The universal geography : earth and its inhabitants

180 TEE EUROPEAN ISLANDS OF THE ARCTIC OCEAN.national rivalries, combined with the confused reports of navigators, have renderedthe charts very uncertain. The same island was even recently confounded by theSwedes with the Giles or Gillis Land, sighted in 1707 by the Dutch captain,Cornelius Giles. At length the Norwegian Altmann, profiting by the open seas,was able to coast the island, which his fellow-countryman Johnsen ascertained inthe same year to be not an archipelago, as Altmann had supposed, but a singlemass 70 miles long, and on its south side covered for several hundred yards by avast quantity of drift-wood. A third Norwegian, Captain Nilsen, also visited it in1S72, and all concur in describing it as a low island, above which rise detachedmountains and continuous ridges, culminating with Mount llaarfagrehaugen, on thewest side. Like Spitzbergen, its inhabitants consist of bears, the arctic fox, andgreat numbers of reindeer, so that the vegetation, although confined to lichens andsmall growths, must be comparatively abundant. The land also shares in thegeneral movement of upheaval, as is evident from the quantity of drift-woodobserved by Johnsen 20 feet above the present sea-level.Giles or Gillis Laud has also been recently rediscovered west of North-East Land,precisely where Giles had indicated it, and where it is figured on Van der Keulen'schart, published probably in 1710. In 1864 the Norwegian Tobiesen sighted itwithout being able to land. But there are other islands in the same waters, forBaffin had seen land to the north-east of Spitzbergen so early as 1614. On Petermann'smaps Giles Land is represented, apparently by mistake, at some 120 milesto the north-east of the most advanced Spitzbergen foreland, seemingly formingpart of the newly discovered Franz-Joseph Land. This region has not yet beenvisited, and it is uncertain whether it is to be regarded as an island, an archipelago,or a simple headland, though its existence can scarcely be questioned. In springthe fishers who have wintered on the northern shores of Spitzbergen see flocks ofmigratory birds flying towards the north and north-east, whence they return inSeptember, and this land lies right in their track. According to the walrushunters frequenting the Seven Islands, north of Spitzbergen, from the sameremote region come the walruses and numerous white bears visiting that littlegroup.IV.—FEANZ-JOSEPIT LAND.Since 1874 the arctic waters have been known to encircle with their floatingmasses another archipelago, even more extensive than Spitzbergen, but of far moredifficult access. It lies almost entirely beyond the eightieth parallel, with a meantemperature from 18° to 28° below freezing point. Even on its south side themean for the year 1873 was found to be 3° Fahr. by the explorers who had to spendsome time on its shores. This is the Franz-Joseph Land of the Austro-HungarianTegetthoff expedition, conducted by Payer and Weyprecht, and which has contributedso much to promote the scientific exploration of the arctic seas.Setting out with the object of making the north-east passage round Siberia toBering Strait, the daring navigators, after having been ice-bound, contrived toland on a small island, which they named Wilczek, in honour of the promoter of