On the 11th/1st September this Rodivan Ivanov suffered shipwreck with two vessels on Serapoa Koska (Serapov's Bank), probably situated in the Southern part of the Kara Sea. The ice was thrown up here in winter into lofty ice-casts with such a crashing noise that "the world was believed to be coming to an end," and at high water with a strong breeze the whole island was submerged with the exception of some knolls. On one of these the winter house was erected. It was built of clay, which was kneaded with the blood and hair of the seal and walrus. This mixture hardened to a solid mass, of which the walls were built with the help of boards from the vessel. The house thus afforded good protection not only from cold and bad weather, but also from bears. A furnace was also built inside the house and fired with driftwood collected on the beach. Train oil from the captured animals was used for lighting. There wintered here fifteen men in all, of whom eleven died of scurvy. Want of exercise perhaps mainly conduced to bring on this disease. For most of them did not leave the house during the winter night, five weeks long. Those were most healthy who had most exercise, as, for instance, the mate, who was the youngest among the crew, and therefore had to go round the island to collect wood. Another cause of the great mortality was the total want of provisions brought from home. For the first eight days their food consisted of seaweed dredged up from the bottom of the sea, with which some meal was mixed. Afterwards they ate the flesh of the seal and walrus, and of the Polar bear and the fox. The flesh of the bear and the walrus, however, was considered unclean[160] on which account it was eaten only in case of necessity, and the flesh of the fox had an unpleasant flavour. Sometimes the want of food was so great that they were compelled to eat the leather of their boots and furs. The number of the seals and walruses which they caught was so great, "that the killed animals, laid together, would have formed a heap ninety fathoms in length, of the same breadth, and six feet high."[161] They found, besides, on the island a stranded whale.

In spring Samoyeds came from the mainland, and plundered the Russians of part of their catch. Probably for fear of the Samoyeds, the surviving hunters did not go over the ice to the mainland, but remained on the desert island until by a fortunate accident they were rescued by some of their countrymen engaged in a hunting expedition. In connection with the account of this voyage Witsen states that the previous year a Russian hunting vessel stranded east of the Ob.

It is probable that towards the close of the sixteenth century the Russian hunting voyages to Novaya Zemlya had already fallen off considerably. The commercial voyages perhaps had long before altogether ceased. It appears as if after the complete conquest of Siberia the land route over the Ural mountains, formerly regarded with such superstitious feelings, was preferred to the unsafe sea route across the Kara Sea, and as if the Government even put obstacles in the way of the latter by setting watches at Matvejev Island and at Yugor Straits.[162] These were to receive payments from the hunters and merchants, and the regulations and exactions connected with this arrangement deprived the Polar Sea voyages of just that charm which had hitherto induced the bravest and hardiest of the population to devote themselves to the dangerous traffic to the Ob, and to the employment of hunting, in which they were exposed to so many dangers, and subject to so great privations.

The circumstance to which we have referred may also be the reason why we do not know of a single voyage in this part of the Polar Sea during the period which elapsed from the voyage of Rodivan Ivanov to "the great Northern Expedition." It examined, among other parts of the widely extended north coast of the Russian empire, the southern portion also of the navigable waters here in question, in the years 1734, 35, under Muravjev and Paulov, and in 1736, 37 under Malygin, Skuratov, and Suchotin. Their main working field however did not lie here, but in Siberia itself; and I shall give an account of their voyages in the Kara Sea further on, when I come to treat of the development of our knowledge of the north coast of Asia. Here I will only state that they actually succeeded, after untold exertions, in penetrating from the White Sea to the Ob, and that the maps of the land between that river and the Petchora, which are still in use, are mainly grounded on the work of the great northern expedition, but that the bad repute of the Kara Sea also arose from the difficulties to which these explorers were exposed, difficulties owing in no small degree to the defective nature of the vessels, and a number of mistakes which were made in connection with their equipment, the choice of the time of sailing, &c.



Like all distant unknown regions, Novaya Zemlya was of old renowned for its richness in the noble metals. The report indeed has never been confirmed, and probably was occasioned only by the occurrence of traces of ore, and the beautiful gold-glancing film of pyrites with which a number of the fossils found here are covered; but it has, notwithstanding, given occasion to a number of voyages to Novaya Zemlya, of which the first known is that of the mate JUSCHKOV, in 1757. As the mate of a hunting-vessel he had observed the stones glittering with gold and silver, and he succeeded in convincing an Archangel tallow-merchant that they indicated great riches in the interior of the earth. In order to get possession of these treasures the tallow-merchant fitted out a vessel, promising Juschkov at the same time a reward of 250 roubles for the discovery. The whole undertaking, however, led to no result, because the discoverer of these treasures died during the passage to Novaya Zemlya (Luetke, p. 70).

Three years after, in 1760,[163] a hunting mate, SAVVA LOSCHKIN, a native of Olonets, hit on the idea, which was certainly a correct one, that the east coast of Novaya Zemlya, which was never visited by hunters, ought to be richer in game than other parts of the island. Induced by this idea, and probably also by the wish to do something extraordinary, he undertook a hunting expedition thither. Of this expedition we know only that he actually succeeded in travelling round the whole island, thanks to the resolution which led him to spend on this self-imposed task two winters and three summers. It was proved by this journey that Novaya Zemlya is actually an island, a fact which in the middle of last century was still doubted by many geographers.[164]

Even after the failure of Juschkov's expedition the report of the richness of Novaya Zemlya in metals still maintained itself, and accordingly Lieutenant[165] ROSSMUISLOV was sent out with second mate GUBIN, the Polar Sea pilot TSCHIRAKIN, and eleven men, to search for the supposed treasures, and at the same time to survey the unknown portions of the island. The vessel that was used in this Polar Sea voyage must have been a very remarkable one. For shortly before the start, leaks, which had to be stopped, were discovered at many different places in it, and of its power of sailing Rossmuislov himself says: "So long as the wind came from the stern the large sail helped us exceedingly well, but, as soon as it turned and became a head wind, we were compelled to hoist another smaller sail, in consequence of which we were driven back to the point from which we came." Rossmuislov appears to have been a very skilful man in his profession. Without meeting with any obstacle from ice, but at all events with difficulty enough in consequence of the unsuitableness of the vessel, he arrived at Matotschkin Sound, which he carefully surveyed and took soundings in. From a high mountain at its eastern mouth he saw on the 10th Sept./30th Aug. the Kara Sea completely free of ice—and the way to the Yenisej thus open; but his vessel was useless for further sailing. He therefore determined to winter at a bay named Tjulnaja Guba, near the eastern entrance to Matotschkin Sound. To this place he removed a house which some hunters had built on the sound farther to the west, and erected another house, the materials of which he had brought from home, on a headland jutting out into the sound a little more to the east. The latter I visited in 1876. The walls were then still standing, but the flat roof, loaded with earth and stones, had fallen in, as is often the case with deserted wooden houses in the Polar regions. The house was small, and had consisted of a lobby and a room with an immense fireplace, and sleeping places fixed to the walls.



On the 1st Oct./20th Sept., Matotschkin Sound was frozen over, and some days after the Kara Sea was covered with ice as far as the eye could reach. Storms from the north-east, west, and north-west, with drifting snow of such violence prevailed during the course of the winter that one could scarcely go ten fathoms from the house. In its neighbourhood a man was overtaken by such a storm of drifting snow while hunting a reindeer. When he did not return after two days' absence it was determined to note him in the journal as having "perished without burial."

On the 28/17th April, 1769, there was a storm from the south-west, with mist, rain, and hail as large as half a bullet. On the 2nd June/22nd May a dreadful wind raged from the north-west, bringing from the high mountains a "sharp smoke-like air,"—it was certainly a foehn wind. The painful, depressing effect of this wind is generally known from Switzerland and from north-western Greenland. At the latter place it rushes right down with excessive violence from the ice-desert of the interior. But far from on that account bringing cold with it, the temperature suddenly rises above the freezing-point, the snow disappears as if by magic through melting and evaporation, and men and animals feel themselves suffering from the sudden change in the weather. Such winds besides occur everywhere in the Polar regions in the neighbourhood of high mountains, and it is probably on their account that a stay in the hill-enclosed kettle-valleys is in Greenland considered to be very unhealthy and to lead to attacks of scurvy among the inhabitants.

The crew remained during the winter whole days, indeed whole weeks in succession, in their confined dwellings, carefully made tight, without taking any regular exercise in the open air. We can easily understand from this that they could not escape scurvy, by which most of them appear to have been attacked, and of which seven died, among them Tschirakin. It is surprising that any one of them could survive with such a mode of life during the dark Polar night. The brewing of quass, the daily baking of bread, and perhaps even the vapour-baths, mainly contributed to this.

On the 29/18th July the ice on Matotschkin Schar broke up, and on the 13th/2nd August the sound was completely free of ice. An attempt was now made to continue the voyage across the Kara Sea, and an endeavour was made for this purpose to put the vessel, defective from the first, and now still further damaged by ice, in repair, by stopping the leaks, as far as possible, with a mixture of clay and decayed seaweed. "Floating coffins" have often been used in Arctic voyages, and many times with greater success than the stateliest man-of-war. This time, however, Rossmuislov, after having sailed some few miles eastward from Matotschkin Sound, in order to avoid certain loss, had to return to his winter quarters, where he fortunately fell in with a Russian hunter, with whom he commenced his return to Archangel. No precious metals were found, nor "any pearl-mussels," but Tschirakin confided to Rossmuislov the secret that at a certain place on the south coast he had found a block of stone of such extraordinary beauty that in the light of day it shone with the most splendid fire. After Tschirakin's death Rossmuislov sought for the stone, but without success, and he therefore broke out in violent reproaches of his deceased comrade. I can, however, free him from the blame of deception; for, during my voyage in 1875, I found in several of the blocks of schist in the region small veins of quartz, crossing the mass of stone. The walls of these veins were covered with hundreds of sharply-developed rock crystals with mirror-bright faces. Tschirakin's precious stone was doubtless nothing else than a druse of this shining but valueless mineral.

Once more, nearly fifty years after Rossmuislov's voyage, in the year 1807, a miner, LUDLOW, was sent out to investigate more thoroughly the supposed richness of the island in metals. He returned without having found any ore, but with the first accounts of the geological formation of the country; and we have his companion POSPJELOV to thank for some careful surveys on the west coast of Novaya Zemlya.

The next expedition to the island was equipped and sent out from the naval dockyard at Archangel in 1819 under Lieutenant LASAREV, and had, in comparison with its predecessors, very abundant resources. But Lasarev was clearly unfit for the task he had undertaken, of commanding an Arctic exploratory expedition. In the middle of summer many of his crew were attacked by scurvy. Some few weeks after his departure from Archangel, at a time when pools of excellent drinking-water are to be found on nearly every large piece of drift-ice, and rapid torrents of melted snow empty themselves everywhere along the coast into the sea, he complains of the difficulty of procuring fresh water, &c. The expedition accordingly was altogether fruitless.



Of much greater importance were Captain-lieutenant (afterwards Admiral Count) LUeTKE's voyages to Novaya Zemlya in the summers of 1821, 1822, 1823, and 1824, voyages conducted with special skill and scientific insight. The narrative of them form one of the richest sources of our knowledge of this part of the Polar Sea. But as he did not penetrate in any direction farther than his predecessors, an account of these voyages does not enter into the plan of the historical part of this work.

Among Russian journeys the following may be noticed:—

Those of the mate IVANOV in 1822-28, during which he surveyed the coast between the Kara river and the Petchora by overland travelling in Samoyed sleighs.

PACHTUSSOV'S voyages in 1832-35.[166] W. BRANDT, merchant, and KLOKOV, chief of the civil service, at Archangel, sent out in 1832 an expedition with very comprehensive aims from that town, for the purpose of re-establishing the sea-route to the Yenisej, of surveying the east coast of Novaya Zemlya, and of walrus-hunting there. Three vessels were employed, viz., a "carbasse" manned by ten men, including the Commander-lieutenant in the corps of mates Pachtussov, who in previous voyages with Ivanov had become well acquainted with land and people along the coasts of the Polar Sea;[167] the schooner Yenisej under Lieutenat KROTOV with ten men; and a hunting lodja commanded by the hunting mate GWOSDAREV. Pachtussov was to undertake the east coast of Novaya Zemlya, Krotov to sail through Matotschkin Sound and across the Kara Sea to the Yenisej, and Gwosdarev to carry on hunting in order to cover part of the costs of the expedition.

Pachtussov could not penetrate into the Kara Sea, but wintered the first time on South Novaya Zemlya in 70 deg. 36' N.L. and 59 deg.32' E.L. (Greenwich), in an old house which lie found there, and which according to an inscription on a cross in its neighbourhood had been built in 1759. This ruinous house was repaired with driftwood, which was found in great abundance in that region. A separate bath-house was built, and was connected with the dwelling-house by a passage formed of empty barrels and covered with canvas. Eleven days were spent in putting the old house into such repair that it could be occupied. It was afterwards kept so warm that the inmates could stay there in their shirt-sleeves without freezing. The Commander, clear-headed and specially fit for his post as he was, did not permit his crew to fall into habits of idleness, dirt, and laziness, but kept them to regular work, bathing and change of linen twice a week. Every second hour meteorological observations were taken. During the whole winter the crew remained in good health, but in spring (March) scurvy broke out, notwithstanding the precautions that were taken, and two men died of it in May. Many times during winter the ice broke up, and at a short distance from the land the Kara Sea was open as far as the eye could reach. A herd of reindeer numbering about 500 head were seen in the end of September; a number of foxes were taken in traps, and two Polar hears were killed. Geese were seen for the first time in spring on the 27th/15th of May.

Next summer Pachtussov rowed up along the east coast to 71 deg. 38' N.L. On the west bank of a river, called Savina, he found a very good harbour. He found there the remains of a hut, with a cross erected beside it, on which was the inscription "Savva Th——anov 9th June 1742," which he considered to belong to the time of Savva Loschkin's voyage. After his return from this boat journey Pachtussov went on board his vessel and sailed along the east coast north of Matotschkin Sound from the 23rd/11th July to the 25th/13th August without meeting with any obstacle from ice. During this voyage he passed a very good harbour in 72 deg. 26' N.L., in a bay, called Luetke's Bay. Pachtussov then returned through Matotschkin Sound to the Petchora. Even along the east coast of North Novaya Zemlya the sea was open, but the stock of provisions, intended at their departure from Archangel for fourteen months, was now so low, that the gallant Polar explorer could not avail himself of this opportunity of perhaps circumnavigating the whole of Novaya Zemlya.

Of the two other vessels that sailed from Archangel at the same time as Pachtussov's, the lodja returned heavily laden with the spoils of the chase, but on the other hand nothing was ever heard of the Yenisej. A concern, not without justification, for its fate, and the desire to acquire as good knowledge of the east coast of the North Island as had been obtained of that of the South, gave occasion to Pachtussov's second voyage.

For this the Government fitted out two vessels, a schooner and a "carbasse," which were named after the two officers of the Yenisej, Krotov and Kasakov. The command of the former was undertaken by Pachtussov, and of the latter by the mate ZIVOLKA. This time they wintered in 1834-35 on the south side of Matotschkin Sound at the mouth of the river Tschirakina, in a house built for the purpose, for which they used, besides materials brought with them, the remains of three old huts, found in the neighbourhood, and the wreck of Rossmuislov's vessel which still lay on the beach. The house was a palace in comparison with that in which Pachtussov wintered before. It consisted of two rooms, one 21 feet by 16 feet, intended for the crew (fourteen men), the other 12 feet by 10 feet, for the officers and surgeon, with a bath-house in addition. Matotschkin Sound was frozen over for the first time on the 28/16th November. The thermometer never sank below the freezing-point of mercury, and the cold of winter could be easily borne, because the crew wore the Samoyed dress. But the snowstorms were so severe, that sometimes it was impossible for eight days at a time to leave the house, which was so snowed up that the opening in the roof for smoke had several times to be used as a door. The house had no true chimney, but was built like a Lapp hut. Eleven of the bears, who came in large numbers to the hut, were killed, one of them on the roof and another in the porch. During winter the crew were kept in constant employment in killing foxes and at other work. Their state of health was also very good for the circumstances of the time. Only two men died. In spring Matotschkin Sound and part of the east coast of the North Island were surveyed by means of sledge journeys, after which an attempt was made during summer to circumnavigate the North Island, but without success. Lightning accompanied by heavy rain was observed on the 24/12th June. On the 15th/3rd September they sailed back to Archangel. Unfortunately soon after his arrival there Pachtussov fell ill of nervous fever and died on the 19/7th November, 1835. It was a great loss, for by his devotion to the task he had undertaken, by judgment, courage, and endurance, he takes one of the foremost places among the Polar explorers of all countries. Besides, few of the older Arctic expeditions have brought home such a series of valuable astronomical determinations of position, geodetical measurements, meteorological and tidal observations, &c., as Pachtussov.[168]

In 1837 the famous naturalist K.E. VON BAER undertook a voyage to Novaya Zemlya, accompanied by Lieutenant ZIVOLKA, LEHMANN the geologist, ROeDER the draughtsman, and PHILIPPOV the conservator.[169] They visited Matotschkin Schar, penetrated by boat to its eastern end and found the Kara Sea open, landing afterwards at Besimannaja Bay, Nechvatova, and on an island in Kostin Schar. The expedition thus nowhere penetrated so far as its predecessors, but it is of importance as the first examination of the natural history of the Polar Sea surrounding Novaya Zemlya carried out by actual men of science. With all the respect we must entertain for von Baer's great name as a scientific man, it cannot be denied that, through his papers on the natural history of the island, grounded on a cursory inspection, a number of erroneous ideas regarding the natural conditions of the eastern Polar Sea obtained a footing in scientific literature.

In order to complete the survey of the island the Russian Government sent out in 1838 a new expedition under Lieutenants Zivolka and MOISSEJEV. They wintered in 1838-39 in Melkaja Guba on the west coast of Novaya Zemlya in 73 deg. 57' N.L.; but on this occasion Pachtussov's judgment and insight were wanting, and the wintering was very unfortunate. Of the twenty-five men belonging to the expedition most were attacked during winter by scurvy; nine died, among them Zivolka himself. During spring, excursions for the purpose of surveying the neighbouring coasts had to be broken off because they had not brought snow-glasses with them—a thing that Pachtussov did not neglect, being accustomed besides to blacken the under eyelid as a protection against the blinding brightness of the snow. By the expedition, however, considerable stretches of the west coast of Novaya Zemlya were surveyed, and valuable contributions to a knowledge of the climatic conditions of this region obtained. These turned out to be less severe than had been expected. During winter the thermometer never sank below -33 deg.; in July there were only two nights of frost, and on two occasions + 18 deg. was observed in the shade; in August there were only three hours of frost. All this depends of course on the neighbourhood of warm marine currents and of a sea open all the year round at a short distance from the coast.

With this unfortunate and to all appearance ill-arranged expedition the Russian Novaya Zemlya voyages ceased for a long time. For before the beginning of the Norwegian hunting we have only two other Russian voyages to notice in our sketch of the history of the North East passage.



The first of these owed its origin to the desire of the captain of a Russian man-of-war, PAUL VON KRUSENSTERN, to undertake a voyage in the Polar Sea in a schooner, the Yermak, which belonged to him and which was for the time lying at the Petchora, in order to survey the coasts lying to the eastward. He intended himself to undertake the command, and to take with him as second in command his son PAUL VON KRUSENSTERN. lieutenant in the Russian marine. The latter was sent before to equip the Yermak, which he did with wonderful judgment and skill, in the best way possible, in a region where at that time nearly every requisite for the equipment of a vessel was wanting. The elder Krusenstern was unable to reach the place of sailing in time, on which account the command was given to the son.



He left the mouth of the Petchora on the 10th Sept/29th Aug, 1860. Three days after he reached the Kara port, which was completely free of ice, as was the sea to the eastward. But the late season of the year, the defective equipment of the Yermak, and, it would appear, the wording of the orders he had received, compelled him to turn after he had penetrated some distance into the Kara Sea. On the 19/7th September accordingly he was again at the Petchora, without having reached his goal. The attempt to penetrate eastwards from this river was resumed at the instance of MICHAEL SIDOROFF, afterwards so well known as the restless promoter of sea-communication between Siberia and Europe. The Yermak was repaired, along with a decked Norwegian pilot-boat, which was named the Embrio. The command was undertaken by P. von Krusenstern, junior. He left the anchorage Kuya on the Petchora on the 13th/1st August. On the 26th/14th August, the two small vessels sailed into Yugor Schar, after having been long detained during their course by storms and head-winds. Some huts erected by hunters were seen on the right shore of the sound, and on both sides of it Samoyed "chums" (tents of reindeer skin) and reindeer. The inhabitants had climbed up on the roofs and indicated their astonishment by gesticulations. Both vessels anchored in the neighbourhood of Vaygats Island. But a couple of hours afterwards large masses of ice drove with an altered current into the harbour, forced the Yermak from its anchor and carried the vessel into the Kara Sea. It was only with great trouble that it was released from the ice and anchored in the eastern mouth of Yugor Schar.



On the 27/15th von Krusenstern again weighed anchor, either to sail to the eastward or to search for a more secure anchorage than that which he had been compelled for the time to make use of. But the wind was so light that he could not hold a course independent of the currents. It was, therefore, necessary to moor the vessel to a large ice-field, and with this the Yermak during the following days drifted farther and farther. Soon the vessel was completely enclosed by the ice, and thus rendered unmanageable. The weather was often fine, the thermometer showed +4 deg., a strong aerial reflection elevated images of the pieces of ice at the horizon, and gave them the most wonderful and beautiful forms. Everywhere there were upon the ice fresh-water pools, some of which were of great extent and of no inconsiderable depth. Thus, on the ice-field lying nearest the vessel there were different "lakes," one of which was used for drinking, another for filling the water-casks, a third to supply washing-water to the crew, and a fourth for washing their clothes.

On the 3rd Sept./22nd Aug. the ice began to be pressed together by a light W.S.W. wind. Convinced that the vessel would soon be nipped, the men on board began to save the stock of provisions and the boats, by placing them on the ice, but the pressure soon ceased. There fell a heavy rain, which afterwards, when the wind changed to north-west, passed into snow. On the 7th Sept./26th Aug. the coast of Yalmal was sighted. A fathom-thick ice-floe shot under the vessel and caused it to heel over to starboard. The following day there was a storm from the S.S.W. with snow. The ice forcing itself forward shook the vessel several times so violently that the crew rushed up to save the provisions, &c., on the ice. They were now in the neighbourhood of 70 deg. N.L. and 65 deg. E.L. (Greenwich), almost right off the mouth of the Kara river. The crew worked the whole day with axes and iron bars hewing off the sharp projecting corners of the ice-blocks that were pressed against the vessel. On the 11th Sept./20 Aug. there was warm weather with rain. The ice was in so violent motion that it was impossible to walk upon it. On the afternoon of the same day the Yermak sustained several violent concussions, and the hull was lifted one foot. On the 13th/1st September, a violent storm broke out, which drove the vessel to the north-east. It was expected every moment that the vessel would be nipped, and a tent was accordingly pitched on the ice, in order that part of the provisions from the hold might be placed in it. Wood even was carried to it. It was Russia's thousand-years' day, and it was celebrated with a festive ball and merry songs, although they every instant expected their vessel to be crushed by the masses of ice that were pressed together by the fearful storm. On the 14th/2nd September, the stem of the vessel was forced five feet above the water-line, and the whole night a continual cracking of timbers was heard in the hull. The water rose rapidly to a depth of two feet. Every man left the vessel and removed to the ice, but soon after the immense ice-field on which the tent was pitched went in pieces, while the leak in the vessel closed, and the crew in consequence went on board again. On the 15th/3rd September, the vessel was again pressed so, that the deck at times was bent to the form of a vault. On the 19th/7th September, von Krusenstern called the crew together that they might choose from their number three persons to advise with the commander on the best means of making their escape, and two days after the vessel was abandoned, after a meal at which the crew were literally offered all the house afforded. They then broke up for a journey to land, which was exceedingly difficult on account of the unevenness of the ice. They were soon obliged to leave the boat, which they had at first endeavoured to drag along with them over the ice, and take the most indispensable of the provisions on their own backs. On leaving the ship a sailor had secretly got possession of so much brandy, that during the first day's march he had the opportunity of drinking himself dead drunk. To carry him along was not possible, to wait was not advisable. He was left therefore to sleep off the drink; and in order that he might do so as soon as possible they took off his clothes and left him lying upon the ice with only his shirt on. Next day, however, he got up with his comrades after following their track in the darkness the whole night. Open places were often met with, which the travellers had to cross on pieces of drift-ice rowed forward by boat-hooks. Once when the shipwrecked men were ferrying themselves over upon a piece of ice which was already fully loaded, six walruses were seen in the neighbourhood. They showed a disposition to accompany the seafarers on the piece of ice, which in that case would certainly have sunk, and it was only after a ball had been sent through the leader's head that the animals gave up their plan for resting, which gave evidence of a gregariousness as great as their want of acquaintance with mankind. After Krusenstern and his companions had for several days in succession drifted backwards and forwards on a piece of ice in the neighbourhood of land, and traversed long stretches by jumping from one piece of ice to another, they at last reached the shore on the 28/16th September. In the immediate neighbourhood they found an encampment, whose inhabitants (Samoyeds) gave the shipwrecked men a friendly reception, and entertained them with the luxuries of the reindeer herd—raw and cooked reindeer flesh, reindeer tongues, reindeer marrow—raw fish and goose-fat. After the meal was finished the exhausted wanderers lay down to sleep in the Samoyed tents on the soft reindeer skins; "all sorrows and difficulties were forgotten; we felt a boundless enjoyment, as if we had come to paradise." Thence they travelled in reindeer sledges to Obdorsk, everywhere received in a friendly and hospitable manner by the wild tribes on the way, although the hospitality sometimes became troublesome; as for instance when an Ostyak compelled von Krusenstern to drink tea six times a day, and six cups each time, and offered him as a special luxury an extract of tobacco in brandy.[170]

Krusenstern's adventurous journey across the Kara Sea is one of the many proofs that a Polar navigator ought above everything to avoid being beset. The very circumstance that the ice-field, in which he became fixed in the neighbourhood of Yugor Schar, could drift across to the east coast of the Kara Sea, shows that it was for the most part open, and that a steamer or a good sailing-vessel that year, and probably also the preceding, might very readily have reached the mouth of the Ob or the Yenisej. The narrative of von Krusenstern's journey is besides the first complete sketch we have of a passage from west to east over the Kara Sea. Little idea could any one then have that within a single decade a number of vessels should sail free and unhindered along this route.

Soon after the two voyages I have described above, and before they became generally known in the geographical literature of Western Europe, a new era began in the navigation of the Kara Sea, which was brought about by the Norwegian hunters being compelled to seek for new fields of sport on and beyond Novaya Zemlya.

The history of the Spitzbergen hunting has not yet been written in a satisfactory way, and is in many respects very obscure. It is supposed that after the discovery of Spitzbergen in 1596 by Barents, the hunting in the Polar Seas began during BENNET'S first voyage in 1603, and that the whale-fishing was introduced by JONAS POOLE in 1610. But already in the following year Poole, whose vessel was then wrecked on the west coast of Spitzbergen, found in Horn Sound a ship from Hull, to which he gave charge of saving his cargo, and two years after the English were compelled, in order to keep foreigners from the fishing field they wished to monopolise, to send out six men-of-war, which found there eight Spanish, and a number of Dutch and French vessels (Purchas, iii. pp. 462, 716, &c.). Even in our days the accounts of new sources of wealth do not spread so speedily as in this case, unless, along with the history of the discovery which was written by Hakluyt, Purchas, De Veer, &c., there had been an unknown history of discovery and the whale-fishing, of which it may still be possible to collect some particulars from the archives of San Sebastian, Dunkirk, Hull, and other ports.

However this may be, it is certain that the English and Dutch North-east voyages gave origin to a whale-fishery in the sea round Spitzbergen, which increased by many millions the national wealth of these rich commercial states. The fishing went on at first immediately along the coasts, from which, however, the whales were soon driven, so that the whale-fishers had to seek new fishing-grounds, first farther out to sea between Spitzbergen and Greenland, then in Davis' Strait, and finally in the South Polar Sea, or in the sea on both sides of Behring's Straits.

Spitzbergen, when the whale-fishing ceased in its neighbourhood, was mostly abandoned, until the Russians began to settle there, principally for the hunting of the mountain fox and the reindeer. Of their hunting voyages we know very little, but that they had been widely prosecuted is shown by the remains of their dwellings or huts on nearly all the fjords of Spitzbergen.



They seem to have often wintered, probably because the defective build of their vessels only permitted them to sail to and from Spitzbergen during the height of summer, and they could not thus take part without wintering in the autumn hunting, during which the fattest reindeer are got; nor could the thick and valuable fur of the winter-fox be obtained without wintering.[171] But the hunting voyages of the Russians to Spitzbergen have also long ceased. The last voyage thither took place in 1851-52, and had a very unfortunate issue for most of those who took part in it, twelve men dying out of twenty. On the other hand, the Norwegian voyages to Spitzbergen for the seal and walrus-hunting, begun in the end of last century, still go on. Their history, too, is, even here in the North, very incompletely known, at least to 1858, when the Swedish scientific expeditions began regularly to visit those regions, and to include in the narratives of their voyages more or less complete accounts of the Norwegian hunting, an example that has since been followed, though by no means very completely or systematically, by the editors of Norwegian and foreign journals, in the first place by Petermann's Mittheilungen.[172]

Between 1860 and 1870 the game (walrus, seal, bear, and reindeer) began to diminish in such a degree that the hunters were compelled to seek for themselves new hunting-grounds. They turned to the north and east, the less accessible parts of Spitzbergen, afterwards still farther eastwards towards Novaya Zemlya, and beyond this island to the Kara Sea, and they penetrated farther than all their predecessors. In the history of the North-east Passage therefore some pages must always be devoted to the bold voyages to Novaya Zemlya of these small hunting sloops, provisioned only for the summer.



The Norwegian hunter who first visited Novaya Zemlya was ELLING CARLSEN, afterwards known as a member of the Austrian Polar expedition. In 1868 he sailed in a sloop from Hammerfest on a hunting voyage eastward, forced his way into the Kara Sea through the Kara Port, but soon returned through Yugor Schar, and then sailed northwards as far as Cape Nassau. Induced by the abundance of game, he returned next year to the same regions, and then succeeded in penetrating the Kara Sea as far as the neighbourhood of Beli Ostrov, whence he returned to Norway through Matotschkin Schar. Carlsen's lead was immediately followed by several Norwegian hunters, one of whom, EDWARD JOHANNESEN, made a very remarkable voyage, of which I will here give a brief account.



Johannesen anchored on the 31st May, 1869, at Meschduschar Island, without having seen any drift-ice in the course of his voyage. He then sailed up along the west coast of Novaya Zemlya in nearly open water past Matotschkin Sound to Cape Nassau, which was reached on the 19th June. Hence he returned, following the coast toward the south, until, on the 29th June, he sailed through the Kara Port into the Kara Sea. This was passed in very open water, and after coming to its eastern side he followed the coast of Yalmal towards the north to Beli Ostrov. This island was reached on the 7th August, and from it he steered south along the east coast of Novaya Zemlya to the Kara Port, through which he returned to Norway.[173]

The same year, the English sportsman, Mr. JOHN PALLISER[174] sailed across the Kara Sea, through Matotschkin Schar to Beli Ostrov. He returned through Yugor Schar with abundance of booty[175] from the hunting grounds where formerly the walruses tumbled undisturbed among the drift-ice, and where the white bear has not yet met his superior.[176]

These voyages are amongst the most remarkable that the history of Arctic navigation can show. They at once overturned all the theories which, on the ground of an often superficial study of preceding unsuccessful voyages, had been set up regarding the state of the ice east of Novaya Zemlya, and they thus form the starting-point of a new era in the history of the North-east Passage.

After his return to Norway Johannesen sent to the Academy of Sciences in Stockholm a paper on his voyage in 1869, and on his hydrographical observations in the Kara Sea, for which he received a silver medal. This I was commissioned to send him, and in the correspondence which took place regarding it I on one occasion said in jest that a circumnavigation of Novaya Zemlya would certainly entitle him to a gold medal from the same famous scientific institution that had given him the silver medal. I myself travelled the following summer, in 1870, to Greenland, and returned thence late in autumn. I then had the pleasure of receiving from Captain Johannesen a new paper, afterwards inserted in the Oefcersigt, of the transactions of the Royal Academy of Sciences for the year 1871, p. 157, "Hydro-grafiske Iakttagelser under en Fangsttour 1870 rundt om Novaja Zemlja." Johannesen now as on the first occasion sailed backwards and forwards along the west coast of Novaya Zemlya, then through the Kara Port, which was passed on the 12th July. He then followed the east coast of Vaygats to Mestni Island, where he came in contact with Samoyeds, in connection with which he makes the remark, certainly quite unexpected by philologists, that in the language of the Samoyeds "certain Norwegian words were recognised." Their exterior was not at all attractive. They had flat noses, their eyes were dreadfully oblique, and many had also oblique mouths. The men received the foreigners drawn up in a row, with the women in the second rank. All were very friendly. On the 11th August he was on the coast of Yalmal in 71 deg. 48' N.L., whence he sailed over to Novaya Zemlya in order to take on board wood and water. He anchored in the neighbourhood of Udde Bay in 73 deg. 48' N.L., and saw there twenty wild reindeer. Then he sailed again over the Kara Sea to Yalmal.

During these cruisings in the Kara Sea the summer had passed. Johannesen's vessel was now full, but notwithstanding this he determined, at a season of the year when the walrus-hunters commonly return to Norway, to see whether the offered prize could not be won into the bargain. The course was shaped first to the north-east, then westward to the north coast of Novaya Zemlya, which was reached on the 3rd September. The whole sea here was open, which Johannesen, on the ground of finding Norwegian fishing-net floats among the driftwood, attributed to the action of the Gulf Stream. Hence he returned to Norway, after having completed a voyage which some years before all geographical authorities would have considered an impossibility. I need scarcely mention that the Academy in Stockholm redeemed the promise which one of its members had given without the necessary authority. Johannesen was then twenty-six years old. Son of a skilful hunter, he had from his childhood taken part in Arctic voyages, and thus grown up in the employment to which he had devoted himself.

The same year several other walrus-hunters also made remarkable voyages in the Kara Sea. Captain E.A. ULVE first sailed along the west coast of Novaya Zemlya to 76 deg. 47' N.L., then back to Matotschkin Schar, through which he passed on the 7th and 8th August into the Kara Sea, which was completely free of ice, with the exception of some few very scattered pieces. After sailing backwards and forwards in different directions in the Kara Sea, he returned through the Kara Port on the 24th August. Captain F.E. MACK made a similar voyage. He sailed from the 28th June to the 8th July northwards along the west coast of Novaya Zemlya, which was free of ice between the Petchora and the Admiralty peninsula, where fast ice was found, and fourteen sailing vessels and two steamers were now assembled. On the 8th and 9th June thunder was heard here. From the Admiralty peninsula Mack sailed again, first to the south, and then, on the 18th July, through Matotschkin Sound into the Kara Sea, which was nearly free of ice. Captain P. QUALE, again, and A.O. NEDREVAAG, sailing master, penetrated through Yugor Sound into the Kara Sea, and sailed there to 75 deg. 22' N.L., and 74 deg. 35' E.L. (Greenwich).[177]

Also in 1871 a number of walrus-hunters made remarkable voyages in the Kara Sea. Of these, however, only one, Mack, in the schooner Pole Star, penetrated eastwards farther than all his predecessors. On the 14th June he sailed into the Kara Sea through the Kara Port, but found the sea still covered with continuous fast ice, from 1.8 to 2 metres in thickness. He therefore turned and sailed northwards along the west coast of Novaya Zemlya to the Gulf Stream Islands (76 deg. 10' N.L.), where he remained till the 3rd of August. The temperature of the air rose here to +10.5 deg.. The name, which the Norwegian walrus-hunters have given these islands, owes its origin to the large number of objects from southern seas which the Gulf Stream carries with it thither, as floats from the Norwegian fisheries, with their owner's marks frequently recognisable by the walrus-hunters—beans of Entada gigalobium from the West Indies, pumice-stone from Iceland, fragments of wrecked vessels, &c. On the 3rd of August Mack passed the northernmost promontory of Novaya Zemlya. Hence he sailed into the Kara Sea, where at first he fell in with ice. Farther on, however, the ice disappeared completely, and Mack on the 12th of September reached 75 deg. 25' N.L. and 82 deg. 30' E.L. (Greenwich) according to Petermann, but 81 deg. 11' Long, according to the Tromsoe Stiftstidende. He returned through Yugor Schar, which was passed on the 26th September.[178] The same year E. Johannesen, after long endeavouring without success to make his way into the Kara Sea through the southern strait, sailed northwards along the west coast of Novaya Zemlya, and did not leave Cape Nassau until the 15th October.

From the same year too Petermann also publishes very remarkable journals of the Norwegian walrus-hunting captains, S. TOBIESEN, H. CH. JOHANNESEN, J.N. ISAKSEN, SOeREN JOHANNESEN, DOERMA, SIMONSEN, and E. CARLSEN; but as none of these gallant seamen that year penetrated to the north or east beyond the points which their predecessors had reached, I may be allowed with regard to their voyages to refer to Mittheilungen for 1872 (pp. 386-391 and 395), also to the maps which are inserted in the same volume of that journal (pl. 19 and 20), and which are grounded on the working out by Prof. H. MOHN, of Christiania, of his countrymen's observations. With respect to Captain E. Carlsen's voyage, however, it may be stated, that in the course of it a discovery was made, which has been represented as that of an Arctic Pompeii, remarkably well protected against the depredation of the tooth of Time, not indeed by lava and volcanic ashes, but by ice and snow. For when Carlsen on the 9th September landed on the north-east coast of Novaya Zemlya in 76 deg. 7' N.L., he found there a house, 10 metres long and 6 metres wide, with the roof fallen in, long since abandoned and filled with gravel and ice. From this frozen gravel were dug up a large number of household articles, books, boxes, &c., which showed that they were relics of Barents' winter dwelling, which now, almost three hundred years after the place had been abandoned, came to the light of day, so well preserved that they gave a lively idea of the way in which the European passed his first winter in the true Polar regions. When Carlsen had erected a cairn in which he placed a tin canister containing an account of the discovery, he took on board the most important of the articles which he had found and returned to Norway. There he sold them at first for 10,800 crowns to an Englishman, Mr. Ellis C. Lister Kay, who afterwards made them over for the price he had paid for them to the Dutch Government. They are now to be found arranged at the Marine Department at the Hague in a model room, which is an exact reproduction of the interior of Barents' house on Novaya Zemlya.[179]

After Carlsen, Barents' winter haven was visited in the year 1875 by the Norwegian walrus-hunter, M. GUNDERSEN, who among other things found there a broken chest containing two maps and a Dutch translation of the narrative of Pet's and Jackman's voyages, and in the year 1876 by Mr. CHARLES GARDINER, who through more systematic excavations succeeded in collecting a considerable additional number of remarkable things, among which were the ink-horn and the pens which the Polar travellers had used nearly three centuries ago, and a powder-horn, containing a short account, signed by Heemskerk and Barents, of the most important incidents of the expedition. Gundersen's find is still, as far as I know, at Hammerfest; Gardiner's has been handed over to the Dutch Government to be preserved along with the other Barents relics at the Hague.

In 1872 the state of the ice both north of Spitzbergen and round Novaya Zemlya was exceedingly unfavourable,[180] and several of the scientific expeditions and hunting vessels, which that year visited the Arctic Ocean, there underwent severe calamities and misfortunes. Five of the best hunting vessels from Tromsoe were lost in the ice; the Swedish expedition, which that year started for the north, could not, as was intended, erect its winter dwelling on the Seven Islands, but was compelled to winter at the more southerly Mussel Bay; and the Austrian expedition under the leadership of Payer and Weyprecht was beset by ice a few hours after its campaign had commenced in earnest. It is well known how this carefully equipped expedition afterwards for two winters in succession drifted about in the Polar Sea, until it finally came to a standstill at a previously unknown land lying north of Novaya Zemlya, which was named after the Austrian Emperor, Franz Josef. These two expeditions, however, did not touch the territory of the Vega's voyage, on which account I cannot here take any further notice of them.[181] But the same year a wintering took place on the west coast of Novaya Zemlya, of which I consider that I ought to give a somewhat more detailed account, both because in the course of it one of the most gallant Polar voyagers of Norway met his fate, and because it shows us various new, hitherto untouched sides of winter life in the High North.

SIVERT TOBIESEN was one of the oldest and boldest of the Norwegian walrus-hunting skippers; he had with life and soul devoted himself to his calling, and in it was exposed to many dangers and difficulties, which he knew how to escape through courage and skill. In 1864 he had sailed round the northeastern part of North-east Land, and had been very successful in hunting; but as he was about to return home, his vessel was beset by ice near the southern entrance to Hinloopen Strait, where the same fate also overtook two other hunting sloops, one of them commanded by the old hunting skipper MATTILAS, who in the winter of 1872-73 died in a tent at Grey Hook, the other by the skipper J. ASTROM. They were compelled to save themselves in boats, in which they rowed through Hinloopen Strait to the mouth of Ice Fjord, where the shipwrecked crews were met and saved by the Swedish expedition of 1864. He passed the winter of 1865-66 happily, in a house built for the purpose on Bear Island, and communicated to the Swedish Academy of Sciences a series of valuable meteorological observations, made during the wintering.[182] After 1868 he had made several successful voyages to Novaya Zemlya, some of which were also remarkable from a geographical point of view, and in 1872 he was also on a hunting expedition to the same regions.



As he could not enter the Kara Sea, he sailed up along the west coast, where in the middle of September he was beset in the neighbourhood of the Cross Islands. Hence seven of the crew travelled south in a boat to seek for a vessel, but Tobiesen himself, his son and two men, remained on board. Their stock of provisions consisted of only a small barrel of bread, a sack of corners and fragments of ship biscuit, a small quantity of coffee, tea, sugar, syrup, groats, salt meat, salt fish, a few pounds of pork, a couple of tin canisters of preserved vegetables, a little bad butter, &c. There was abundance of wood on board and on the land. Notwithstanding the defective equipment they went on bravely and hopefully with the preparations for wintering, gathered drift-wood in heaps on the beach, threw a tent of sails over the vessel, threw up snow about its sides, covered the deck with, the hides of the seals and walruses that had been captured during summer, did what could be done to bring about good ventilation on board, &c. A large number of bears came to the winter station at the commencement of the wintering, affording an abundant supply of fresh bears' flesh. So long as this lasted, the health of the party was good, but when it came to an end at the new year, their food for three weeks consisted mainly of ill-smelling salt bears' flesh. Tobiesen and one of the men were now taken ill. The cold sank to -39-1/2 deg. C.[183] On the 29th April, 1873, Tobiesen died of scurvy. In the month of May his son was also attacked, and died on the 5th July. The two men also suffered from scurvy, but recovered. They rowed south in the month of August, and were rescued by a Russian hunting-vessel.



The seven men, the harpooner Henrik Nilsen, Ole Andreas Olsen, Axel Henriksen, Amandus Hansen, Nils Andreas Foxen, Johan Andersson and Lars Larsen, who rowed away in autumn, had an exceedingly remarkable fate. When they left the vessel they could only take with them fourteen ship biscuits, six boxes of lucifers, two guns, with ammunition, a spy-glass, a coffeepot and an iron pot, but no winter clothes to protect them from the cold. At first, in order to get to open water, they had to drag the boat about seven kilometres over the ice. They then steered southwards along the land. The journey was made under circumstances of great difficulty and privation. The darkness and cold increased, as did the storm, and what was worst of all their stock of provisions was very soon consumed. On the second day, however, they wore fortunate enough to shoot a bear; afterwards they also succeeded in killing a pair of seals. Finally, after having partly rowed and partly sailed about three weeks (they had no almanac with them), and travelled nearly 400 kilometres, they came to two small hunting or store houses, which the Russians had built on the north side of Gooseland. In order to have at least a roof over their heads the exhausted men settled there, though in the house they found neither food, clothes, nor hunting implements. They were all much enfeebled by hunger, thirst, cold, and the long boat journey; their feet were swollen and partly frost-bitten.

They remained in the house three weeks, and during that time shot a seal, two white foxes, and four reindeer, with which they kept in their lives; but as it appeared that there were no more reindeer to be had, and there were no more opportunities of shooting seals or reindeer, they determined to leave the house and endeavour to get to Vaygats Island. When they broke up, Ole Andreas Olsen and Henrik Nilsen took the guns and ammunition, while the other five commenced the journey with some small sledges they had found at the house, on which they loaded what they had of clothes and other articles. The boat was left behind. Soon after they left the house Ole Andreas Olsen and Henrik Nilsen were separated in a snowstorm from the others who drew the sledges. The latter now agreed to determine by lot whether they should return to the house or continue their journey, and when the lot fell for the latter they allowed it to settle the matter, and so went south.[184]

Their position was now desperate in the extreme. When they left the house they had about half a pound of reindeer flesh and a little blubber remaining. The weather was dreadful; they were badly clothed, and they wanted water. In consequence they could make only very short days' marches. At night they buried themselves in the snow, and while the rest slept, one man kept constant watch, to prevent the others from being snowed up and to keep the bears at a distance. They all held out till the sixth night. Then Amandus Hansen died. The rest were compelled to leave him in the snow and continue their journey as well as they could, but they had by degrees become so weak and exhausted that, after having traversed probably about 100 kilometres, for the most part along the coast, they had to leave even the sledges and the most of what they had with them. The seventh or eighth day they caught sight of a little pile of fuel, and the track of a sledge in the snow. By following this track for about ten kilometres they found a small house, inhabited by Samoyeds, who immediately gave them a friendly reception, and entertained them in the most hospitable way. In particular they showed much kindness to Nils Andreas Foxen, whose toes were frost-bitten, and who was in other respects much enfeebled.

These Samoyeds, three men, three women, and a boy, spoke Russian. They had settled for the winter on the south part of Gooseland to shoot the seal and the walrus. They had with them a large barge, besides some small Samoyed boats, and were comparatively well provided with reindeer flesh, meal, tea, sugar, &c. Their guns were old flint-lock fowling-pieces, but they were good shots. With these Samoyeds the four shipwrecked men remained the whole winter, and were tolerably well off. When the weather permitted they assisted the Samoyeds in capturing seals, and when the weather was bad they passed the time as well as they could, the Samoyeds generally employing themselves in playing cards or draughts. In order to avoid scurvy the Samoyeds often took exercise in the open air, and ate reindeer flesh, partly cooked and partly raw, and drank the blood. They lived in the house until March was well advanced, when, for want of fuel, they were obliged to hew it down. Instead they removed into a tent of reindeer skin. These Samoyeds appear to have been Christians in name, though they must have had strange ideas of their new God. When, for instance, they saw a seal and missed shooting it, they shot at the sun, because they believed that God was angry with them. They lived in a sort of marriage, but if the man became unfriendly to the woman, or tired of her, he could take another; they had no clocks, but, notwithstanding, had a tolerably good idea of time by the help of the stars and the sun; instead of an almanac they used a piece of wood, in which for every day they cut a notch. Although they sometimes quarrelled with and threatened one another, they were, however, on the whole friendly, and reasonable, and showed much kindness to the four shipwrecked men, whom they provided with warm skin clothes, and during the whole time with food in abundance, according to their circumstances, so that they did not suffer any want.

Ole Andreas Olsen and Henrik Nilsen had, when they were separated in the snowstorm from the sledge party, half a pound of flesh and their guns, and nothing more. They did not succeed in finding any game, and though they were not very far from the house, they required three days and a half to get back to it. In the meantime, also, these two comrades in misfortune had been separated. Henrik Nilsen found the house first, lighted a fire, roasted and ate some pieces of fox flesh that he found remaining. Ole Andreas Olsen, who in desperation had endeavoured to quench his thirst with sea-water, was so weak that, when late at night he came to the boat, he could not crawl up to the house. He had kept himself in life by eating snow and devouring large pieces of his "pesk," which was made of the raw hides of reindeer he had previously shot. After having lain a while in the boat he crept up to the house, where he found Henrik sleeping by the fire, which was not yet quite extinguished. The following day they both began to make arrangements for a lengthened stay in the house. But here they found nothing, neither food, household furniture, nor aught else. Nor did they succeed at first in getting any game; and for more then a fortnight they sustained life by boiling and gnawing the flesh from the bones of the reindeer, the seal, and the bear, that lay under the snow, remains from the Russian hunting excursions of the preceding year. Finally, before Christmas they succeeded in killing a reindeer. Their lucifers were now done, but they lighted a fire by loading their guns with a mixture of which gunpowder formed a part, and firing into old ropes, left behind by the Russians, which they picked asunder and dried. One of the Russian huts they tore down and used as fuel. They had neither axe nor saw, but they split up the fuel by means of a piece of iron, which they took from the keel of the boat, and of which they made, by hammering with stones, a sort of knife. Of some nails, which they also took from the boat, they likewise forged needles by means of stones; they used reindeer sinews for thread, and of the hides they sewed clothes for themselves. They lived in the hut until some time in April. During this time they shot eleven reindeer and a bear, so that they did not actually suffer hunger; but in the middle of April they had powder remaining for only three shots, and they now saw the impossibility of supporting themselves longer at that place, wherefore they determined to go farther south, in order, if possible, to reach Vaygats Island. They went by land along the sea-shore, leaving the boat behind. After the lapse of some days they came to the same Samoyeds with whom the other four of the crew were, and they now remained till the middle of June with the Samoyeds, who gave them the same hospitable treatment as their companions in misfortune. When at the time specified it was determined to fetch the boat from the Russian hut, in order that they might make their way southwards, Johan Andersson, a Swede by birth, declared that he wished to remain with the Samoyeds, and was not willing to accompany the other five on their homeward journey.

The latter now dragged the boat for two days over the ice but when it became too heavy they had to cut it through the middle and leave a half behind. Of a large sealskin, which they got from the Samoyeds, they made a stern to the other half, which they continued to drag over the ice for three days, until they came to open water. Then they rowed in the truncated boat ten days, until they reached a fast ice-border at the Vaygats Island, where they again fell in with Samoyeds. Even by these, who could speak neither Russian nor Quaen, and by whom they could with difficulty make themselves understood, they were well received. They remained there eight days and got good entertainment. These Samoyeds had tame reindeer, with which they sent the shipwrecked men on their way southwards, till they fell in with a vessel, with which four returned to Norway. Lars Larsen now did not wish to go home, preferring to remain with the Samoyed family which he had last met with. Samoyed life, however, must not be so pleasant after all, for in a year or two both the men who had remained among the Samoyeds returned home. As a reward for the hospitality which the shipwrecked walrus-hunters had received from the Samoyeds on Gooseland, the Norwegian Government presented them with a number of gifts, consisting of clothes, pearls, breechloaders, with ammunition, &c., which were handed over to them with festive speeches and toasts on the 17th July, 1880. During the entertainment which took place on this occasion on the coast of Novaya Zemlya, toasts were drunk in champagne, and it is said that this liquor was very much relished by the Samoyeds.[185]

As little as Tobiesen could any other walrus-hunter make his way, either in 1872 or 1873, into the Kara Sea, the entrances of which were during these summers blocked by a compact belt of ice, which extended along the east coast of Novaya Zemlya and Vaygats Island to the mainland. In the belief of a large number of experienced walrus-hunters, with whom I have conversed on the subject, this belt of ice was only some few nautical miles broad, and it is therefore probable that even in those years there would have been no obstacle to prevent a passage eastwards by this route in autumn.

In 1874, on the contrary, the state of the ice became very favourable, and many walrus-hunters again as formerly sailed in all directions across the Kara Sea, which this year was also visited by an Englishman, Captain J. WIGGINS. None of them, however, penetrated farther to the east or north than Johannesen, Carlsen, Mack, and others had done during the years 1869-70.

It was not until the following year that the North-east voyages took a step forward, important both in a purely geographical as well as a practical point of view, when I succeeded in a walrus-hunting sloop, the Proeven, commanded by the walrus-hunting Captain Isaksen, in sailing through Yugor Straits, which were passed on 2nd August, and over the nearly ice-free Kara Sea as far as to the mouth of the Yenisej. The Proeven anchored there on the 15th August 1875, in, or more correctly immediately off, the same splendid haven where the Vega expedition lay at anchor from the 6th to the 10th August, 1878. Hence I sailed under various difficulties along with Dr. Stuxberg and Dr. Lundstroem and three men in a Nordland boat, up the river to Saostrovskoj, where we fell in with a steamer, in which we afterwards travelled to Yenisejsk. On leaving Port Dickson I handed over the command to Dr. Kjellman, who along with Dr. Theel returned by sea to Europe across the Kara Sea and through Matotschkin Schar, which was passed during the return voyage on the 4th to the 11th September.

By this voyage of 1875 I was the first who succeeded in penetrating from the Atlantic Ocean in a vessel to the mouths of the great Siberian rivers. One of the objects which the old North-east voyagers had aimed at was thus at last accomplished, and that in a way that promised to be of immense practical importance for the whole of Siberia. The voyage was also regarded in that light by leading men in the great empire of the East, and our return journey from Yenisejsk by Krasnojarsk, Tomsk, Omsk, Yekaterinburg, Nischni-Novgorod, Moscow and St. Petersburg, became therefore a journey from fete to fete. But a number of voices were simultaneously raised, which asserted that the success of the Proeven depended on an accidental combination of fortunate circumstances, which would not soon occur again. In order to show that this was not the case, and that I might myself bring the first goods by sea to Siberia, I undertook my second voyage to the Yenisej in 1876, in which I penetrated with the steamer Ymer, not only to the mouth of the river, but also up the river to the neighbourhood of Yakovieva in 71 deg. N.L. Hence I returned the same year by sea to Europe.[186] In the gulf of Yenisej a large island was discovered, which I named after Mr. Alexander Sibiriakoff, who defrayed the principal expenses of the expedition. Before starting on this voyage, I visited the Philadelphia Exhibition, and it may perhaps deserve to be mentioned, that leaving New York on the 1st July by one of the ordinary steamers, and going on board my own vessel in Norway, I reached the mouth of the Yenisej on the 15th August, that is to say, in forty-six days.

The same year Captain Wiggins also undertook a voyage to the Yenisej, in which he penetrated with a steamer up the river beyond the labyrinth of islands lying between 70 deg. and 71 deg. N.L. The vessel wintered there, but was lost the following spring at the breaking up of the ice.[187]

The voyages of the Proeven and the Ymer led to several purely commercial voyages to the Yenisej and the Ob, of which however I can here with the greatest brevity mention only the following:



The Swedish steamer Fraser, commanded by the German Captain DALLMANN, after having been fitted out at Gothenburg on Sibiriakoff's account, sailed in 1877 with a cargo from Bremen to the Yenisej and back. The vessel left Hammerfest on the 9th August, arrived at Goltschicha on the 21st August, commenced the return voyage on the 14th September, and on the 24th of the same month was back at Hammerfest.

The steamer Louise commanded by Captain DAHL, with a cargo of iron, olive oil, and sugar, the same year made the first voyage from England to Tobolsk, starting from Hull on the 18th July and arriving at Tobolsk on the 20th September.[188]

Captain SCHWANENBERG sailed in a half-decked sloop, the Utrennaja Saria, from the Yenisej to Europe. To what has been already said of this voyage, I may here add a few words more.



During the inundation in the spring of 1877, which compelled the mate Nummelin to betake himself for eight days to the roof of the fragile dwelling in which he had passed the winter, the Yenisejsk-built vessel, the Aurora (or Sewernoe Sianie) was lost. Schwanenberg, who soon afterwards came to the neighbourhood, succeeded in purchasing from an Englishman, Mr. SEEBOHM, another little vessel, which was also built at Yenisejsk by Mr. Boiling for the purpose of transporting thither the goods which I had carried in the Ymer to Korepovskoj, a simovie on the bank of the Yenisej in 71 deg. 19' N.L. The goods however had been taken up the river by a steamer, on which account the vessel was sold by Boiling to Mr. Seebohm, who made an excursion in it to the lower courses of the Yenisej for ornithological researches. He named the vessel the Ibis. When Mr. Seebohm no longer required it, there was at first a proposal that it should be taken over by Captain Wiggins, who, as has been already stated, had the year before come to the Yenisej with a small steamer, which wintered at the islands in the river, and had now stranded during the breaking up of the ice. He wished to carry his men on the Ibis either home or to the Ob, but the English seamen declared that they would not for all the world's honour and riches sail in that vessel. Schwanenberg had thus an opportunity of purchasing the vessel, whose name he altered to the Utrennaja Saria (the Dawn), and to the surprise of all experienced seamen he actually made a successful passage to Norway. The vessel was then towed along the coast to Gothenburg, and through the Goeta Canal to Stockholm, and finally crossed the Baltic to St. Petersburg.

On the 13th August Schwanenberg hoisted the Russian flag on his little vessel. During his outward passage he met, in the mouth of the Yenisej, Sibiriakoff's steamer the Fraser, Captain Dallmann, who in vain endeavoured to dissuade him from prosecuting the adventurous voyage. He anchored at Beli Ostrov on the 24th August, passed the Kara Port on the 30th August, and reached Vardoe on the 11th September. The Utrennaja Saria arrived at Christiania on the 31st October, at Gothenburg on the 15th November, passed Motala on the 20th, reached Stockholm on the 23rd November and St. Petersburg on the 3rd December. Everywhere in Scandinavia the gallant seamen met with the heartiest reception. Their vessel was the first that sailed from the town of Yenisejsk to Europe, and is still, when this is being written, the only one.



The Dawn is 56 feet long, 14 feet beam, and draws 6 feet of water. Aft there is a little cabin in which there is scant space for three men. Cooking is done in the fore. The cargo consisted of a small quantity of graphite, fish, furs, and other samples of the products of Siberia.

The vessel was manned by Captain Schwanenberg, the mates Nummelin and Meyenwaldt, and two exiled criminals, who in this unexpected way returned to their native country. I take it for granted that by the rare nautical exploit they took part in, they there won forgiveness for former offences.



[Footnote 159: Compare: "The names of the places that the Russes sayle by, from Pechorskoie Zauorot to Mongozey" (Purchas, III. p. 539): "The voyage of Master Josias Logan to Pechora, and his wintering there with Master William Pursglove and Marmaduke Wilson, Anno 1611" (loc. cit. p. 541): "Extracts taken out of two letters of Josias Logan from Pechora, to Master Hakluyt, Prebend of Westminster" (loc. cit. p. 546): "Other obseruations of the sayd William Pursglove" (loc. cit. p. 550). The last paper contains good information regarding the Obi, Tas, Yenisej, Pjaesina, Chatanga, and Lena. ]

[Footnote 160: The stringent regulations regarding fasting of the Russians, especially the Old Believers, if they be literally observed, form an insuperable obstacle to the colonisation of high-northern regions, in which, to avoid scurvy, man requires an abundant supply of fresh flesh. Thus, undoubtedly, religious prejudices against certain kinds of food caused the failure of the colony of Old Believers which was founded in 1767 on Kolgujev Island, in order that its members might undisturbed use their old church books and cross themselves in the way they considered most proper. The same cause also perhaps conduced to the failure of the attempts which are said to have been made after the destruction of Novgorod by Ivan the Terrible in 1570 by fugitives from that town to found a colony on Novaya Zemlya (Historische Nachrichten von den Samojeden und den Lapplaendern, Riga und Mietau, 1769, p. 28). This book was first printed in French at Koenigsberg in 1762. The author was Klingstedt, a Swede in the Russian service, who long lived at Archangel. ]

[Footnote 161: The statement is incredible, and probably originated in some mistake. To form such a heap of walruses at least 50,000 animals would have been required, and it is certain that fifteen men could not have killed so many. If we assume that in the statement of the length and breadth, feet ought to stand in place of fathoms, we get the still excessive number of 1,500 to 3,000 killed animals. Probably instead of 90 we should have 9, in which case the heap would correspond to about 500 walruses and seals killed. The walrus tusks collected weighed 40 pood, which again indicates the capture of 150 to 200 animals. ]

[Footnote 162: Witsen, p. 915. Klingstedt states that fifty soldiers with their wives and children were removed in 1648 to Pustosersk, and that the vojvode there had so large an income that in three or four years he could accumulate 12,000 to 15,000 roubles (Historische Nachrichten von den Samojeden, &c., p. 53). ]

[Footnote 163: According to Luetke, p. 70. Hamel, Tradescant d. aeltere, gives the date 1742-44. ]

[Footnote 164: Thus on the first map in an atlas published in 1737 by the St. Petersburg Academy, Novaya Zemlya is delineated as a peninsula projecting from Taimur Land north of the Pjaesina. ]

[Footnote 165: Properly "Mate, with the rank of Lieutenant," from which we may conclude that Rossmuislov wanted the usual education of an officer. ]

[Footnote 166: These remarkable voyages were described for the first time, after the accounts of Zivolka, by the academician K.E. v. Baer in Bulletin scientifique publ. par l'Acad. Imp. des Sciences de St. Petersburg, t. ii. No. 9, 10, 11 (1837). Before this there does not appear to have been in St. Petersburg any knowledge of Pachtussov's voyages, the most remarkable which the history of Russian Polar Sea exploration has to show. ]

[Footnote 167: The carbasse was named, like the vessels of Lasarev and Luetke, the Novaya Zemlya. It was forty-two feet long, fourteen feet beam, and six feet deep, decked fore and aft, and with the open space between protected by canvas from breakers. ]

[Footnote 168: The details of Pachtussov's voyages are taken partly from von Baer's work already quoted, partly from Carl Svenske, Novaya Zemlya, &c., St. Petersburg, 1866 (in Russian, published at the expense of M.K. Sidoroff), and J. Spoerer, Nowaja Semlae in geographischer, naturhistorischer und volkswirthschaftlicher Beziehung, nach den Quellen bearbsitet. Ergaenz-Heft. No. 21 zu Peterm. Geogr. Mittheilungen, Gotha, 1867. ]

[Footnote 169: Bulletin scientifique publie par l'Academie Imp. de St. Petersburg, t. ii. (1837), p. 315; iii. (1838), p. 96, and other places. ]

[Footnote 170: Paul von Krusenstern, Skizzen aus sienem Seemannsleben. Seinen Freunden gewidmet. Hirschberg in Silesia, without date. ]

[Footnote 171: Information regarding the mode of life of the Russian hunters on the coasts of Spitzbergen is to be found in P.A. le Roy, Relation des avantures arrivees a quatre matelots Russes, &c. 1766; Tschitschagov's Reise nach dem Eismeer, St. Petersburg, 1793; John Bacstrom, Account of a voyage to Spitzbergen, 1780, London, 1808 (as stated; I have not seen this work); B.M. Keilhau, Reise i Oest og Vest Finmarken, samt til Beeren-Eiland og Spetsbergen i Aarene 1827 og 1828, Christiania, 1831; A. Erman, Archiv fuer wissenschastliche Kunde von Russland, Part 13 (1854), p. 260; K. Chydenius, Svenska expeditionen till Spetsbergen 1861 (p. 435); Duner and Nordenskioeld, Svenska Expeditioner till Spetsbergen och Jan Mayen 1863 och 1864 (p. 101). ]

[Footnote 172: Before 1858 there is to be found in Petermann's Mittheilungen only a single notice of the Norwegian Spitzbergen hunting, the existence of which was at the time probably known to no great number of European geographers. ]

[Footnote 173: The first account of this voyage was published in Oefversigt af Svenska Vetenskaps-akademiens forhandlingar, 1870, p. 111. ]

[Footnote 174: Athenoeum, 1869, p. 498. Petermann's Mittheilungen, 1869, p. 391. ]

[Footnote 175: Palliser's game consisted of 49 walruses, 14 Polar bears and 25 seals; that of the working hunters was many times greater. All the vessels which went from Tromsoe that year captured 805 walruses, 2,302 seals, 53 bears, &c. ]

[Footnote 176: Sidoroff too started in 1869 on a north-east voyage in a steamer of his own, the George. However, he only reached the Petchora, and the statement that went the round of the press, that the George actually reached the Ob, is thus one of the many mistakes which so readily find their way into the news of the day. ]

[Footnote 177: Petermann's Mittheilungen, 1871, p. 97. Along with Ulve's, Mack's, and Quale's voyages, Petermann refers to a voyage round Novaya Zemlya by T. Torkildsen. In this case, however, Petermann was exposed to a possibly unintended deception. Torkildsen, who visited the Polar Sea for the first time in 1870, indeed made the voyage round Novaya Zemlya, but only as a rescued man on Johannesen's vessel. Torkildsen's own vessel, the Alfa, had been wrecked on the 13th July at the bottom of Kara Bay, after which the skipper and six men were saved by Johannesen, yet by no means so that Torkildsen, as is stated by Petermann, had the least command of the vessel that saved him. (Cf. Tromsoe Stiftstidende, 1871, No. 23.) ]

[Footnote 178: Tromsoe Stiftstidende, 1871, No. 83; Petermann's Mittheilungen, 1872, p. 384. ]

[Footnote 179: Cf. The Three Voyages of William Barents, by Gerrit de Veer, 2nd Edition, with an Introduction by Lieutenant Koolemaens Beynen. London, 1876 (Works issued by the Hakluyt Society, No. 54). ]

[Footnote 180: The sea in the neighbourhood of Spitzbergen on the east was on the other hand very open that year, so that it was possible for the same time to reach and circumnavigate the large island situated to the east of Spitzbergen, which had been seen in 1864 by Duner and me from the top of White Mount in the interior of Stor Fjord. ]

[Footnote 181: Nor does space permit me to give an account of various expeditions, which indeed concerned Novaya Zemlya, but did not penetrate farther eastward than their predecessors; for instance, the Rosenthal expedition of 1871, in which the well-known African traveller and Spitzbergen voyager Baron von Heuglin, and the Norwegian botanist Aage Aagaard, took part as naturalists; Payer and Weyprecht's voyage of reconnaissance in the sea between Spitzbergen and Novaya Zemlya in 1871, &c. ]

[Footnote 182: Kongl. Svenska Vetenskaps-akademiens handlingar, 1869. ]

[Footnote 183: At Mussel Bay, too, during the winter of 1872-73, the greatest deg. of cold was the same; that is to say, at neither place did it reach the freezing-point of mercury. At the Vega's winter station, on the contrary, it was considerably greater. ]

[Footnote 184: It is very common that the hunters in cases of importance and danger when it is difficult to settle what course ought to be taken, permit the drawing of lots to determine the choice. ]

[Footnote 185: The statements made here regarding the wintering of Tobiesen and his companions are taken partly from a copy which I caused to be made of his journal, partly from an account of the adventures of the seven hunters, copied from Finmarksposten into Aftonbladet for 1873, No. 220. Finally, the account of the distribution of presents to the Samoyeds is copied from Norwegian journals into Aftonbladet for 1880, No. 197. ]

[Footnote 186: The dates of the Ymer's voyage are as follows:—Left the coast of Norway on the 26th July; stay at Matotschkin Sound, through which I, on this occasion, steamed into the Kara Sea from the 30th July to the 5th August; arrival at the Yenisej on the 15th August; arrival at the anchorage at Goltschicha on the 16th August; commenced the return voyage on the 1st September, in the course of it passed Matotschkin Schar on the 7th September. ]

[Footnote 187: Of Captain Wiggins' voyage I know only that his original destination was the Ob, but that on account of currents and shoals which, he encountered at the mouth of this river, he altered his plan, and reached the Yenisej in the beginning of September. ]

[Footnote 188: Deutsche Geographische Blaetter, Bremen, 1870, i. p. 216, and ii. p. 35. ]



CHAPTER VII.

Departure from Port Dickson—Landing on a rocky island east of the Yenisej—Self-dead animals—Discovery of crystals on the surface of the drift-ice—Cosmic dust— Stay in Actinia Bay—Johannesen's discovery of the island Ensamheten—Arrival at Cape Chelyuskin—The natural state of the land and sea there—Attempt to penetrate right eastwards to the New Siberian Islands—The effect of the mist—Abundant dredging-yield—Preobraschenie Island— Separation from the Lena at the mouth of the river Lena.

When on the morning of the 9th August the Fraser and Express sailed for the point higher up the river where their cargo was lying, the Vega and the Lena were also ready to sail. I, however, permitted the vessels to remain at Port Dickson a day longer, in order to allow Lieutenant Bove to finish his survey, and for the purpose of determining astronomically, if possible, the position of this important place. In consequence of a continuous fog, however, I had as little opportunity of doing so on this occasion as during the voyage of 1875, which serves to show of what sort the weather is during summer at the place where the warm water of the Yenisej is poured into the Arctic Ocean. It was thus not until the morning of the 10th August that the Vega and the Lena weighed anchor in order to continue their voyage. The course was shaped for the most westerly of the islands, which old maps place off the estuary-bay of the Pjaesina, and name Kammenni Ostrova (Stone Islands), a name which seems to indicate that in their natural state they correspond to the rocky islands about Port Dickson. The sky was hid by mist, the temperature of the air rose to +10.4 deg. C.; that of the water was at first +10 deg., afterwards +8 deg.; its salinity at the surface of the sea was inconsiderable. No ice was seen during the course of the day. Favoured by a fresh breeze from the south-east, the Vega could thus begin her voyage with all sail set. Small rocky islands, which are not to be found on the chart, soon reminded us of the untrustworthiness of the maps. This, together with the prevailing fog, compelled Captain Palander to sail forward with great caution, keeping a good outlook and sounding constantly. Warm weather and an open sea were also favourable for the next day's voyage. But the fog now became so dense, that the Vega had to lie-to in the morning at one of the many small islands which we still met with on our way.

Dr. Kjellman, Dr. Almquist, Lieutenant Nordquist, and I, landed here. The bare and utterly desolate island consisted of a low gneiss rock, rising here and there into cliffs, which were shattered by the frost and rather richly clothed with lichens. On the more low-lying places the rock was covered with a layer of gravel, which, through drying and consequent contraction, had burst into six-sided figures, mostly from 0.3 to 0.5 metre in diameter. The interior of the figures was completely bare of vegetation, only in the cracks there was to be seen an exceedingly scanty growth of stunted mosses, lichens, and flowering plants. Of the last-named group there were found fifteen species,[189] which could with success, or more correctly without succumbing, survive the struggle for existence on the little poor archipelago, protected by no mountain heights, from the storms of the Polar Sea; but of these species, perhaps a couple seldom develop any flowers. The mosses, too, were in great part without fruit, with the exception of those which grew on the margin, formed of hard clay covered with mud, of a pool, filled with brackish water and lying close to the sea-margin. A large number of pieces of driftwood scattered round this pool showed that the place was occasionally overflowed with sea-water, which thus appears to have been favourable to the development of the mosses. Of lichens Dr. Almquist found a number of species, well developed, and occurring in comparative abundance. On the contrary, the sea, although the surrounding rocky islands indicated a good bottom for algae, was so completely destitute of the higher algae, that only a single microscopic species was found by Dr. Kjellman. No mammalia were seen, not even the usual inhabitant of the desolate rocky islands of the Polar Sea, the Polar bear, who, in regions where he has not made acquaintance with the hunter's ball or lance, in secure reliance on his hitherto unvanquished might, seldom neglects to scrutinise the newly arrived guests from the tops of high rocks or ice-blocks. We saw here only six species of birds. The first of these that attracted our attention was the snow-bunting, which had left the more fertile mountain heights of the south to choose this bare and desolate island in the Arctic Ocean for its breeding-place, and now fluttered round the stone mounds, where it had its nest, with unceasing twitter, as if to express its satisfaction with its choice. Further, two species of waders, Tringa maritima and Phalaropus fulicarius, were observed running restlessly about the beach to collect their food, which consists of insects. The birds that were killed often had their crops full of the remains of insects, although living at a place where the naturalist has to search for hours to find a dozen gnats or their equals in size, a circumstance that tells very favourably for these birds' powers of vision, of locomotion, and of apprehension. It is difficult in any case to understand what it is that attracts this insectivorous bird to one of the regions that is poorest in insect life in the whole world. The glaucous gulls' plunderer, the skua, and its chastiser the bold tern, were also observed, as were a few barnacle geese. On the other hand, no eiders were met with. All the birds named occurred only in inconsiderable numbers, and there was nothing found here resembling the life which prevails on a Spitzbergen fowl-island. Finally, it may be mentioned that Lieutenant Nordquist found under stones and pieces of drift-wood a few insects, among them a beetle (a staphylinid). Dr. Stuxberg afterwards found a specimen of the same insect species at Cape Chelyuskin itself. No beetle is found on Spitzbergen, though the greater portion of that group of islands is, in respect of climate, soil, and vegetation, much better favoured than the region now in question. This seems to me to show that the insect fauna of Spitzbergen, exceedingly inconsiderable and limited in numbers as it is, has migrated thither in comparatively recent times, and in how high a degree the migration of beetles is rendered difficult by their inability to pass broad expanses of water.



By afternoon the air had again cleared somewhat, so that we could sail on. A piece of ice was seen here and there, and at night the ice increased for a little to an unpleasant extent. Now, however, it did not occur in such quantity as to prove an obstacle to navigation in clear weather or in known waters.

On the 12th August we still sailed through considerable fields of scattered drift-ice, consisting partly of old ice of large dimensions, partly of very rotten year's ice. It formed, however, no serious obstacle to our advance, and nearer the shore we would probably have had quite open water, but of course it was not advisable to go too near land in the fog and unknown waters, without being obliged. A large number of fish (Gadus polaris) were seen above the foot of a large block of ground ice, near which we lay-to for some hours. Next day we saw near one of the islands, where the water was very clear, the sea-bottom bestrewed with innumerable fish of the same species. They had probably perished from the same cause, which often kills fish in the river Ob in so great numbers that the water is infected, namely, from a large shoal of fish having been enclosed by ice in a small hole, where the water, when its surface has frozen, could no longer by absorption from the air replace the oxygen consumed, and where the fish have thus been literally drowned. I mention this inconsiderable find of some self-dead fish, because self-dead vertebrate animals, even fish, are found exceedingly seldom. Such finds therefore deserve to be noted with much greater care than, for instance, the occurrence of animal species in the neighbourhood of places where they have been seen a thousand times before. During my nine expeditions in the Arctic regions, where animal life during summer is so exceedingly abundant, the case just mentioned has been one of the few in which I have found remains of recent vertebrate animals which could be proved to have died a natural death. Near hunting-grounds there are to be seen often enough the remains of reindeer, seals, foxes, or birds that have died from gunshot wounds, but no self-dead Polar bear, seal, walrus, white whale, fox, goose, auk, lemming or other vertebrate. The Polar bear and the reindeer are found there in hundreds, the seal, walrus, and white whale in thousands, and birds in millions.[190] These animals must die a "natural" death in untold numbers. What becomes of their bodies? Of this we have for the present no idea, and yet we have here a problem of immense importance for the answering of a large number of questions concerning the formation of fossiliferous strata. It is strange in any case that on Spitzbergen it is easier to find vertebrae of a gigantic lizard of the Trias, than bones of a self-dead seal, walrus, or bird, and the same also holds good of more southerly inhabited lands.

On the 13th August we again sailed past a large number of small rocks or islands. The sea was at first pretty free of ice, but was afterwards bestrewed with even, thin pieces of drift-ice, which were not forced up on each other, and thus had not been exposed in winter to any ice-pressure. This ice did not cause any inconvenience to the navigation, but at the same time all was wrapt in a very close mist, which soon compelled us to anchor near the shore in a little bay. I endeavoured without success to determine the position of the place by astronomical observations. Along the shore there still remained nearly everywhere a pretty high snow and ice-foot, which in the fog presented the appearance of immense glaciers. The land besides was free of ice. In respect of its geological formation and its animals and plants it resembled completely the island I have just described. But the sea-water here was clear and salt, and the dredging therefore yielded to Dr. Kjellman some large algae, and to Dr. Stuxberg a large number of marine evertebrates.

When the fog lightened, we immediately steamed on, but we had scarcely got to sea before we were again wrapped in so close a fog that we were compelled to lie-to for the night beside a large piece of drift-ice. The hempen tangles were used, and brought up a very abundant yield of large, beautiful animal forms, a large number of asterids, Astrophyton, Antedon, &c. There was besides made here an exceedingly remarkable, and to me still, while I write, a very enigmatical find.

For several years back I have been zealous for the examination of all substances of the nature of dust which fall to the surface of the earth with rain or snow, and I have proved that a portion of them is of cosmic origin. This inconsiderable fall of dust is thus of immense importance for the history of the development of our globe, and we regard it, besides, with the intense interest which we inevitably cherish for all that brings us an actual experience regarding the material world beyond our globe. The inhabited countries of the earth, however, are less suitable for such investigations, as the particles of cosmic dust falling down here in very limited quantity can only with difficulty be distinguished from the dust of civilization, arising from human dwellings, from the offal of industry, from furnaces and the chimneys of steam-engines. The case is quite different on the snow and ice-fields of the High North, remote from human habitations and the tracks of steamers. Every foreign grain of dust can here he easily distinguished and removed, and there is a strong probability that the offal of civilization is here nearly wholly wanting. It is self-evident from this that I would not be disposed to neglect the first opportunity for renewed investigations in the direction indicated, our involuntary rest at the drift-ice field offered.



Immediately after the Vega lay-to, I therefore went down on the ice in order to see whether here too some such metalliferous dust, as I had before found north of Spitzbergen, was not to be found on the surface of the ice. Nothing of the kind, however, was to be seen. On the other hand, Lieutenant Nordquist observed small yellow specks in the snow, which I asked him to collect and hand over for investigation to Dr. Kjellman. For I supposed that the specks consisted of diatom ooze. After examining them Dr. Kjellman however declared that they did not consist of any organic substance, but of crystallised grains of sand. I too now examined them more closely, but unfortunately not until the morning after we had left the ice-field, and then found that the supposed ooze consisted of pale yellow crystals (not fragments of crystals) without mixture of foreign matter. The quantity of crystals, which were obtained from about three litres of snow, skimmed from the surface of the snow on an area of at most 10 square metres, amounted to nearly 0.2 gram. The crystals were found only near the surface of the snow, not in the deeper layers. They were up to 1 mm. in diameter, had the appearance shown in the accompanying woodcut, and appeared to belong to the rhombic system, as they had one perfect cleavage and formed striated prisms terminated at either end by truncated pyramids. Unfortunately I could not make any actual measurements of them, because after being kept for some time in the air they weathered to a white non-crystalline powder. They lay, without being sensibly dissolved, for a whole night in the water formed by the melting of the snow. On being heated, too, they fell asunder into a tasteless white powder. The white powder, that was formed by the weathering of the crystals, was analysed after our return—21 months after the discovery of the crystals—and was found to contain only carbonate of lime.



The original composition and origin of this substance appears to me exceedingly enigmatical. It was not common carbonate of lime, for the crystals were rhombohedral and did not show the cleavage of calcite. Nor can there be a question of its being arragonite, because this mineral might indeed fall asunder "of itself," but in that case the newly-formed powder ought to be crystalline. Have the crystals originally been a new hydrated carbonate of lime, formed by crystallising out of the sea-water in intense cold, and then losing its water at a temperature of 10 deg. or 20 deg. above the freezing-point? In such a case they ought not to have been found on the surface of the snow, but lower down on the surface of the ice. Or have they fallen down from the inter-planetary spaces to the surface of the earth, and before crumbling down have had a composition differing from terrestrial substances in the same way as various chemical compounds found in recent times in meteoric stones? The occurrence of the crystals in the uppermost layer of snow and their felling asunder in the air, tell in favour of this view. Unfortunately there is now no possibility of settling these questions, but at all events this discovery is a further incitement to those who travel in the High North to collect with extreme care, from snow-fields lying far from the ordinary routes of communication, all foreign substances, though apparently of trifling importance.