Meanwhile much good work was being done in other directions in extending Arctic research. Franz Josef Land was explored, chiefly by Austrian, British, and American expeditions. Nathorst, a Swede, circumnavigated the Spitsbergen archipelago in 1898, and discovered and mapped King Oscar Fjord in Greenland in the following year. Sverdrup, Nansen’s friend and companion, sailed up Jones Sound and charted many previously unknown parts in 1899 and the following years. The story of a continent existing to the north of Bering Strait and extending right across the pole to Greenland, which was believed by many explorers, was disproved by De Long in his ill-fated voyage in the _Jeannette_ in 1879, during which the whole party perished, though the ship’s books were afterwards found. This voyage and the journeys of the ships sent in search of De Long proved that north of Siberia lay an ocean dotted with islands. Much work was done in exploring the New Siberian Islands by the Russian, Toll, who lost his life in an effort to reach the most northerly and unknown portion of the group. In 1903–4 Amundsen in the _Gjöa_ undertook an expedition to the North Magnetic Pole, where he carried out a continuous series of observations for two years with important scientific results. He returned by Bering Strait, thus for the first time completing the navigation of the North-west Passage. The Danes worked hard at charting the east coast of Greenland, and the outline of the north-eastern extremity of the country was accurately delineated for the first time by the expedition of L. Mylius Erichsen (1905–07), on which he and his companions perished, though their splendid records and observations were found by a relief expedition. The crowning achievement of reaching the pole itself was accomplished in 1909 by Peary, after several previous journeys. He had spent four consecutive winters in the Arctic regions exploring Smith Sound and the north of Greenland, from 1899 to 1902; and in 1905 he had again attempted to reach the pole by Smith Sound and Grant Land, touching 87° 6´ N. At or near the pole there was no land to be seen, and the sea was 1,500 fathoms deep. Thus there remains no Arctic problem of the first magnitude to-day. The main outline of the Arctic region as a great and deep sea surrounded by the northern shores of Europe, Asia, America, and Greenland, is known, though there is still a large portion of the polar basin north of Alaska as yet untouched by explorers. Here, however, some high authorities believe that a considerable extent of land remains to be discovered beyond the Beaufort Sea. Even now maps show a doubtful coast-line some fifty miles due north of Point Barrow, and in 1913 an expedition left Canada under Stefansson with the solution of this problem as its main object. _(b) Antarctic._