 From September 1895 to June 1896 Bruce worked at the Ben Nevis summit meteorological station , where he gained further experience in scientific procedures and with meteorological instruments . In June 1896 , again on the recommendation of Mill , he left this post to join the Jackson – Harmsworth Expedition , then in its third year in the Arctic on Franz Josef Land . This expedition , led by Frederick George Jackson and financed by newspaper magnate Alfred Harmsworth , had left London in 1894 . It was engaged in a detailed survey of the Franz Josef archipelago , which had been discovered , though not properly mapped , during an Austrian expedition 20 years earlier . Jackson 's party was based at Cape Flora on Northbrook Island , the southernmost island of the archipelago . It was supplied through regular visits from its expedition ship Windward , on which Bruce sailed from London on 9 June 1896 . 
