in the history of arctic exploration. The ship was frozen in off the coast of Nova Zembla from August till October, 1872, when the ice broke up, and they found themselves fixed upon an ice-floe helplessly drifting, but, strangely enough, to the northward. Drifting fourteen months in this way, mere passengers on an ice-floe, they were at last driven ashore and frozen in on a coast which they had discovered, but were unable to reach, two months before. This was in 79° 43' north latitude, and 60° 23' east longitude. It was now November, 1873, and they had passed the eightieth parallel. The long polar winter of 175 days set in, and the cold was so severe that the quicksilver remained frozen for weeks, and the darkness in midwinter was intense. The land, to which they gave the name of Franz-Joseph Land, was a most desolate region. In April, 1874, they set out in sledges and reached 81° 57' north latitude, coming upon a country which they called Crown-Prince Land, whose cliffs were covered with thousands of ducks and auks; seals lay upon the ice, and there were traces of bears, hares, and foxes. Here, over a sea comparatively free from ice, they saw land in the distance, which seemed to stretch beyond the eighty-third parallel of north latitude. Their return-journey was one of over three months' hardship, make in sledges and boats.
In Europe, the long-projected measurement of an arc of the meridian was begun last autumn.
Archæological researches have been prosecuted in Dr. Schliemann's excavations of ancient Troy; and, while many doubt its identity, M. Emile Burnouf, Mr. Gladstone, the late premier, Prof. Keller, of Freiberg, and other eminent scholars, are of the opinion that it is really the city of Priam that has been discovered. But whether the site be Troy, or not, in the twenty thousand objects unearthed we have records which carry us back to the childhood of the world. The excavations in Pompeii show that only a small part of the city has as yet been opened. Every extension adds new objects, none of which are of more interest than its paintings; without these we would have been unable to judge of the excellence to which the Greeks had arrived in the art of painting; for, while their architecture and sculpture have endured, the paintings of their great masters have perished. In Rome, the excavations have disclosed many objects connected with ancient Roman life, public and private. In the tomb of a priest, the gold threads that were woven into his robe remained when every thing else had crumbled into dust.
An ancient Egyptian medical treatise has been discovered by Prof. Ebers, of Leipsic, which, by a calendar on the back of the papyrus, discloses that it was written 1,600 years before Christ.
In Asia, the geographical explorations and researches have, during the year, been numerous and widely distributed. The Sea of Aral has been surveyed, and found to be 165 feet above the level of the ocean, and 250 feet above the Caspian. The river Oxus, which empties into
