It will be interesting to English readers to learn a few particulars concerning the two leaders of the Austrian North Polar Expeditions. Carl Weyprecht was born in Hesse-Darmstadt in 1838, and in his eighteenth year entered the Austrian navy. Ten years afterwards he was present at the action between the Austrian and Italian fleets at Lissa—July 20, 1866; was promoted to the rank of lieutenant of the second class, and decorated with the order of the Iron Cross in recognition of his services in that battle. It was shortly after this, that Weyprecht volunteered to take the command of a small vessel, manned by only four seamen, which was to sail from Hammerfest to explore the Arctic Ocean. This dauntless offer was the basis of the first German North Polar expedition. When, however, permission to act in this capacity was obtained, Lieutenant Weyprecht was serving on board the Austrian frigate Elizabeth, which formed one of the squadron sent by the Austrian Government to bring home the body of the ill-fated Maximilian. Immediately on his return to Europe he repaired to Gotha, eager to place his services at the command of the expedition which had meantime been planned by Petermann and a committee of patrons of Arctic exploration. But unhappily, just at this moment his health, which had suffered from fever caught at New Orleans, failed, and the command of the expedition, known as the first German North Polar Expedition (May 24-October 10, 1868), was undertaken by Captain Koldewey. It was only in 1871 that he recovered his health, and in the June of that year began, in the IsbjÖrn, his life of Arctic experience and discovery. In the following year, 1872, he was appointed to the naval command of the expedition which sailed in the Tegetthoff, whose strange and eventful history is recorded in the following pages.

His companion and colleague, Julius Payer, was born at SchÖnau in Teplitz, Bohemia, in 1841, and received his education as a soldier at the Wiener-Neustadt Military Academy, 1856-59, where General Sonnklar was his teacher in geographical science, and early imbued his mind with a love for the grandeurs of the glacier world. With the rank of “Ober-Lieutenant” he served in the campaign of 1866 in Italy, and was decorated for his distinguished services at the battle of Custozza. Afterwards, while serving with his regiment in Tyrol, he gained great celebrity as one of the most successful Alpine climbers, and turned his experience as a mountaineer to profit in his surveys of the Orteler Alps and glaciers. Payer gained his first experience as an Arctic discoverer in the second German North Polar Expedition, under Koldewey and Hegemann—June 15, 1869-Sept. 11, 1870. His services during that expedition were of a most distinguished character. He shared in the most important discoveries which were then made, specially those of KÖnig Wilhelm’s Land, and of the noble Franz-Josef Fjord. He acquired in East Greenland the experience of sledging, which was of such eminent use in his explorations of the great discovery of the Tegetthoff Expedition—Kaiser Franz-Joseph Land. He shines too as an author in his descriptions of Greenland scenes, in the Second German North Polar Voyage, published in 1874 by Brockhaus of Leipzig, and partially reproduced in an English translation by the Rev. L. Mercier and Mr. H. W. Bates. For these services, on the return of the expedition, he was again decorated, receiving the order of the Iron Crown.

In the voyage of the IsbjÖrn, June 21-Oct. 4, 1871, we find him associated with Weyprecht in the pioneering voyage described in the earlier part of this work, and lastly as joint commander of the renowned Tegetthoff expedition, June, 1872-September, 1874.

The Gold Medals entrusted to the Royal Geographical Society were awarded in 1875: the Founder’s Medal to Lieutenant Weyprecht, and the Patron’s Medal to Lieutenant Julius Payer.

As these pages are passing through the Press, the country has been deeply moved by the unexpected intelligence of the return of the Arctic Expedition. Gratulations on its safe and happy return have been unanimously and eagerly expressed by all the organs of public opinion. Disappointment, however, has, we fear, fallen on many minds as, after the first feelings of joy at the safe arrival of the officers and crews of the Alert and Discovery, they read the brief telegraphic summary sent by Captain Nares: “Pole impracticable,”—“No land to northward.” Popular enthusiasm looked rather for the conquest of the Pole; expected, perhaps, to read, one day, that the Union Jack had been hoisted there, to commemorate the triumph of England’s perseverance at last rewarded. Few, we apprehend, would pass through the chill of these two clauses of the message to mark the hope contained in the third—“voyage otherwise successful.” In what special respects the success proclaimed was achieved, we must patiently wait for a future record to reveal; but while awaiting the history which no doubt will be written to justify and prove this announcement, let us exercise our loyal belief in the skill and courage of our countrymen, and feel persuaded that what men could do under their circumstances no doubt was done by them.

The interest which will be excited afresh in Arctic discovery and adventure, will doubtless sharpen the interest in the volumes which record the fortunes of the Austrian expedition; and we venture to affirm—without undue partiality—that, though the history of Arctic exploration and discovery abounds in records of lofty resolution and patient endurance of almost incredible hardships, the narrative of the voyage of the Tegetthoff will be found to fall below none in these high qualities. The mere destiny of the vessel itself equals, if it does not exceed, in the element of the marvellous, anything which has before been recorded. Surely this is borne out when we think, that on August 20, 1872, the Tegetthoff was beset off the coast of Novaya Zemlya; remained a fast prisoner in the ice, spite of all the efforts made by her officers and crew to release her; drifted during the autumn and the terrible winter of 1872—amid profound darkness—whither they knew not; drifted to the 30th of August in the following year (1873), till, as if by magic, the mists lifted, and lo! a high, bold, rocky coast—lat. 79° 43' E., long. 59° 33'—loomed out of the fog straight ahead of them. Close to this land—which could be visited with safety only twice, on the 1st and 3rd of November of that year—the ship remained still fast bound in the ice. Not till the winter of 1873 had passed, and the sun had again returned, was it possible to explore the land, which had been so marvellously discovered. On the 10th of March, 1874, the sledge journeys commenced, and terminated May 3rd, after 450 miles had been passed over, and the surveys and explorations completed, which enabled Payer to write the description of Kaiser Franz-Josef Land (pp. 258-270), which shows that other still undefined lands, with an archipelago of islands, have been added to the geography of the earth.

But the perils of the expedition did not end here. On the 20th of August, 1874, it was resolved to abandon the Tegetthoff in the ice, and to return in sledges and boats to Europe. Captain Nares tells us, in his telegraphic despatch, that the sledging parties of the Alert and Discovery compassed on an average one-and-a-quarter mile per day on the terrible “Sea of Ancient Ice,” and discovered, after the experience gained in seventy miles passed under these conditions, that the “Pole was impracticable.” If our readers wish to have a conception of the toils and perils of the Austrian sledge parties on their return from the Tegetthoff let them mark the single image presented to the mind by the statement (p. 364):—“After the lapse of two months of indescribable efforts, the distance between us and the ship was not more than nine English miles.” Had the ice on the Novaya Zemlya seas remained as obstinate as it seems to have done in the new desolation, the “Sea of Ancient Ice,” escape would have been as impossible to the Tegetthoff’s crew, as advance towards the Pole was to the sledge parties of our last Arctic expedition. But fortunately, soon after, “leads” opened out in the ice; the boats were launched, and after about another month of alternate rowing and sledging, the ice barrier was happily reached in the unusually high latitude 77° 40'; and the brave men who three months before had left the Tegetthoff were saved.

This is perhaps the most marked analogy between the perils of the two expeditions; so far as those of our own are yet known. But the scientific conclusions of Lieutenant Payer, as set forth in the general Introduction to his narrative, strikingly harmonize with the actual discoveries of the Alert and Discovery. Already it is authoritatively announced, that there is no open Polar Sea; that this hypothesis is as baseless as the existence of President’s Land. In the fourth chapter of that Introduction (pp. 25-31), our author has analysed with great sagacity the various theories on which that hypothesis was made to rest, working up to the conclusion, that no such sea exists. The demonstration of experience now takes the place of enlightened argument and opinion; fact and theory are here at one.

Nor can we forbear to direct attention to another statement in the same chapter. Let our readers mark the prophetic spirit of the following passage: “All the changes and phenomena of this mighty network lead us to infer the existence of frozen seas up to the Pole itself; and according to my own experience, gained in three expeditions, I consider that the states of the ice between 82° and 90° N. L. will not essentially differ from those which have been observed south of latitude 82°; I incline rather to the belief that they will be found worse instead of better” (p. 30). And “worse instead of better” they have been found, as we cannot doubt, when we weigh the ominous significance of the designation the “Sea of Ancient Ice.”

History may or may not verify the position which the telegram so briefly resumes—“The Pole impracticable.” Impracticable no doubt it was, if the condition of the ice seen by our expedition in that awful sea be its normal condition. All that it was possible for men to dare and achieve, England will feel that her officers and sailors dared and achieved under the circumstances they encountered. It may be, that later experience will show, that even that Sea may present to future explorers an aspect less tremendous; yea, that in some seasons, which science may yet predict, when her theories of the sun-spots are matured and formulated, open water will be found, as perhaps it was found in the year of the expedition of the Polaris, where the heroic sledging parties from the Alert and Discovery saw nothing and found nothing, but piled-up barriers of ice rising to the height of 150 feet.

It would be idle to predict, in the face of these results, that the Pole shall yet be reached. Any confident prediction in this spirit would, at the present moment, be singularly inopportune, as well as unwise. But despair would be equally unjustifiable, while its influence would be most hurtful and depressing, especially if Arctic exploration and the attainment of the Pole were supposed to be identical propositions. There are two things: reaching the North Pole, and the exploration of the Polar region. If the former appeals more to the imagination, and readily calls forth the emotions which are fed by the love of the marvellous, the latter enlists the sympathies of those who take a broader view of the necessities of Arctic exploration. These have found a powerful representative in one whose services entitle him to speak with authority, in the naval chief of the Tegetthoff expedition. At a meeting of the German Scientific and Medical Association held at Gratz in September of 1875, Weyprecht read a paper on the principles of Arctic exploration, in which, according to the summary of its contents, which appeared in Nature, October 11, 1875, he maintains, that the Polar regions offer, in certain important respects, greater advantages than any other part of the globe for the observation of natural phenomena—Magnetism, the Aurora, Meteorology, Geology, ZoÖlogy, and Botany. He deplores, that while large sums have been spent and much hardship endured for geographical knowledge, strictly scientific observations have been regarded as holding a secondary place. Though not denying the importance of geographical discovery, he maintains, that the main purpose of future Arctic expeditions should be the extension of our knowledge of the various natural phenomena which may be studied with so great advantage in those regions. He insists in that paper on the following propositions:—“1. Arctic exploration is of the highest importance to a knowledge of the laws of nature. 2. Geographical discovery in those regions is of superior importance only in so far as it extends the field of scientific investigation in its strict sense. 3. Minute Arctic topography is of secondary importance. 4. The geographical Pole has for science no greater significance than any other point in high latitude. 5. Observation stations should be selected without reference to the latitude, but for the advantages they offer for the investigation of the phenomena to be studied. 6. Interrupted series of observations have only a relative value.” The suggestions thrown out by Lieutenant Weyprecht have been taken up by one whose mind seems to rise instinctively to all high aims and objects. Prince Bismarck forthwith appointed a German Commission of Arctic Exploration, consisting of some of the most eminent men of science of whom Germany can boast, who reported to the Bundesrath in a memoir, the recommendations of which were unanimously adopted. From Nature, November 11, 1875, which we have already quoted, we borrow the following rÉsumÉ of that report:—

Thus we are brought face to face with two different purposes, which may be termed, respectively, the romantic and the scientific purposes of Arctic discovery. To the former the attainment of the Pole has hitherto been the all in all of a geographical discovery. “The Pole impracticable,” telegraphed by Captain Nares, as the result of the expedition which has returned baffled to our shores, is a stern reproof to all who would still advocate a dash at the Pole as the worthiest purpose of Arctic discovery. Aims and endeavours not so glaring, nor appealing in the same degree to the love of the marvellous, are suggested in the sagacious proposals of Lieutenant Weyprecht, to whom science will not refuse her calmer and more measured respect, and in whom, as Captain of the Tegetthoff, all who love deeds of daring and energy will find a congenial spirit.

To Lieutenant Payer has fallen the distinguished honour of being not only the colleague in command and friend of Weyprecht, but the historian of their common sufferings and common glory in an enterprise, the fame of which the world, we believe, will not willingly let die.