We have already seen that Captain Koldewey was charged to explore the eastern coast of Greenland in the _Germania_ in 1868. In 1869 the _Germania_ was again despatched under his command from Bremerhaven, in company with the _Hansa_, a sailing vessel. Lieutenant Payer and other Austrian _savants_ accompanied Captain Koldewey. The attack was again made along the eastern shores of Greenland. As far as the 74th degree the two vessels kept company; but at this stage it happened unfortunately that a signal from the _Germania_ was misinterpreted, and the _Hansa_ left her. Soon after, the _Hansa_ was crushed by masses of drifting ice, and her crew and passengers took refuge on an immense ice-floe seven miles in circumference. Here they built a hut, which was in its turn crushed. Winds and currents carried their icy home about, and at length broke it up. Fortunately they had saved their boats, and were able to reach Friedrichsthal, a missionary station in the south of Greenland, whence they were conveyed to Copenhagen in September, 1870. Returning to the _Germania_, we find that she had a less unfortunate experience. She entered the labyrinth of sinuous fjords, separated by lofty promontories, and girt round by gigantic glaciers, which characterize the eastern coast of Greenland to the north of Scoresby Sound. In August the channels by which she had entered were closed, and the _Germania_ was imprisoned. So soon as the ice would bear them, Koldewey and his companions made sledging excursions to various points around their ship. But in November the darkness of the polar winter settled down upon them, and these excursions ceased. The polar winter of 1869–70 was “characterized by a series of violent northerly tempests, one of which continued more than 100 hours, with a velocity (measured by the anemometer) of no less than sixty miles an hour”—a velocity often surpassed, indeed, but which must have caused intense suffering to all who left the shelter of the ship; for it is to be remembered that the air which thus swept along at the rate of a mile a minute was the bitter air of the Arctic regions. The thermometer did not, however, descend lower than 26° below zero, or 58° below the freezing-point—a cold often surpassed in parts of the United States. I have myself experienced a cold of more than 30° below zero, at Niagara. “With proper precautions as regards shelter and clothing,” proceeds the narrative, “even extreme cold need not cause great suffering to those who winter in such regions. One of the worst things to be endured is the physical and moral weariness of being cut off from external observations during the long night of some ninety days, relieved only by the strange Northern Lights. The ice accumulates all round with pressure, and assumes peculiar and fantastic forms, emitting ever and anon ominous noises. Fortunately, the _Germania_ lay well sheltered in a harbour opening southwards, and, being protected by a rampart of hills on the north, was able to resist the shock of the elements. The sun appearing once more about the beginning of February, the scientific work of exploration began.... The pioneers of the _Germania_ advanced as far as the 77th degree of latitude, in longitude 18° 50´ west from Greenwich. There was no sign of an open sea towards the Pole. _Had it not been for want of provisions, the party could have prolonged their sledge journey indefinitely._ The bank of ice, without remarkable protuberances, extends to about two leagues from the shore, which from this extreme point seems to trend towards the north-west, where the view was bounded by lofty mountains.” As the expedition was only equipped for one winter, it returned to Europe in September, 1870, without having crossed the 78th parallel of north latitude.