Of food they always had plenty, living very largely on the game killed. During the last winter they were at Elmwood a chief article of diet was an Arctic bird, the loon. Great numbers of these visited the islands in the mild seasons, and in the autumn before the expedition returned 1400 were shot and frozen for winter food. As the loons only arrive during the mild season and disappear as soon as winter sets in, Mr. Jackson, in the last autumn he was at Elmwood, caught a number both of loons and kittiwakes, and having attached a copper label to each, with the letter J. engraved upon it, liberated the lot. By this means it is hoped to learn where the birds go to in the winter, for should any bird bearing a copper label be shot in Scotland, Norway, or elsewhere, it will show where their refuge is situated. The primary object of the expedition was to make a complete exploration of Franz Josef Land, which was formerly considered to be merely the southern extremity of a vast tract of land, possibly a second Greenland, and extending up towards the Pole. The result of the three years' work was to effectually disprove this opinion by showing that in place of a continent there was only a group of small scattered islands. Various voyagers had returned from time to time and reported observations of land in the locality, with high mountain ranges. Gillies Land, Petermann Land, and King Oscar Land all had existence on the maps; but the Jackson-Harmsworth party could only find scattered islands where the coast of Franz Josef Land was charted, and hummocks of piled-up ice where mountain ridges had been seen. Of Gillies Land, Petermann Land, and King Oscar Land no trace could be found. When the expedition went on board the _Windward_ to return to England, the vessel steamed north-west for fifty miles without seeing any indication of land, the water being open and with less ice than would have been probable had land been near. And yet they were in the locality where Gillies Land was marked on the chart. A journey was also made to within ten miles of the spot where Eastern Johannessen Land was placed on the chart, but no signs of land were visible, although the weather was clear at the time.