The universal geography : earth and its inhabitants

132 THE EUROPEAN ISLANDS OF THE ARCTIC OCEAN.Ill August, 1880, Air. Leigh Smith succeeded in tracing the southern coast ofFranz-Joseph Land for a considerable distance to the westward of the farthestpoints seen by the Austrian explorers. He discovered a secure harbour, which henamed—after his staunch yacht— " Eira," and traced the coast as far aslat. 80° 20' N., long. 45° E., whence Capes Ludlow and Lofley could be seen farto the north-westward.The mountains of Franz-Joseph Land have a mean altitude varying from 2,000to 3,000 feet, apparently culminating, south of Zichy Land, in Mount Richthofen,5,000 feet, or about 500 higher than Horn Sound Peak in Spitsbergen. In generalthe heights do not terminate in sharp peaks or rugged crests, but spread into broadtables, so that these horizontal elevations look more like detached fragments of aplateau than true mountains.The pi'evailing formation is the Spitzbergen hyperite,with basalt columns cropping out here and there. Franz-Joseph Land alsoresembles Spitzbergen in its upward movement, as shown by the old marine bedsstrewn with shells, and rising in parallel lines above the waters of Austria Sound.Besides the igneous rocks pointing to a common origin with Spitzbergen, theexplorers recognised some tertiary sandstones containing slight deposits of lignite ;but exact geological observation is difficult in a land whose gentler slopes aremostly under snow and ice, and the abrupt escarpments covered with rime due tothe abundant moisture condensing on contact with the polished surface of the cliffs." The symmetrical mountain ridges," says Payer, " seem incrusted with sugar,"and some islands are entirely clothed in ice, like so many glass globes. Thedepressions between all the elevations, and even most of the slopes, are filled orcovered with glaciers, some presenting a seaward frontage over 12 miles broad, andfrom 100 to 200 feet high. The Dove glacier, on the west side of "Wilczek Land,forms a concave crescent over 36 miles long, whence large icebergs break awaywith every ebb tide. These glaciers differ from those of the Alps in the vastnessof the snow-fields, the grey or greenish colour of the ice, the coarseness of its grain,the great thickness of the yearly layers, the rareness of crevasses, the slightdevelopment of moraines, and their slow progress.The vegetation is extremely poor, being restricted altogether to some saxifrages,a poppy, the Si/ene acaulis, a few mosses, and lichens. No reindeer are seen ;but on thenorth side, facing the open sea, traces of the bear, hare, and fox areeverywhere detected, and shoals of sea-calves frequent the ice-bound coast.Here also, as in the Fiiroer, Iceland, and Spitzbergen, the isolated rocks areinhabited by myriads of penguins and other birds, which at the approach of manrise with a deafening flapping of their wings. Whether the more open seas,higher temperature, and corresponding development of animal life on the northside of the archipelago were permanent or temporary phenomena, the explorerswere unable to determine.Possibly the waters are here deeper and more open tothe warm currents than on the east or south side. The basin comprised betweenSpitzbergen, Franz-Joseph Land, and Xovaya Zemlya is nowhere over 300 fathomsdeep. Its bed is everywhere flat except where it dips slightly a little to the eastof the submarine continuation of Wilczek Land, in the Siberian waters.