New lands within the Arctic circle: Narrative of the discoveries of the Austrian ship "Tegetthoff" in the years 1872-1874Payer, Julius
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New lands within the Arctic circle: Narrative of the discoveries of the Austrian ship "Tegetthoff" in the years 1872-1874
Payer, Julius
Admiral Tegetthoff (Ship); Arctic regions; Franz Josef Land (Russia) -- Discovery and exploration
which the wind had deposited in this hollow. At noon we reached the high
precipitous termination of Sonklar-Glacier, and pitched our tent by an
iceberg.
[Illustration: MELTING SNOW DURING A HALT NEAR CAPE BERGHAUS.]
13. In the afternoon, accompanied by the Tyrolese, I ascended a
mountain—Cape Littrow—whose height, by means of an aneroid barometer,
we ascertained to be 2,500 feet. From its summit we had a view of the
mountains of Hall Island, and of the islands which lay to the east.
Not a breath of wind was stirring, and the atmosphere was clearer than
usual, so that, without suffering in the least degree from cold, I could
work for three hours, first in sketching our surroundings and then in
taking observations. From south-west to north-east the peaks of distant
mountains rose above the summits of those in the foreground. This view,
while it assured us that the land we had named after our monarch must be
of great extent, stimulated our impatience to know its extent, and the
nature and relation of its constituent parts. The Wüllersdorf Mountains
were the extreme limits of what could be known for the present, and
their three peaks glowed in the setting sun above the dark edges of the
terraces of the Sonklar-Glacier, whose broad terminal front over-hung the
frozen bay of Nordenskjöld Fiord. It was eight o’clock in the evening
when we returned to our tent, not, however, before we had made suitable
preparations for the observation of the movement of the glacier. Sumbu
and Torossy were our companions; but we had to tie them with a rope both
in going up and coming down, and we ourselves only mastered the great
steepness of the cone of the mountain by steps which Klotz, who went
on before, hewed with incomparable dexterity and precision in the ice.
During the night the temperature fell to 46° below zero (C.) (-47° F.
in the ship), and I do not believe that we could have passed through it
without the help of grog. We drank it as we lay close together muffled up
in our sleeping bag. It was boiling hot, and so strong, that under other
circumstances it must have made us incapable of work, yet in spite of the
grog, we suffered much all through the night from cold and our frozen
clothes.
CHAPTER V.
THE COLD.
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