The universal geography : earth and its inhabitants

WICHE'S LAND. 179to certain unauthentieaiied traditions, some Dutch whalers, notably CornelisRoule, advanced in the last century to within 5° of the pole. But Parry wasobliged to abandon his ship in Treurenberg Bay, in a little inlet named from itHecla Cove, pushing thence northwards in small boats and sledges. But he progressedvery slowly, and at last ceased to make any way, the floating ice driftingsouthwards as he endeavoured to advance northwards. The attempt, renewed in1872 and 1873 by Nordenskjold, led to no results, owing to the rottenness of theice up to the eightieth parallel, and its extreme roughness beyond that point. OnFig. 88. Wiche's Land.Scale 1 : 3,700,000.sK-; _Sea covered with ice andopen, summer of 1S72.several occasions Captain Palander failed tohis sledges.make more than half a mile a day inIII.—'WICHE'SLAND AND GILES LAND.East of Spitzbergen the Arctic Ocean is not so free of land as in the north. Inthis direction a long chain of lofty mountains is visible on clear days some 70 or80 miles off, belonging to Wiche's Land, so named in 1617 in honour of themerchant, Richard Wiche, or Wyche, by the English whalers, who were the first tosight this island. After a lapse of two centuries and a half another Englishmanagain sighted the island in 1864, and in 1870 Heuglin and Zeil, thinking itssnowy crests lay north of the position indicated for Wiche's Land, renamed itafter their sovereign, Charles of Wiirttemberg. The Swedish explorers had, intheir turn, named one of its mountains, seen by them, " Swedish Headland," so that