Arctic Ocean. Captain Hall, in company with Dr. Bessels, starting from Newfoundland on the 29th of June, on the ship Polaris, shaped his course toward Smith's Strait, discovered by Kane seventeen years before, and at the end of August landed on Grinnell Land, in 80° north latitude. He ascended afterward to Kennedy's Channel, and penetrated into a narrow sound for about 100 leagues, where no mariner had ever ventured before. This passage was called Robeson, in honor of the Secretary of the Navy of the United States. Captain Hall advanced by this new route, that probably ended in the famous central arctic basin, as far as latitude 82° 16', touching the extreme point on the 3d of September. There he perceived on the north a vast extent of open water that he called Lincoln Sea, and farther on another ocean, or a bay, on the west of which the outlines of a coast were delineated; this country was named Grant Laud. Everywhere a fauna appeared similar to that of Greenland; herds of musk-oxen, white hares, and other polar animals, were seen, and they even thought that traces of human beings were perceptible. The crew was eager to make an opening through the iceberg; but the sailing-master of the expedition, Captain Buddington, would not permit the attempt, and the Polaris returned to winter in Robeson's Channel, in latitude a little above 81°. The death of Captain Hall, occurring in the month of November, put an end to every new endeavor to make any further advance on the northern coast; the winter was passed in inaction, and when the warm breath of the following summer had put the waters in motion, and delivered the Polaris from the fetters that bound her, the travelers hastened to descend to the south. The return was not entirely unimpeded. The ship underwent a terrible pressure; a part of the men, separated by chance from their companions, took refuge on an ice-floe, where they remained miserably stranded for 240 days. This ice-field, like the one that bore the waifs of the Hansa, was constantly drifting toward the south, and visibly shrinking, until, on the 30th of April, the shipwrecked sailors were seen by a passing steamer. As to the rest of the crew of the Polaris, obliged to abandon the leaky ship, they wintered on Littleton Island, whence they set out once more, on the following summer, in two boats procured from a Scotch whaler.
All these eventful voyages, so curious and exciting, are surpassed by the recent exploit of the steamer Tegethoff, whose almost fabulous experience was only known in Europe during the month of last September. Lieutenants Payer and Weyprecht, immediately after their return from the expedition of 1871, were detailed to prepare a new one. Nothing was neglected to give a character of unusual grandeur to this exclusively Austro-Hungarian enterprise. Two eminent friends of science, the Counts Wilczek and Zichy, lent to it their material and moral aid; the Royal Geographical Society, in February, 1872, advised the formation of a special committee, including among its members the most
