at a short pipe or a cigar, and with a book before him, doing his best to learn English. It seems to me that he gets fatter and fatter every day, with an almost alarming rapidity. It is indeed surprising that we have both gained considerably in weight since we left the Fram. When I came here I myself weighed about 14½ stone, or nearly 22 pounds more than I did when I left the Fram; while Johansen weighs over 11 stone 11 pounds, having gained a little more than 13 pounds. This is the result of a winter’s feeding on nothing but bear’s meat and fat in an Arctic climate. It is not quite like the experiences of others in parallel circumstances; it must be our laziness that has done it. And here we are, living in peace and quietness, waiting for the ship from home and for what the future will bring us, while everything is being done for us to make us forget a winter’s privations. We could not have fallen into better hands, and it is impossible to describe the unequalled hospitality and kindness we meet with on all hands, and the comfort we feel. Is it the year’s privations and want of human society, is it common interests, that so draw us to these men in these desolate regions? I do not know; but we are never tired of talking, and it seems as if we had known one another for years, instead of having met for the first time a few days ago.

“Wednesday, June 23d. It is now three years since we left home. As we sat at the dinner-table this evening, Hayward, the cook, came rushing in and said there was a bear outside. We went out, Jackson with his camera and I with my rifle. We saw the head of the bear above the edge of the shore; it was sniffing the air in the direction of the hut, while a couple of dogs stood at a respectful distance and barked. As we approached, it came right up over the edge to us, stopped, showed its teeth, and hissed, then turned round and went slowly back down towards the shore. To hinder it enough for Jackson to get near and photograph it, I sent a bullet into its hind-quarters as it disappeared over the edge. This helped, and a ball in the left shoulder still more. Surrounded by a few dogs, it now made a stand. The dogs grew bolder, and a couple of shots in the muzzle from Jackson’s revolver made the bear quite furious. It sprang first at one dog, ‘Misère,’ caught hold of it by the back, and flung it a good way out over the ice, then sprang at the other, seizing it by one paw and tearing one toe badly. It then found an old tin box, bit it flat, and flung it far away. It was wild with fury, but a ball behind the ear ended its sufferings. It was a she-bear with milk in the breast; but there was no sign of any embryo, and no young one was discovered in the neighborhood.

“Sunday, July 15th. This evening, when Jackson and the doctor were up on the mountain shooting auks, the dogs began to make a tremendous row (especially the bear-dog ‘Nimrod,’ which is chained outside the door), and howled and whined in a suspicious manner. Armitage went out, coming back a little while after and asking if I cared to shoot a bear. I accompanied him with my rifle and camera. The bear had taken flight to a little hummock out on the ice south of the house, and was lying at full length on the top of it, with ‘Misère’ and a couple of puppies round it, standing at a little distance and barking persistently. As we approached it fled over the ice. The range was long, but, nevertheless, we sent a few shots after it, thinking we might perhaps retard its progress. With one of these I was fortunate enough to hit it in the hind-quarters, and it now fled to a new ice-hill. Here I was able to get nearer to it. It was evidently very much enraged; and when I came under the hummock where it stood it showed its teeth and hissed at me, and repeatedly gave signs of wanting to jump down on to the top of me. On these occasions I rapidly got ready my rifle instead of the camera. It scraped away the loose snow from under its feet to get a better footing for the leap which, however, it never took; and I re-exchanged my rifle for my camera. In the meantime, Jackson had arrived with his camera on the other side; and when we had taken all the photographs we wanted we shot the bear. It was an unusually large she-bear.”

One of the first things we did when we came to Mr. Jackson’s station was of course to make a close comparison of our watches with his chronometer; and Mr. Armitage was also kind enough to take careful time-observations for me. It now appears that we had not been so far out, after all. We had put our watches about 26 minutes wrong, making a difference of about 6½° in longitude. A protracted comparison undertaken by Mr. Armitage also showed that the escapement of our watches was very nearly what we had assumed. With the help of this information I was now enabled to work out our longitude observations pretty correctly; and one of the first tasks I here set about, now that we once more had access to paper, writing and drawing materials, and all that we had longed for so much during the winter, was to prepare a sketch-map of Franz Josef Land, as our observations led me to conclude that it must actually be. Mr. Jackson very kindly allowed me to consult the map he had made of that part of the land which he had explored. This enabled me to dispense with the labor of reckoning out my own observations in these localities. Furthermore, I have to thank Mr. Jackson for aid in every possible way, with navigation-tables, nautical almanac,12 scales, and all sorts of drawing material.

It is by a comparison of Payer’s map, Jackson’s map, and my own observations that I have made out the sketch-map reproduced on page 599. I have altered Payer’s and Jackson’s map only at places where my observations differ essentially from theirs. I make no pretence to give more than a provisional sketch; I had not even time to work out my own observations with absolute accuracy. When this has been done, and if I can gain access to all Payer’s material, no doubt a considerably more trustworthy map can be produced. The only importance which I claim for the accompanying map is that it shows roughly how what we have hitherto called Franz Josef Land is cut up into innumerable small islands, without any continuous and extensive mass of land. Much of Payer’s map I found to coincide well enough with our observations. But the enigma over which we had pondered the whole winter still remained unsolved. Where was Dove Glacier and the whole northern part of Wilczek Land? Where were the islands which Payer had named Braun Island, Hoffmann Island, and Freeden Island? The last might, no doubt, be identified with the southernmost island of Hvidtenland (White Land), but the others had completely disappeared. I pondered for a long time over the question how such a mistake could have crept into a map by such a man as Payer—an experienced topographer, whose maps, as a rule, bear the stamp of great accuracy and care, and a polar traveller for whose ability I have always entertained a high respect. I examined his account of his voyage, and there I found that he expressly mentions that during the time he was coasting along this Dove Glacier he had a great deal of fog, which quite concealed the land ahead. But one day (it was April 7, 1874) he says:13 “At this latitude (81° 23′) it seemed as if Wilczek Land suddenly terminated, but when the sun scattered the driving mists we saw the glittering ranges of its enormous glaciers—the Dove Glaciers—shining down on us. Towards the northeast we could trace land trending to a cape lying in the gray distance: Cape Buda-Pesth, as it was afterwards called. The prospect 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.”

I have often thought over this description, and I cannot find in Payer’s book any other information that throws light upon the mystery. Although, according to this, it would appear as if they had had clear weather that day, there must, nevertheless, have been fog-banks lying over Hvidtenland, uniting it with Wilczek Land to the south and stretching northward towards Crown Prince Rudolf Land. The sun shining on these fog-banks must have glittered so that they were taken for glaciers along a continuous coast. I can all the more easily understand this mistake, as I was myself on the point of falling into it. As before related, if the weather had not cleared on the evening of June 11th, enabling us to discern the sound between Northbrook Island and Peter Head (Alexandra Land), we should have remained under the impression that we had here continuous land, and should have represented it as such in mapping this region.

Mr. Jackson and I frequently discussed the naming of the lands we had explored. I asked him whether he would object to my naming the land on which I had wintered “Frederick Jackson’s Island,” as a small token of our gratitude for the hospitality he had shown us. We had made the discovery that this island was separated by sounds from the land farther north which Payer had named Karl Alexander Land. For the rest, I refrained from giving names to any of the places which Jackson had seen before I saw them.

The country around Cape Flora proved to be very interesting from the geological point of view, and as often as time permitted I investigated its structure, either alone, or more frequently in company with the doctor and geologist of the English expedition, Dr. Koetlitz. Many an interesting excursion did we make together up and down those steep moraines in search of fossils, which in certain places we found in great numbers. It appeared that from the sea-level up to a height of about 500 or 600 feet the land consisted of a soft clay mixed with lumps of a red-brown clay sandstone, in which lumps the fossils chiefly abounded. But the earth was so overstrewn with loose stones, which had rolled down from the basalt walls above, that it was difficult to reach it. For a long time I maintained that all this clay was only a comparatively late strand formation; but the doctor was indefatigable in his efforts to convince me that it really was an old and very extensive formation, stretching right under the superimposed basalt. At last I had to yield, when we arrived at the topmost stratum of the clay and I saw it actually going under the basalt, and found some shallower strata of basalt lower down in the clay. An examination of the fossils, which consisted for the most part of ammonites and belemnites, convinced me that the whole of this clay formation must date from the Jurassic period. At several places Dr. Koetlitz had found thin strata of coal in the clay. Petrified wood was also of common occurrence. But over the clay formation lay a mighty bed of basalt 600 or 700 feet in height, which was certainly not the least interesting feature of the country. It was distinguished by its coarse-grained structure from the majority of typical basalts, and seemed to be closely related to those which are found in Spitsbergen and Northeast Land.14 The basalt, however, seems to vary a good deal in appearance here in Franz Josef Land. That which we found farther north—for example, at Cape M’Clintock and on Goose Island—was considerably more coarse-grained than that which we found here. The situation of the basalt here on Northbrook Island and the surrounding islands was also very different from that which we had observed farther north. It is here met with, as a rule, only at a height of 500 or 600 feet above the sea, while on the more northerly islands—from 81° northward—it reached right to the shore. Thus it dropped in an almost perpendicular wall straight into the sea at Jackson’s Cape Fisher, in 81°. It was the same at Cape M’Clintock, at our winter cabin, at the headland of columnar basalt where we passed the night of August 25, 1895, at Cape Clements Markham, and at the sharp point of rock where we landed on the night between August 16th and 17th. The structure seemed to be similar, too, so far as we had seen, on the south side of Crown Prince Rudolf’s Land. Wherever we had been to the northward I had kept a sharp lookout for strata whose fossils could give us any information as to the geological age of this country. According to what I here found at Cape Flora, it appeared as if a great part at least of this basalt dated from the Jurassic period, as it lay immediately above, and was partly intermixed with, strata of this age. Moreover, on the top of the basalt, as will presently appear, vegetable fossils were found dating from the later part of the Jurassic period. It thus seems as though Franz Josef Land were of a comparatively old formation. All these horizontal strata of basalt, stretching over all the islands at about the same height, seem to indicate that there was once a continuous mass of land here, which in the course of time, being exposed to various disintegrating forces, such as frost, damp, snow, glaciers, and the sea, has been split up and worn away, and has in part disappeared under the sea, so that now only scattered islands and rocks remain, separated from each other by fjords and sounds. As these formations bear a certain resemblance to what has been found in several places in Spitzbergen and Northeast Land, we may plausibly assume that these two groups of islands originally belonged to the same mass of land. It would therefore be interesting to investigate the as yet unknown region which separates them, the region which we should have had to traverse had we not fallen in with Jackson and his expedition. There is doubtless much that is new, and especially many new islands, to be found in this strait—possibly a continuous series of islands, so that there may be some difficulty in determining where the one archipelago ends and the other begins. The investigation of this region is a problem of no small scientific importance, which we may hope that the Jackson-Harmsworth expedition will succeed in solving.

How far the Franz Josef Land archipelago stretches towards the north cannot as yet be determined with certainty. According to our experience, indeed, it would seem improbable that there is land of any great extent in that direction. It is true that Payer, when he was upon Crown Prince Rudolf’s Land, saw Petermann’s Land and Oscar’s Land, the first to the north and the second to the west; but that Petermann’s Land, at any rate, cannot be of any size seems to be proved by our observations, since we saw no land at all as we came southward a good way east of it, and the ice seemed to drift to the westward practically unimpeded when we were in its latitude. That King Oscar’s Land also cannot be of any great extent seems to me evident from what we saw in the course of the winter and spring, as the wind swept the ice unhindered away from the land, so that there can scarcely be any extensive and continuous mass of land to the north or northwest to keep it back.

It is, perhaps, even more difficult to determine how far the Franz Josef Land archipelago stretches to the eastward. From all we saw, I should judge that Wilczek Land cannot be of any great extent; but there may nevertheless be new islands farther to the east. This seems probable, indeed, from the fact that in June and July, 1895, we remained almost motionless at about 82° 5′ north latitude, in spite of a long continuance of northerly winds; whence it seemed that there must be a stretch of land south of us obstructing, like a long wall, the farther drift of the ice to the southward. But it is useless to discuss this question minutely here, as it, too, will doubtless be answered authoritatively by the English expedition.

Another feature of Northbrook Island which greatly interested me was the evidence it presented of changes in the level of the sea. I have already mentioned that Jackson’s hut lay on an old strand-line or terrace about from 40 to 50 feet high, but there were also several other strand-lines, both lower and higher. Thus I found that Leigh Smith, who also had wintered on this headland, had built his hut upon an old strand-line 17 feet above the sea-level, while at other places I found strand-lines at a height of 80 feet. I had already noticed such strand-lines at different elevations when I first arrived in the previous autumn at the more northern part of this region (for example, on Torup’s Island). Indeed, we had lived all winter on such a terrace.

Jackson had found whales’ skeletons at several places about Cape Flora. Close to his hut, for instance, at a height of 50 feet, there lay the skull of a whale, a balæna, possibly a Greenland whale (Balæna mysticetus?). At a point farther north there lay fragments of a whole skeleton, probably of the same species. The underjaw was 18 feet 3 inches long; but these bones lay at an elevation of not more than 9 feet above the present sea-level. I also found other indications that the sea must at a comparatively recent period have risen above these low strand-terraces. For instance, they were at many points strewn with mussel-shells. This land, then, seems to have been subjected to changes of level analogous to those which have occurred in other northern countries, of which, as above mentioned, I had also seen indications on the north coast of Asia.

One day when Mr. Jackson and Dr. Koetlitz were out on an excursion together they found on a “nunatak,” or spur of rock, projecting above a glacier on the north side of Cape Flora, two places which were strewn with vegetable fossils. This discovery, of course, aroused my keenest interest, and on July 17th Dr. Koetlitz and I set out for the spot together. The spur of rock consisted entirely of basalt, at some points showing a marked columnar structure, and projected in the middle of the glacier, at a height which I estimated at 600 or 700 feet above the sea. Unfortunately, there was no time to measure its elevation exactly. At two points on the surface of the basalt there was a layer consisting of innumerable fragments of sandstone. In almost every one of these impressions were to be found, for the most part, of the needles and leaves of pine-trees, but also of small fern-leaves. We picked up as many of these treasures as we could carry, and returned that evening heavily laden and in high contentment. On a snow-shoe excursion some days later Johansen also chanced unwittingly upon the same place, and gathered fossils, which he brought to me. Since my return home this collection of vegetable fossils has been examined by Professor Nathorst, and it appears that Mr. Jackson and Dr. Koetlitz have here made an extremely interesting find.

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Professor Nathorst writes to me as follows: “In spite of their very fragmentary condition the vegetable fossils brought home by you are of great interest, as they give us our first insight into the plant-world in regions north of the eightieth degree of latitude during the latter part of the Jurassic period. The most common are leaves of a fir-tree (Pinus) which resembles the Pinus Nordenskiöldi (Heer) found in the Jurassic strata of Spitzbergen, East Siberia, and Japan, but which probably belongs to a different species. There occur also narrower leaves of another species, and furthermore male flowers and fragments of a pine cone15 with several seeds (Figs. 1–3), one of which (Fig. 1) suggests the Pinus Maakiana (Heer) from the Jurassic strata of Siberia. Among traces of other pine-trees may be mentioned those of a broad-leaved Taxites, resembling Taxites gramineus (Heer), specially found in the Jurassic strata of Spitzbergen and Siberia, which has leaves of about the same size as those of the Cephalotaxus Fortunei, at present existing in China and Japan. It is interesting, too, to find remains of the genus Feildenia (Figs. 4 and 5), which has as yet been found only in the polar regions. It was first discovered by Nordenskiöld in the Tertiary strata near Cape Staratschin, on Spitzbergen, in 1868, and was described by Heer under the name of Torellia. It was subsequently found by Feilden in the Tertiary strata at Discovery Bay, in Grinnell Land, during the English Polar Expedition of 1875–76; and Heer now changed the generic name to Feildenia, as Torellia had already been employed as the name of a mussel. This species has since been found by me in 1882 in the Upper Jurassic strata of Spitzbergen. The leaves remind one of the leaves of the subspecies nageia of the existing genus Podocarpus.

“The finest specimens of the whole collection are the leaves of a small Gingko, of which one is complete (Fig. 6). This genus, with plum-like seeds and with leaves which, unlike those of other pine-trees, have a real leaf-blade, is found at present, in one single species only, in Japan, but existed in former times in numerous forms and in many regions. During the Jurassic period it flourished especially in East Siberia, and has also been found on Spitzbergen, in East Greenland (at Scoresby Sound), and at many places in Europe, etc. During the Cretaceous and the Tertiary periods it was still found on the west coast of Greenland at 70° north latitude. The leaf here reproduced belongs to a new species, which might be called Gingko polaris, and which is most closely related to the G. flabellata (Heer) from the Jurassic strata of Siberia. It bears a certain habitual resemblance to Gingko digitata (Lindley and Hutton), particularly as found in the brown Jurassic strata of England and Spitzbergen; but its leaves are considerably smaller. Besides this species, one or two others may also occur in this collection, as well as fragments of the leaves of the genus Czekanowskia, related to the Gingko family, but with narrow leaf-blades resembling pine-needles.

“Ferns are very scantily represented. Such fragments as there are belong to four different types; but the species can scarcely be determined. One fragment belongs to the genus Cladophlebis, common in Jurassic strata; another suggests the Thyrsopteris, found in the Jurassic strata of East Siberia and of England; a third suggests the Onychiopsis characteristic of the Upper Jurassic strata. The fourth, again, seems to be closely related to the Asplenium (Petruschinense), which Heer has described, found in the Siberian Jurassic strata. The specimen is remarkable from the fact that the epidermis cells of the leaf have left a clear impression on the rock.

“With its wealth of pine leaves, its poverty of ferns, and its lack of Cycadaceæ, this Franz Josef Land flora has somewhat the same character as that of the Upper Jurassic flora of Spitzbergen, although the species are somewhat different. Like the Spitzbergen flora, it does not indicate a particularly genial climate, although doubtless enormously more so than that of the present day. The deposits must doubtless have occurred in the neighborhood of a pine forest. So far as the specimens enable one to judge, the flora seems to belong rather to the Upper (White) Jurassic system than to the Middle (Brown) system.”

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It was undeniably a sudden transition to come straight from our long inert life in our winter lair, where one’s scientific interests found little enough stimulus, right into the midst of this scientific oasis, where there was plenty of opportunity for work, where books and all necessary apparatus were at hand, and where one could employ one’s leisure moments in discussing with men of similar tastes all sorts of scientific questions connected with the Arctic zone. In the botanist of the expedition, Mr. Harry Fisher, I found a man full of the warmest interest in the fauna and flora of the polar regions, and the exhaustive investigations which his residence here has enabled him to make into the plant-life and animal-life (especially the former) of the locality, both by sea and land, will certainly augment in a most valuable degree our knowledge of its biological conditions. I shall not easily forget the many pleasant talks in which he communicated to me his discoveries and observations. They were all eagerly absorbed by a mind long deprived of such sustenance. I felt like a piece of parched soil drinking in rain after a drouth of a whole year.