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of at home, and an Arctic winter must not be trifled with if we mean to go. The rest have already gone. The Norwegians have many superstitious beliefs to compel them to hasten home, and besides they have scant provision for the voyage, only intended to last them till October. They go back, poor fellows, empty this season to begin again later in the year along their own coast with the herring fishery, when we hope they may have such luck as will repay them for their ill-spent time in these desolate waters of the Spitzbergen Islands. Now our acquaintance with wild nature grows more limited every day. The wild geese begin to wing their way to the far south; most of the migratory birds have gone, and we turn to look again upon a land, uninhabited no doubt, but a land full of pleasant recollections: the climate, with all its threatening aspect, so well suited to the manly sports we entered on by land and sea; the whole region, rough beyond compare, but still a region of enchantment and delight. It is a world in itself, of which the traveller who has not seen it can form no conception whatever-where the light of heaven is so unlike what we elsewhere experience, that we are unable to describe it. Its ice blinks and auroras, its heavy blue reflections against which the prismatic ice glitters in the purest light of day; and all the

PROFESSOR NORDENSKIOLD.

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family of nature that dwells here in its vast expanse of water-its whales and walrus, amphibious bears and seals, the host of winged sea-fowl, and stately deer.

We found Professor Nordenskiold a very pleasant man advanced in life, and his selected party full of zeal in the honourable undertaking they had entered upon they seemed inspired with the enthusiasm of their leader, who certainly manifested all the aplomb of a man confident of success. They were waiting here for a supply of coal to be brought to them by a steamer not yet arrived. Every day at this season is precious time lost; the sun has already set in the heavens, and the long night of the Arctic seas gradually approaches. They are a long way They are a long way from the point they have selected for their winter quarters, and the road is being rendered more difficult as the season advances. Their intention is to sail along the western coast we have lately visited, and then to fight their way to the Seven Islands along the unusually frozen sea which bounds the coast to the north. Arrived at their halting place they have much work to do before they can hope to be settled fairly down in their winter quarters. They bring with them all the requisite materials for the construction of a home, and to expedite this laborious undertaking they have had the wooden houses

carefully constructed, and after every detail had been duly inspected the little buildings were taken down with care, in order that their readjustment would present no insurmountable difficulty to the crews engaged upon their reconstruction on the selected site at the Seven Islands. We noticed the materials for three of these huts-a dwelling consisting of four sleeping-rooms, fourteen feet by thirteen; a long room for the men, twenty-two by fourteen; a central room nineteen by twenty-two; and a kitchen twenty-two by sixteen.

With Professor Nordenskiold came a Lieutenant Palander, of the Italian Navy, who is deputed by his Government to observe the necessary arrangements, with the ultimate object of collecting materials for the guidance of an Italian expedition to the North Pole; so that we shall have an accession to the number of foreign explorations if this gentleman reports favourably of what he experiences to his Government.

There are besides Lieutenant Wykander and Lieutenant L. Palander, the captain of the steamer, Dr. Euran, an experienced physician and good observer, one mate, two engineers, eleven seamen, and four Laplanders, twenty-three in all. Of these Professor Nordenskiold has selected Lieutenant Palander, four seamen, and the four Laplanders, to accompany him

BOATS FOR THE JOURNEY.

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on his voyage over the ice. The boats, constructed of the lightest materials, will be drawn by a herd of forty reindeer.

The boats deserved much attention. They were three in number, built specially for the occasion they were to serve. They were light and exceedingly strong, double in structure: one portion was made of the fine wood of the willow, the second layer of ash. The largest weighed 320 lbs., and could carry 2800 lbs. of goods stowed; the second weighed 100 lbs. less, and carried 1000 lbs. less goods; while the third was only 130 lbs. in weight, and could contain about 1500 lbs. weight in stowage. The deer were to bring with them sufficient provender for an extended march, and on showing signs of exhaustion, they were to be killed for food for the travellers. The journey was to be commenced on the first of April, 1873, and the provisions were sufficient to last until the first of July, by which time they hope to have accomplished this long meditated journey to the northern Pole of the earth.

It will be remembered that Captain Parry, in the year 1827, started late in the season, when he found the ice broken up and loose, drifting by the influence of the currents and the gales of wind. They hope to find a different condition altogether. When they start they expect that at that early season the ice will be

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newly formed, or at all events sufficiently permanent and with no greater difficulties of surface to contend with than occasional hummocks of drifted snow, with perhaps some pseudo icebergs. Dr. Hayes, the American traveller, with his fellow countryman Kane, have deserved well of the enterprising Americans under whose auspices they made such valuable explorations, already recorded in the volumes of Arctic voyages which bear their respective names, and from which it will be seen, that when in Baffin's Bay they found the ice broken in the winter, no doubt assisted by the strong current which there obtains a current, be it noted, which runs seven knots in the hour. Such a current, if it exists at all to the north of the Spitzbergen Islands, was not noticed by us. Should the ice again, under the influence of some gale, get broken up, it is reasonable to suppose that the injury will soon repair itself in a temperature so low. Off Jan Majen's Island the ice freezes together in the early spring, as the sealers, who go there at that early season of the year, are often beset in the ice, and the whole field is frozen together in a very short space of time, cutting off any chance of escape until the solid mass floating down towards the northern shores of Iceland is sighted some six weeks later.

The following extracts from Parry's journal (a scarce

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