Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 7.djvu/343

Rh illustrious names of the Austrian aristocracy, and a considerable sum of money was soon collected. The equipment of the mariners was the object of careful solicitude; they were so provided for that, without dreading cold and snow, they might go away hundreds of miles from the ship and be absent for months. The principal aim of the expedition was to study the unknown regions of the Polar Sea north of Siberia, and to see if it were possible to reach Behring Strait by this route; it was only as a secondary object, a kind of last resort, that the expedition could direct its course toward extreme latitudes; it was only permitted to venture in the direction of the pole if, in the course of two winters and three summers, it did not succeed in doubling the extreme promontory of Asia. The point of official departure of the scientific excursion was the northern coast of Nova Zembla.

The Tegethoff, having on board twenty-four persons, set sail from Tromsoë, Norway, on the 14th of July. Some days after a yacht sailed from the same port with Count Wilczek on board, whose purpose was to establish on an eastern point of the Arctic Ocean a depot of coal and provisions for the Tegethoff. On the 21st of August, off Cape Napan, between Nova Zembla and the mouth of the Petchora, the yacht lost sight of the steamer. More than two years passed before any news was received of the missing ship. Great was the anxiety in Austria and in the whole civilized world; heaven and earth were moved to aid the navigators who had so strangely disappeared. Count Wilczek had a quantity of small India-rubber balloons made, which, supplied with dispatches, were distributed to the whalers sailing for the northern seas, with directions to let them loose in the different stations of these territories. The Geographical Society of London gave an express mission to a ship bound for Spitzbergen, to inquire everywhere for the Tegethoff. The Russian Minister of the Navy, Mr. Siderof, instigated a public reunion for the purpose of sending a salvage expedition upon the traces of the unfortunate steamer.

Suddenly, on the 3d of last September, just at the epoch predicted by Dr. Petermann, who had constantly maintained that news of the explorers must not be expected before the autumn of 1874, a report was spread abroad from Vienna that the lost sailors had just landed in Europe. Some days after they made their entrance into the Austrian capital, welcomed by enthusiastic cheers whose echoes are still heard. The expedition, as often happens in these unconquerable polar seas, was not able to follow the terms of the official instructions. The Tegethoff, from the 21st of August, 1872, the same day when Count Wilczek saw her for the last time, found herself irretrievably invested by ice. In endeavoring to get free from this fatal imprisonment, the crew and the ship remained the passive sport of chance; on the 13th of October, the vessel received a thrust that lifted it up, and inflicted upon it heavy bruises. Let any one judge how agitated and terrible