WEYPRECHT, KARL (1838-81), German polar explorer, was born on Sept. 8, 1838, at Konig in Odenwald, Germany. In 1856 he became a cadet in the Austrian navy and in 1861 an officer. He made several voyages to the Orient and to America and spent two years on a coast-survey of Dalmatia. At his instance two expeditions were sent out to explore Novaya Zemlya and to at tempt a northeast passage. That of 1871 reached 78° 48' north. In 1872 the second got caught in the ice off Novaya Zemlya and drifted north and west for over a year. On Aug. 3o, 1873, Wey precht and his men caught sight of Franz Joseph Land, previ ously unknown. They wintered on one of the islands and spent the first half of the summer in 1874 making extensive explorations. In the autumn they returned to Novaya Zemlya, having spent almost three years in the Arctic. Weyprecht urged that scien tific methods and investigation should dominate polar exploration and advocated a series of simultaneous, co-operative observations from polar observing stations. His plan was reported favorably
by the International Meteorological Congress and studied by two successive international polar conferences held at Hamburg and Berne. As a result 15 expeditions were sent out by 11 coun tries, the historic Greeley expedition being one of the two financed by the United States. Weyprecht published Die Metamorphosen des Polareises (1879), and Praktische Anleitung zur Beobachtung der Polarlichter und der magnetischen Erscheinungen in hohen Breiten (1881). The best account of the Franz Joseph Land expe dition is the translated account of his lieutenant J. Payer; New Lands Within the Arctic Circle (2 vol., 1876). Weyprecht died in Michelstadt on Mar. 29, 1881.