And here the brave commander’s diary tragically ends. Some months later Melville, who had made his way to the coast in a less inhospitable region, and had organised a search-party as soon as he heard of De Long’s plight, came upon the camp. “Suddenly,” he says, “I caught sight of three objects, and one of these was the hand and arm of a body raised out of the snow.... I identified De Long at a glance by his coat. He lay on his right side, with his right hand under his cheek, his head pointing north, and his face turned towards the west. His feet were drawn slightly up, as though he were sleeping; his left arm was raised with the elbow bent, and his hand, thus horizontally lifted, was bare. About four feet back of him, or towards the east, I found his small notebook, or ice-journal, where he had tossed it with his left hand, which looked as though it had never recovered from the act, but had frozen as I found it, upraised.” During his ill-fated cruise, De Long not only made a number of valuable physical observations in an unknown region, but he also proved the Siberian Ocean to be a shallow basin dotted with islands, and exploded the theory of a great continent to the north of Asia. CHAPTER XXVII LEIGH SMITH AND THE “EIRA” Not a little of our knowledge of Spitzbergen and Franz Josef Land is due to the exertions of that able yachtsman and hunter, Leigh Smith, of whom mention has already been made in connection with his rescue of the unfortunate Swedes at Mussel Bay. Leigh Smith first comes into the story of Arctic Exploration early in the ’seventies, when in a series of three voyages, he examined the coast of Spitzbergen and corrected several errors which then obtained credence concerning the outline of North-East Land. Valuable as were the scientific results of these voyages, however, we need not concern ourselves particularly with them, and it is not until 1880, when he paid his first visit to Franz Josef Land, that we have to enter into the story of his doings in any detail. Experience had taught him that discoveries could always be made in the icy seas by perseverance and by promptly seizing any opportunities that might arise, so, when he decided to make another expedition northward, he made up his mind to sail for the Spitzbergen seas, to conduct a careful examination of the ice over a large area, and then to prosecute his researches in the direction which seemed most promising. With this end in view, he had built for himself a steam yacht of 360 tons burden and 50 horse-power, which he named the _Eira_, and with a company of twenty-nine, he set sail for the north in June 1880.