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expedition has been received. Mr. Sidoroff, a Russian explorer, states however that the ice around Nova Zembla increased in 1873 from its ordinary breadth of four miles to about seventy miles; and it seems probable that the vessel is shut up in the ice on the north-east coast of that island. If the ice had moved eastward, a steamer would have had no difficulty in reaching the coast of Siberia, as the strong current of the Yenesei keeps the sea clear of ice; but no ship has been seen by the natives. A Russian vessel, which was to sail in July, 1874, from Vardo in Norway, for the mouths of the Obi and the Yenesei, may bring news of the expedition; and in the meantime the Russian Government has issued a notice requesting all persons coming from Siberia or Nova Zembla, and having information concerning the expedition, to communicate it to the Ministry of Marine or of Foreign Affairs.

NOTE.-Whilst this sheet is at press, the following telegram has arrived: CHRISTIANIA, Sept. 5.

The Austrian Payer Weyprecht Expedition left Tromsoe in the Admiral Tegethoff on the 14th of July, 1872. They encountered compact drift ice in 48° east longitude, and worked themselves through until, in 58° east longitude, they reached the coast of Nova Zembla, under the Admiralty Peninsula. They sailed along the coast to Berch Islands, where they met Count Wiltschek's sloop Isbjörnen. They sailed together with him further to Barentz Islands, near the promontory of Cape Nassau, where they remained at anchor till the 21st of August, 1872, on account of south-westerly storms. There a depôt of provisions was established. They parted with Count Wiltschek and steered north-east the same day, and were completely frozen in. They drifted with the pack ice 14 months, first north-east to 73° east longitude, and then north-west until October, 1873. In August, 1873, a new land was discovered. They drifted with the ice along this land. They were frozen in, and wintered in 79° 51' north latitude, and 59° east longitude. In March and April, 1874, sledge expeditions were sent north and west; 82° north latitude was passed, and land was seen to the 83rd degree. The extent of the land northwards and westwards was, apparently, considerable. The ship now being untenable was abandoned. Starting on the 20th of May, 1874, with four sledge boats, they met the open water on the 15th of August, and crossed to Nova Zembla, and went along the coast in search of vessels. They met a Russian schooner on the 24th of August in Puchowa Bay, and arrived at Vardoe, in Norway, on the 3rd of September. The health of the crew was excellent.

DISASTROUS VOYAGE OF CAPTAIN HALL-TWO WINTERS IN SMITH SOUND- SLEDGE JOURNEY TO THE POLAR OCEAN-WINTER ON A FLOR-WRECK OF THE VESSEL BOAT VOYAGE IN BAFFIN BAY-RESCUE OF THE CREW-UNKNOWN REGIONS AROUND THE NORTH POLE.

HE renewal of Arctic exploration in the direction of the North Pole, and the discoveries of Captain Koldewey on the east coast of Greenland, awakened a desire in the United States for the completion of the work which had been conducted so successfully by Kane and his fellow-explorers in Smith Sound. If that broad channel could be found sufficiently free from ice for a vessel to pass through it into the open water beyond, it was thought probable that the Pole might be reached without difficulty; while, in any other direction, the Pole would have to be approached through circuitous channels, or across an ocean of which the shores only were known.

The disposition to regard Smith Sound as the gateway of the unknown regions where the Ice King sat enthroned became so strong that, in the summer of 1871, a well-equipped steamer was despatched from New York, under the command of Captain Hall, whose instructions were to push as far as might be practicable in that direction. He ran through Davis Strait, and up Baffin Bay, without any mischance, passing Cape York on the 25th of August, and entering Smith Sound a

Death of Captain Hall.

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few days afterwards. Just after the eighty-first parallel of latitude had been passed a dense fog came on, and the vessel was hove-to, and anchored to a floe. On the 31st, two attempts were made to land on the Greenland side of the sound, in an inlet which their failure prompted Hall to name Repulse Bay. Next day the adverse motion of the ice caused a council to be held, in which it was decided to cross the sound, and seek a harbour on the opposite side. They were then, according to their calculation, in latitude 82° 26', which is the highest latitude ever reached by a ship, while the farthest point reached by Parry in a sledge was less than half a degree farther north; but, as Kane's farthest point is given as 81° 22′, at which point the sound or strait opened into the Polar Ocean, it is evident that a serious miscalculation was made by one or other of the explorers. Here, however, the ice bore down upon them so forcibly that they drifted southward, and on the 4th of September anchored in an inlet on the Greenland side of the sound, which was named Polaris Bay, after the ship.

As there was a strong current running down from the north, and open water was visible beyond the coast of Greenland, which trended beyond sight in the desired direction, Hall started on a sledge journey northward, accompanied by the chief officer and two Esquimaux. They were absent fourteen days, returning on the 24th. The sun had been seen for the last time that winter on the 16th. Soon after his return to

the ship, the captain became seriously ill, and on the 8th of October he died. In accordance with the instructions of the naval department at Washington, he was succeeded in the command by Captain Buddington, the sailing master. According to the narrative communicated by this gentleman to a New York journal, they "got along through the winter pretty well, with the exception of breaking adrift, and coming into collision

with an iceberg ;" but there was an evident want of harmony between Captain Buddington and Doctor Bissels, who directed the scientific department, and it seems probable that to this state of feeling the failure of the expedition was to some extent due.

On the 8th of June, 1872, an attempt was made to get to the northward in boats; but the party returned overland, abandoning their boats, without any other result. The deceased captain had satisfied himself that he should find an open sea in that direction on the return of summer; but the ship remained fast in her winter quarters until the season was far advanced, and on the 12th of August Captain Buddington resolved to steer homeward. The vessel drifted out of the sound with the ice, but so slowly that it was not until the 13th of October that they were south of Cape Alexander, in the broad waters of Baffin Bay. There a violent gale arose, and drove the ice upon the vessel, giving her a severe nip. Expecting that she would sink when the ice opened, orders were given to remove her boats and stores to the ice; and this had been just completed when, between nine and ten o'clock at night, the floe opened, the hawser by which the ship was made fast to it snapped, and she drifted away into the darkness, leaving upon the ice fifteen of the crew and the two Esquimaux, with the wives of the latter, and a child.

The first efforts of these unfortunates was to reach the land, but they were forced back upon the floe, and lost one of the boats containing half the provisions. These were recovered, however, and they then set to work to build snow-houses, after the manner of the Esquimaux, upon their island of ice. Once they caught sight of their vessel, and hoped that she would return and deliver them; but she never again approached, and her leaky condition, and the loss of a great part of her crew and

Winter on a Floe.

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provisions, caused the situation of those on board to be scarcely envied even by the poor castaways on the ice. All through the dreary winter, these unfortunate people remained upon the floe. They succeeded in killing a few seals, which gave them. oil for lamps and blubber for fuel. They almost reached the shore again on the 1st of November, but a gale sprung up, and drove them from it; and then they drifted slowly down Baffin Bay, and through Davis Strait, upon their raft of ice. From the beginning of November to the end of February they subsisted chiefly on birds, which they caught in traps. March brought them seals again, and sometimes a bear was shot; but even with these occasional supplies they frequently suffered severely from hunger.

Towards the end of March a strong westerly gale broke up their floe, which had originally been about five miles in circumference, and reduced it by degrees to a mere fragment of twenty yards diameter. On the 1st of April they took to their boat, and on the 3rd reached the landward ice; but on the 4th a strong wind from the north-east reduced it to fragments, upon one of which they floated many days longer. On the 21st they saw a bear, and being then almost reduced to starvation, they lay upon the ice, in imitation of seals, in order to tempt the beast within gunshot. One of them shot it, and its meat sustained them until they could again launch their boat in safety, when they steered westward, hoping to reach the coast of Labrador. On the 30th, when they had moored the boat to a floe, with which they were drifting into Grady Bay, in a dense fog, a steam-whaler drove against the floe, picked up the unfortunate castaways, who had drifted and boated more than sixteen hundred miles, and carried them to St. John's, Newfoundland.

Where all this time was the doomed ship? Returning