In 1875 there were only two steamers on the Yenisej. These were neither passenger nor cargo boats, but rather movable commercial stores, propelled by steam. The fore-saloon formed a shop provided with a desk, and shelves on which were to be seen cloths, iron wares, guns, ammunition, tobacco, tea, matches, sugar, brightly coloured copper engravings or lithographs, &c. In the after-saloon was enthroned, among brandy casks, purchased furs, and other precious or delicate wares, he who had the command on board, a kind and friendly merchant, who evidently did not concern himself much with the work of the sailors, but rather with trade and the making of bargains, and who was seldom called by the crew captain (kapitan), but generally master (hosain). After the steamer, or floating commercial store, there was towed one or two lodjas, which served as magazines, in which meal and salt and other heavy goods were stored, the purchased fish were salted and looked after, fresh bread baked for the numerous crew, &c. And as there was not a single jetty to be found the whole way between Yenisejsk and the sea, both the steamer and the lodjas, in order to be able to load and deliver goods at any point, had a large number of boats and lighters in tow. No place was set apart for passengers, but travellers were received in a friendly and hospitable manner when they came on board, where they were then allowed to look out for themselves as best they could. The nautical command was held by two mates or pilots of a stately and original appearance, who, clad in long caftans, sat each in his watch on a chair at the wheel, generally without steering, mostly smoking a cigarette made of coarse paper and, with the most careless appearance in the world, exchanging jests with those who were going down the river. The prohibition of taking away the attention of the steersman from his work by conversation was thus not in force hereabouts. A man stood constantly in the fore, uninterruptedly testing the depth with a long pole. For in order to avoid the strong current of the main stream the course was always shaped as near the shore as possible, often so near that one could almost jump ashore, and my own Nordland boat, which was towed by the side of the steamer, was occasionally drawn over land. It will be seen from this of how light draught the steamer was.

Siberia, especially the river territory of the Yenisej and the Lena, possesses rich coal seams, which probably extend under considerable portions of the Siberian plain, but are yet unworked and have attracted little attention. The river steamers accordingly are fired, not with coal, but with wood, of which, if I remember right, 180 fathoms went to the voyage of the steamer Alexander up the river. As the vessel could carry only a small portion of this quantity of wood at one time, frequent halts were necessary, not only for trading with the natives, but also for taking fuel on board. In addition to this, the weak engine, although the safety valves were overloaded when necessary with lead weights, was sometimes unable to make head with all the vessels in tow against a current which at some places was very rapid, and often, in the attempt to find still water near the river bank, the steamer ran aground, notwithstanding the continual "ladno" cry of the poling pilot standing in the fore. It made so slow progress on this account that the passage from Saostrovskoj to Yenisejsk occupied a whole month.



The two main arms into which the Yenisej is divided south of Yenisejsk are too rapid for the present Yenisej steamers to ascend them, while, as has been already stated, there is no difficulty in descending these rivers from the Selenga and the Baikal Lake on the one hand, and from the Minusinsk region abounding in grain on the other. The banks here consist, in many places, of high rocky ridges covered with fine forests, with wonderfully beautiful valleys between them, covered with luxuriant vegetation.

What I have said regarding the mode of travelling up the Yenisej refers to the year 1875, in which I went up the river accompanied by two Swedish naturalists and three Norwegian seamen. It was then by no means unknown, for scientific men such as HANSTEEN (1829), CASTREN (1846), MIDDENDORFF (winter journeys in 1843 and 1844), and SCHMIDT (1866), had travelled hither and communicated their observations to the scientific world in valuable works on the nature and people of the region. But the visits of the West-European still formed rare exceptions; no West-European commercial traveller had yet wandered to those regions, and into the calculations of the friendly masters of the Yenisej river steamers no import of goods from, or export of goods to, Europe had ever entered. All at once a new period seemed to begin. If the change has not gone on so fast as many expected, life here, however, is more than it was at one time, and every year the change is more and more noticeable. It is on this account that I consider these notes from the journey of 1875 worthy of being preserved.

[Footnote 200: With this name, for want of another, I denote all the innumerable islands which lie in the Yenisej between 69 deg. 45' and 71 deg. N.L. ]

[Footnote 201: The Moskwa was the first steamer which penetrated from the Atlantic to the town of Yenisejsk. The principal dates of this voyage may therefore be quoted here.

Baron Knoop, along with several Russian merchants, had chartered in 1878 a steamer, the Louise; but this vessel stranded on the coast of Norway. The Zaritza, another Norwegian steamer, was chartered instead to carry the Louise's goods to their destination. But this vessel too stranded at the mouth of the Yenisej, and was abandoned by the crew, who were rescued by a small steamer, the Moskwa, which accompanied the Zaritza. In this steamer Captain Dallmann, the Bremen merchant Helwig Schmidt, and Ehlertz, an official in the Russian finance office, now travelled up the river. The Moskwa had a successful voyage, arriving on the 4th September at Goltschicha, passing Turuchansk in consequence of a number of delays only on the 24th September, reaching Podkamenaja Tunguska on the 1st October, and on the 14th of the same month its destination, a winter harbour on the Tschorna river, some miles north of Yenisejsk. (Fahrt auf dem Yenisse; von der Muendung bis Yenisejsk im Sommer 1878; Petermann's Mittheilungen, 1879, p 81.) ]

[Footnote 202: The particulars of the voyages of these vessels are taken from a copy which I have received of Captain Emil Nilsson's log. ]

[Footnote 203: The goods carried by me and by Wiggins to the Yenisej; in 1876, and those which Schwanenberg carried thence in 1877, were properly only samples on a somewhat large scale. I have no knowledge of the goods which the Zaritza had on board when she ran aground at the mouth of the Yenisej. ]

[Footnote 204: According to Johannesen's determination. On Wrangel's map the latitude of this cape is given as 73 deg. 30'. Johannesen found the longitude to be 125 deg. 31' instead of 127 deg.. ]

[Footnote 205: According to Latkin (Petermann's Mittheilungen, 1879, p. 92), the Lena delta is crossed by seven main arms, the westernmost of which is called Anatartisch. It debouches into the sea at a cape 58 feet high named Ice Cape (Ledjanoi). Next come the river arm Bjelkoj, then Tumat, at whose mouth a landmark erected by Laptev in 1739 is still in existence. Then come the other three main arms, Kychistach, Trofimov, and Kischlach, and finally the very broad eastmost arm, Bychov. Probably some of the smaller river arms are to be preferred for sailing up the river to this broad arm, which is fouled by shoals. ]

[Footnote 206: A common name used in Siberia for all the native races. ]

[Footnote 207: This has been incorrectly interpreted as if they shot at the vessel. ]

[Footnote 208: A coal seam is often unfit for use near the surface, where for centuries it has been uncovered and exposed to the action of the atmosphere, while farther down it may yield very good coal. It is probable besides that the layers of shale, which often surround the coal seams, have in this case been mistaken for the true coal. For those who are inexperienced in coal-mining to make such a mistake is the rule and not the exception. ]

[Footnote 209: In order not to write without due examination about figures which have been written about a thousand times before, I have, with the help of Petermann's map of North and Middle Asia in Stieler's Hand-Atlas, calculated the extent of the areas of the Siberian rivers, and found them to be:—

Square Geographical kilometres. square miles. River area of the Ob (with the Tas) 3,445,000 62,560 River area of the Yenisej 2,712,000 49,250 River area of the Lena 2,395,000 43,500

Of these areas 4,966,000 square kilometres, or about 90,000 geographical square miles, lie south of 60 deg. N.L. ]

[Footnote 210: For the northern hemisphere it is the general rule that where rivers flow through loose, earthy strata in a direction deviating considerably from that of the parallels of latitude, the right bank, when one stands facing the mouth of the river, is high, and the left low. The cause of this is the globular form of the earth and its rotation, which gives rivers flowing north a tendency towards the east, and to rivers flowing south a tendency to the west This tendency is resisted by the bank, but it is gradually eaten into and washed away by degrees, so that the river bed, in the course of thousands of years, is shifted in the direction indicated. ]

[Footnote 211: As specimens of the sub-fossil mollusc fauna of the tundra some of the common species are delineated on the opposite page. These are:—1. Mya arenaria, Lin. 2/3 of natural size. 2. Mya truncata, Lin. var. Uddevallensis, Forbes. 2/3 3. Saxicava pholadis, Lin. 2/3. 4. Tellina lata, Gmel. 2/3 5. Cardium ciliatum, Fabr. 2/3. 6. Leda pernula, Muell. var. buccata, Steenstr. Natural size. 7. Nucula expansa, Reeve. Nat. size. 8. Fusus Kroyeri, Moell. 2/3. 9. Fusus fornicatus, Reeve. 1/2. 10. Fusus tornatus, Gould. 2/3. 11. Margarita elegantissima, Bean. Natural size. 12. Pleurotoma plicifera, Wood. Natural size. 13. Pleurotoma pyramidalis, Stroem. 1-1/2. 14. Trichotropis borealis, Brod. 1-1/2. 15. Natica helicoides, Johnst. Nat. size. ]

[Footnote 212: Bihang till Vet. Akad. Handl. Bd. iv. No. 11, p. 42. ]

[Footnote 213: Provisions and wares intended for trade with the natives are transported on the Yenisej, as on many other Siberian rivers, down the stream in colossal lighters, built of planks like logs. It does not pay to take them up the river again, on which account, after their lading has been taken out of them, they are either left on the bank to rot or broken up for the timber. ]



CHAPTER IX.

The New Siberian Islands—The Mammoth—Discovery of Mammoth and Rhinoceros mummies—Fossil Rhinoceros horns—Stolbovoj Island—Liachoff's Island—First discovery of this island— Passage through the sound between this island and the mainland—Animal life there—Formation of ice in water above the freezing point—The Bear Islands—The quantity and dimensions of the ice begin to increase—Different kinds of sea-ice—Renewed attempt to leave the open channel along the coast—Lighthouse Island—Voyage along the coast to Cape Schelagskoj—Advance delayed by ice, shoals, and fog— First meeting with the Chukches—Landing and visits to Chukch villages—Discovery of abandoned encampments—Trade with the natives rendered difficult by the want of means of exchange—Stay at Irkaipij—Onkilon graves—Information regarding the Onkilon race—Renewed contact with the Chukches —Kolyutschin Bay—American statements regarding the state of the ice north of Behring's Straits—The Vega beset.

After the parting the Lena shaped her course towards the land; the Vega continued her voyage in a north-easterly direction towards the new Siberian Islands.

These have, from the time of their discovery, been renowned among the Russian ivory collectors for their extraordinary richness in tusks and portions of skeletons of the extinct northern species of elephant known by the name of mammoth.

We know by the careful researches of the academicians PALLAS, VON BAER, BRANDT, VON MIDDENDORFF, FR. SCHMIDT, &c., that the mammoth was a peculiar northern species of elephant with a covering of hair, which, at least during certain seasons of the year, lived under natural conditions closely resembling those which now prevail in middle and even in northern Siberia. The widely extended grassy plains and forests of North Asia were the proper homeland of this animal, and there it must at one time have wandered about in large herds.

The same, or a closely allied species of elephant, also occurred in North America, in England, France, Switzerland, Germany, and North Russia. Indeed, even in Sweden and Finland inconsiderable mammoth remains have sometimes been found.[214] But while in Europe only some more or less inconsiderable remains of bones are commonly to be found, in Siberia we meet not only with whole skeletons, but also whole animals frozen in the earth, with solidified blood, flesh, hide, and hair. Hence we may draw the conclusion that the mammoth died out, speaking geologically, not so very long ago. This is besides confirmed by a remarkable antiquarian discovery made in France. Along with a number of roughly worked flint flakes, pieces of ivory were found, on which, among other things, a mammoth with trunk, tusks, and hair was engraved in rough but unmistakable lineaments, and in a style resembling that which distinguishes the Chukch drawings, copies of which will be found further on in this work. This drawing, whose genuineness appears to be proved, surpasses in age, perhaps a hundredfold, the oldest monuments that Egypt has to show, and forms a remarkable proof that the mammoth, the original of the drawing, lived in Western Europe contemporaneously with man. The mammoth remains are thus derived from a gigantic animal form, living in former times in nearly all the lands now civilized, and whose carcase is not yet everywhere completely decomposed. Hence the great and intense interest which attaches to all that concerns this wonderful animal.

If the interpretation of an obscure passage in Pliny be correct, mammoth ivory has, from the most ancient times, formed a valued article of commerce, which, however, was often mistaken for the ivory of living elephants and of the walrus. But portions of the skeleton of the mammoth itself are first described in detail by WITSEN, who during his stay in Russia in 1686 collected a large number of statements regarding it, and at least in the second edition of his work gives good drawings of the under jaw of a mammoth and the cranium of a fossil species of ox, whose bones are found along with the remains of the mammoth (WITSEN, 2nd. edit. p. 746). But it appears to have escaped Witsen, who himself considered mammoth bones to be the remains of ancient elephants, and who well knew the walrus, that in a number of the accounts which he quotes, the mammoth and the walrus are clearly mixed up together, which is not so wonderful, as both are found on the coast of the Polar Sea, and both yielded ivory to the stocks of the Siberian merchants. In the same way all the statements which the French Jesuit, AVRIL, during his stay in Moscow in 1686, collected regarding the amphibious animal, Behemoth, occurring on the coast of the Tartarian Sea, (Polar Sea) refer not to the mammoth, as some writers, HOWORTH[215] for example, have supposed, but to the walrus. The name mammoth, which is probably of Tartar origin, Witsen appears to wish to derive from Behemoth, spoken of in the fortieth chapter of the Book of Job. The first mammoth tusk was brought to England in 1611, by JOSIAS LOGAN. It was purchased in the region of the Petchora, and attracted great attention, as appears from Logan's remark in a letter to Hakluyt, that one would not have dreamed to find such wares in the region of the Petchora (Purchas, iii p. 546). As Englishmen at that time visited Moscow frequently, and for long periods, this remark appears to indicate that fossil ivory first became known in the capital of Russia some time after the conquest of Siberia.



I have not, indeed, been successful during the voyage of the Vega in making any remarkable discovery that would throw light on the mode of life of the mammoth,[216] but as we now sail forward between shores probably richer in such remains than any other on the surface of the globe, and over a sea, from whose bottom our dredge brought up, along with pieces of driftwood, half-decayed portions of mammoth tusks, and as the savages with whom we came in contact, several times offered us very fine mammoth tusks or tools made of mammoth ivory, it may not perhaps be out of place here to give a brief account of some of the most important mammoth finds which have been preserved for science. We can only refer to the discovery of mammoth mummies,[217] for the finds of mammoth tusks sufficiently well preserved to be used for carving are so frequent as to defy enumeration. Middendorff reckons the number of the tusks, which yearly come into the market, as at least a hundred pairs,[218] whence we may infer, that during the years that have elapsed since the conquest of Siberia useful tusks from more than 20,000 animals have been collected.

The discovery of a mammoth-mummy is mentioned for the first time in detail in the sketch of a journey which the Russian ambassador EVERT YSSBRANTS IDES, a Dutchman by birth, made in 1692 through Siberia to China. A person whom Yssbrants Ides had with him during his journey through Siberia, and who travelled every year to collect mammoth ivory, assured him that he had once found a head of this animal in a piece of frozen earth which had tumbled down. The flesh was putrefied, the neck-bone was still coloured by blood, and some distance from the head a frozen foot was found.[219] The foot was taken to Turuchansk, whence we may infer that the find was made on the Yenisej. Another time the same man found a pair of tusks weighing together twelve poods or nearly 200 kilogram. Ides' informant further stated, that while the heathen Yakuts, Tunguses, and Ostyaks, supposed that the mammoth always lived in the earth and went about in it, however hard the ground might be frozen, also that the large animal died when it came so far up that it saw or smelled the air; the old Russians living in Siberia were of opinion that the mammoth was an animal of the same kind as the elephant, though with tusks somewhat more bent and closer together; that before the Flood Siberia had been warmer than now, and elephants had then lived in numbers there; that they had been drowned in the Flood, and afterwards, when the climate became colder, had frozen in the river mud.[220]

The folk-lore of the natives regarding the mode of life of the mammoth under ground is given in still greater detail in J.B. MUeLLER'S Leben und Gewonheiten der Ostiaken unter dem Polo arctico wohnende, &c. Berlin, 1720 (in French in Recueil de Voiages au Nord, Amsterdam, 1731-38, Vol. VIII. p. 373). According to the accounts given by Muller, who lived in Siberia as a Swedish prisoner of war,[221] the tusks formed the animal's horns. With these, which were fastened above the eyes and were movable, the animal dug a way for itself through the clay and mud, but when it came to sandy soil, the sand ran together so that the mammoth stuck fast and perished. Muller further states, that many assured him that they themselves had seen such animals on the other side of Beresovsk in large grottos in the Ural mountains (loc. cit. p. 382).

KLAPROTH received a similar account of the mammoth's way of life from the Chinese in the Russo-Chinese frontier and trading town Kyachta. For mammoth ivory was considered to be tusks of the giant rat tien-shu, which is only found in the cold regions along the coast of the Polar Sea, avoids the light, and lives in dark holes in the interior of the earth. Its flesh is said to be cooling and wholesome. Some Chinese literati considered that the discovery of these immense earth rats might even explain the origin of earthquakes.[222]

It was not until the latter half of the last century that a European scientific man had an opportunity of examining a similar find. In the year 1771 a complete rhinoceros, with flesh and hide, was uncovered by a landslip on the river Wilui in 64 deg. N.L. Its head and feet are still preserved at St. Petersburg. All the other parts were allowed to be destroyed for want of means of transport and preservation.[223] What was taken away showed that this primeval rhinoceros (Rhinoceros antiquitatis Blumenbach) had been covered with hair and differed from all now living species of the same family, though strongly resembling them in shape and size. Already, long before the horns of the fossil rhinoceros had attracted the attention of the natives, pieces of these horns were used for the same purposes for which the Chukches employ strips of whalebone, viz. to increase the elasticity of their bows. They were considered at the same time to exert a like beneficial influence on the arrow, tending to make it hit the mark, as, according to the hunter's superstition among ourselves in former days, some cat's claws and owl's eyes placed in the bullet mould had on the ball. The natives believed that the crania and horns of the rhinoceros found along with the remains of the mammoth belonged to gigantic birds, regarding which there were told in the tents of the Yakut, the Ostyak and the Tunguse many tales resembling that of the bird Roc in the Thousand and One Nights. Ermann and Middendorff even suppose that such finds two thousand years ago gave occasion to Herodotus' account of the Arimaspi and the gold-guarding dragons (Herodotus, Book IV. chap. 27). Certain it is that during the middle ages such "grip-claws" were preserved, as of great value, in the treasuries and art collections of that time, and that they gave rise to many a romantic story in the folk-lore both of the West and East. Even in this century Hedenstroem, the otherwise sagacious traveller on the Siberian Polar Sea, believed that the fossil rhinoceros' horns were actual, "grip-claws." For he mentions in his oft-quoted work, that he had seen such a claw 20 verschoks (0.9 metre) in length, and when he visited St. Petersburg in 1830, the scientific men there did not succeed in convincing him that his ideas on this subject were incorrect.[224]



A new find of a mammoth mummy was made in 1787, when the natives informed the Russian travellers SARYTSCHEV and MERK, that about 100 versts below the village Alasejsk, situated on the river Alasej running into the Polar Sea, a gigantic animal had been washed out of the sand beds of the beach in an upright posture, undamaged, with hide and hair. The find, however, does not appear to have been thoroughly examined.[225]

In 1799 a Tunguse found on the Tamut Peninsula, which juts out into the sea immediately south-east of the river-arm by which the Lena, steamed up the river, another frozen-in mammoth. He waited patiently five years for the ground thawing so much as that the precious tusks should be uncovered. The softer parts of the animal accordingly were partly torn in pieces and destroyed by beasts of prey and dogs, when the place was closely examined in 1806 by ADAMS the Academician. Only the head and two of the feet were then almost undamaged. The skeleton, part of the hide, a large quantity of long hair and woolly hair a foot and a half long were taken away. How fresh the carcase was may be seen from the fact that parts of the eye could still be clearly distinguished. Similar remains had been found two years before, a little further beyond the mouth of the Lena, but they were neither examined nor removed.[226]

A new find was made in 1839, when a complete mammoth was uncovered by a landslip on the shore of a large lake to the west of the mouth of the Yenisej, seventy versts from the Polar Sea. It was originally almost entire, so that even the trunk appears to have been preserved, to judge by the statement of the natives that a black tongue as long as a month-old reindeer calf was hanging out of the mouth; but it had, when it was removed in 1842, by the care of the merchant TROFIMOV, been already much destroyed.[227]

Next after Trofimov's mammoth come the mammoth-finds of Middendorff and Schmidt. The former was made in 1843 on the bank of the river Tajmur, under 75 deg. N.L.; the latter in 1866 or the Gyda tundra, west of the mouth of the Yenisej in 70 deg. 13' N.L. The soft parts of these finds were not so well preserved as those just mentioned. But the finds at all events had a greater importance for science, from the localities having been thoroughly examined by competent scientific men. Middendorff arrived at the result that the animal found by him had floated from more southerly regions to the place where it was found. Schmidt on the other hand found that the stratum which contained the mammoth rested on a bed of marine clay, containing shells of high northern species of crustacea which still live in the Polar Sea, and that it was covered with strata of sand alternating with beds, from a quarter to half a foot thick, of decayed remains of plants, which completely correspond with the turf beds which are still formed in the lakes of the tundra. Even the very beds of earth and clay in which the bones, pieces of hide, and hair of the mammoth mummy were enclosed, contained pieces of larch, branches and leaves of the dwarf birch (Betulct nana), and of two northern species of willow (Salie glauca, and herbacea).[228] It appears from this that the climate of Siberia at the time when these mammoth-carcases were imbedded, was very nearly the same as the present, and as the stream in whose neighbourhood the find was made is a comparatively inconsiderable tundra river, lying wholly to the north of the limit of trees, there is no probability that the carcase drifted with the spring ice from the wooded region of Siberia towards the north. Schmidt, therefore, supposes that the Siberian elephant, if it did not always live in the northernmost parts of Asia, occasionally wandered thither, in the same way that the reindeer now betakes itself to the coast of the Polar Sea. VON BRANDT, VON SCHMALHAUSEN, and others, had besides already shown that the remains of food which were found in the hollows of the teeth of the Wilui rhinoceros consisted of portions of leaves and needles of species of trees which still grow in Siberia.[229]

Soon after the mammoth found on the Gyda tundra had been examined by Schmidt, similar finds were examined by GERHARD VON MAYDELL, at three different places between the rivers Kolyma and Indigirka, about a hundred kilometres from the Polar Sea. With respect to these finds I can only refer to a paper by L. VON SCHRENCK in the Bulletin of the St. Petersburg Academy, T. XVI. 1871, p. 147.

Under the guidance of natives I collected in 1876 at the confluence of the river Mesenkin with, the Yenisej, in 71 deg. 28' N.L., some fragments of bones and pieces of the hide of a mammoth. The hide was 20 to 25 millimetres thick and nearly tanned by age, which ought not to appear wonderful, when we consider that, though the mammoth lived in one of the latest periods of the history of our globe, hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of years have, however, passed since the animal died to which these pieces of skin once belonged. It was clear that they had been washed by the neighbouring river Mesenkin out of the tundra-bank, but I endeavoured, without success, to discover the original locality, which was probably already concealed by river mud. In the neighbourhood was found a very fine cranium of the musk ox.

A new and important find was made in 1877 on a tributary of the Lena, in the circle Werchojansk, in 69 deg. N.L. For there was found there an exceedingly well preserved carcase of a rhinoceros (Rhinoceros Merckii, Jaeg.), a different species from the Wilui rhinoceros examined by Pallas. However, before the carcase was washed away by the river, there had only been removed the hair-covered head and one foot.[230] From the find Schrenck draws the conclusion that this rhinoceros belonged to a high-northern species, adapted to a cold climate, and living in, or at least occasionally wandering to, the regions where the carcase was found. There the mean temperature of the year is now very low,[231] the winter exceedingly cold (-63.3 deg. has been registered) and the short summer exceedingly warm. Nowhere on earth does the temperature show extremes so widely separated as here. Although the trees in winter often split with tremendous noise, and the ground is rent with the cold, the wood is luxuriant and extends to the neighbourhood of the Polar Sea, where besides, the winter is much milder than farther in the interior. With respect to the possibility of these large animals finding sufficient pasture in the regions in question, it ought not to be overlooked that in sheltered places overflowed by the spring inundations there are found, still far north of the limit of trees, luxuriant bushy thickets, whose newly-expanded juicy leaves, burned up by no tropical sun, perhaps form a special luxury for grass-eating animals, and that even the bleakest stretches of land in the high north are fertile in comparison with many regions where at least the camel can find nourishment, for instance the east coast of the Red Sea.

The nearer we come to the coast of the Polar Sea, the more common are the remains of the mammoth, especially at places where there have been great landslips at the river banks when the ice breaks up in spring. Nowhere, however, are they found in such numbers as on the New Siberian Islands. Here Hedenstroem in the space of a verst saw ten tusks sticking out of the ground, and from a single sandbank on the west side of Liachoff's Island the ivory collectors had, when this traveller visited the spot, for eighty years made their best tusk harvest. That new finds may be made there year by year depends on the bones and tusks being washed by the waves out of the sandbeds on the shore, so that after an east wind which has lasted some time they may be collected at low water on the banks then laid dry. The tusks which are found on the coast of the Polar Sea are said to be smaller than those that are found farther south, a circumstance which possibly may be explained by supposing that, while the mammoth wandered about on the plains of Siberia, animals of different ages pastured in company, and that the younger of them, as being more agile and perhaps more troubled by flies than the older, went farther north than these.

Along with bones of the mammoth there are found on the New Siberian Islands, in not inconsiderable numbers, portions of the skeletons of other animal forms, little known, but naturally of immense importance for ascertaining the vertebrate fauna which lived at the same time with the mammoth on the plains of Siberia, and the New Siberian group of islands is not less remarkable for the "wood-hills," highly enigmatical as to their mode of formation, which Hedenstroem found on the south coast of the northernmost island. These hills are sixty-four metres high, and consist of thick horizontal sandstone beds alternating with strata of fissile bituminous tree stems, heaped on each other to the top of the hill. In the lower part of the hill the tree stems lie horizontally, but in the upper strata they stand upright, though perhaps not rootfast.[232] The flora and fauna of the island group besides are still completely unknown, and the fossils, among them ammonites with exquisite pearly lustre, which Hedenstroem brought home from the rock strata on Kotelnoj Island, hold out inducement to further researches, which ought to yield the geologist valuable information as to the former climate and the former distribution of land and sea on the surface of the globe. The knowledge of the hydrography of this region is besides an indispensable condition for judging of the state of the ice in the sea which washes the north coast of Asia. Here lies the single available starting-point for the exploration of the yet altogether unknown sea farther to the north, and from hills on the two northernmost islands Hedenstroem thought that across the sea to the north-west and north-east he saw obscure outlines of new land, on which no man had yet set his foot. All these circumstances confer on this group of islands an uncommon interest in a scientific and geographical respect, and therefore no long time can elapse until a scientific expedition be sent to these regions. Just for this reason I now desired, as a preparation for a future voyage, to wander about here for a couple of days, partly on foot, partly by boat.



The air was calm, but for the most part clouded, the temperature as high as +4 deg., the sea clear of ice, the salinity of the water 1.8 per cent, with a temperature of +2 deg. to +3 deg.. At first we made rapid progress, but after having in the afternoon of the 28th August sighted the westernmost islands, Semenoffskoj and Stolbovoj, the sea became so shallow that for long stretches we were compelled to sail in six to seven metres water. Some very rotten ice, or rather ice sludge, was also met with, which compelled us to make tedious detours, and prevented the Vega from going at full speed.

The animal life was among the scantiest I had seen during my many travels in the Polar Seas. A few seals were visible. Of birds we saw some terns and gulls, and even far out at sea a pretty large number of phalaropes—the most common kind of bird on the coast of the Asiatic Polar Sea, at least in autumn. Stolbovoj Island was, especially on the north side, high with precipitous shore-cliffs which afforded splendid breeding-places for looms, black guillemots and gulls. At all such cliffs there breed on Spitzbergen millions of sea fowl, which are met with out on the surrounding sea in great flocks searching for their food. Here not a single loom was seen, and even the number of the gulls was small, which indeed in some degree was to be accounted for by the late season of the year, but also by the circumstance that no colony of birds had settled on the rocky shores of the island.

The sea bottom consisted at certain places of hard packed sand, or rather, as I shall endeavour to show farther on, of frozen sand, from which the trawl net brought up no animals. At other places there was found a clay, exceedingly rich in Idothea entomon and Sabinei and an extraordinary mass of bryozoa, resembling collections of the eggs of mollusca.

It was not until the 30th of August that we were off the west side of Ljachoff's Island, on which I intended to land. The north coast, and, as it appeared the day after, the east coast was clear, of ice, but the winds recently prevailing had heaped a mass of rotten ice on the west coast. The sea besides was so shallow here, that already at a distance 15' from land we had a depth of only eight metres. The ice heaped against the west coast of the island did not indeed form any very serious obstacle to the advance of the Vega, but in case we had attempted to land there it might have been inconvenient enough, when the considerable distance between the vessel and the land was to be traversed in a boat or the steam launch, and it might even, if a sudden frost had occurred, have become a fetter, which would have confined us to that spot for the winter. Even a storm arising hastily might in this shallow water have been actually dangerous to the vessel anchored in an open road. The prospect of wandering about for some days on the island did not appear to me to outweigh the danger of the possible failure of the main object of the expedition. I therefore gave up for the time my intention of landing. The course was shaped southwards towards the sound, of so bad repute in the history of the Siberian Polar Sea, which separates Ljachoff's Island from the mainland.



So far as we could judge at a distance from the appearance of the rocks, Stolbovoj consisted of stratified rocks, Ljachoff's Island, on the contrary, like the mainland opposite, of high hills, much shattered, probably formed of Plutonic stone-masses. Between these there are extensive plains, which, according to a statement by the land surveyor CHVOINOFF, who by order of the Czar visited the island in 1775, are formed of ice and sand, in which lie imbedded enormous masses of the bones and tusks of the mammoth, mixed with the horns and skulls of some kind of ox and with rhinoceros' horns. Bones of the whale and walrus are not mentioned as occurring there, but "long small screw-formed bones," by which are probably meant the tusks of the narwhal.[233]

All was now clear of snow, with the exception of a few of the deeper clefts between the mountains. No traces of glaciers were visible, not even such small collections of ice as are to be found everywhere on Spitzbergen where the land rises a few hundred feet above the surface of the sea. Nor, to judge by the appearance of the hills, have there been any glaciers in former times, and this is certainly the case on the mainland. The northernmost part of Asia in that case has never been covered by such an ice-sheet as is assumed by the supporters of a general ice age embracing the whole globe.

The large island right opposite to Svjatoinos was discovered in 1770 by LJACHOFF, whose name the island now bears. In 1788 Billings' private secretary, MARTIN SAUER, met with Ljachoff at Yakutsk, but he was then old and infirm, on which account, when Sauer requested information regarding the islands in the Polar Sea, he referred him to one of his companions, ZAITAI PROTODIAKONOFF. He informed him that the discovery was occasioned by an enormous herd of reindeer which Ljachoff, in the month of April 1770, saw going from Svjatoinos towards the south, and whose track came over the ice from the north. On the correct supposition that the reindeer came from some land lying to the north, Ljachoff followed the track in a dog-sledge, and thus discovered the two most southerly of the New Siberian Islands, a discovery which was rewarded by the Czarina Catherine II. with the exclusive right to hunt and collect ivory on them.[234]



Ljachoff states the breadth of the sound between the mainland and the nearest large island at 70 versts or 40'. On Wrangel's map again the breadth is not quite 30'. On the mainland side it is bounded by a rocky headland projecting far into the sea, which often formed the turning point in attempts to penetrate eastwards from the mouth of the river Lena, and perhaps just on that account, like many other headlands dangerous to the navigator on the north coast of Russia, was called Svjatoinos (the holy cape), a name which for the oldest Russian Polar Sea navigators appears to have had the same signification as "the cape that can be passed with difficulty." No one however now thinks with any apprehension of the two "holy capes," which in former times limited the voyages of the Russians and Fins living on the White Sea to the east and west, and this, I am quite convinced, will some time be the case with this and all other holy capes in the Siberian Polar Sea.

The sea water in the sound was much mixed with river water and had a comparatively high temperature, even at a depth of nine to eleven metres. The animal life at the sea bottom was poor in species but rich in individuals, consisting principally of Idothea entomon, of which Dr. Stuxberg counted 800 specimens from a single sweep of the dredge. There were obtained at the same time, besides a few specimens of Idothea Sabinei, sponges and bryozoa in great abundance, and small mussels, crustacea, vermes, &c. Various fishes were also caught, and some small algae collected. The trawl-net besides brought up from the bottom some fragments of mammoth tusks, and a large number of pieces of wood, for the most part sticks or branches, which appear to have stood upright in the clay, to judge from the fact that one of their ends was often covered with living bryozoa. These sticks often caused great inconvenience to the dredgers, by tearing the net that was being dragged along the bottom.

On the night preceding the 31st of August, as we steamed past Svjatoinos, a peculiar phenomenon was observed. The sky was clear in the zenith and in the east; in the west, on the other hand, there was a bluish-grey bank of cloud. The temperature of the water near the surface varied between +1 deg. and +1.6 deg., that of the air on the vessel between +1.5 deg. and +1.8 deg.. Although thus both the air and the water had a temperature somewhat above the freezing-point, ice was seen to form on the calm, mirror-bright surface of the sea. This ice consisted partly of needles, partly of a thin sheet. I have previously on several occasions observed in the Arctic seas a similar phenomenon, that is to say, have observed the formation of ice when the temperature of the air was above the freezing-point. On this occasion, when the temperature of the uppermost stratum of water was also above the freezing-point, the formation of ice was clearly a sort of hoar-frost phenomenon, caused by radiation of heat, perhaps both upwards towards the atmosphere and downwards towards the bottom layer of water, cooled below the freezing-point.

The whole day we continued our voyage eastwards with glorious weather over a smooth ice-free sea, and in the same way on the 1st September, with a gentle southerly wind, the temperature of the air at noon in the shade being +5.6 deg.. On the night before the 2nd September the wind became northerly and the temperature of the air sank to -1 deg.. Little land was seen, though we were still not very far from the coast. Near to it there was a broad ice-free, or nearly ice-free, channel, but farther out to sea ice commenced. The following night snow fell, so that the whole of the deck and the Bear Islands, which we reached on the 3rd September, were sprinkled with it.

Hitherto, during the whole time we sailed along the coast, we had scarcely met with any fields of drift-ice but such as were formed of rotten, even, thin and scattered pieces of ice, in many places almost converted into ice-sludge, without an "ice-foot" and often dirty on the surface. No iceberg had been seen, nor any large glacier ice-blocks, such as on the coasts of Spitzbergen replace the Greenland icebergs. But east of Svjatoinos the ice began to increase in size and assume the same appearance as the ice north of Spitzbergen. It was here, besides, less dirty, and rested on a hard ice-foot projecting deep under water and treacherous for the navigator.

The ice of the Polar Sea may be divided into the following varieties:—

1. Icebergs. The true icebergs have a height above the surface of the water rising to 100 metres. They often ground in a depth of 200 to 300 metres, and have thus sometimes a cross section of up to 400, perhaps 500 metres. Their area may amount to several square kilometres. Such enormous blocks of ice are projected into the North Polar Sea only from the glaciers of Greenland, and according to Payer's statement, from those of Franz-Josef Land also; but not, as some authors (GEIKIE, BROWN, and others) appear to assume and have shown by incorrect ideal drawings, from glaciers which project into the sea and there terminate with a perpendicular evenly-cut border, but from very uneven glaciers which always enter the sea in the bottoms of deep fjords, and are split up into icebergs long before they reach it. It is desirable that those who write on the origin of icebergs, should take into consideration the fact that icebergs are only formed at places where a violent motion takes place in the mass of the ice, which again within a comparatively short time results in the excavation of the deep ice-fjord. The largest iceberg, which, so far as I know, has been measured in that part of the Polar Sea which lies between Spitzbergen and Wrangel Land, is one which Barents saw at Cape Nassau on the 17/7th August 1596. It was sixteen fathoms high, and had grounded in a depth of thirty-six fathoms. In the South Polar Sea icebergs occur in great numbers and of enormous size. If we may assume that they have an origin similar to those of Greenland, it is probable that round the South Pole there is an extensive continent indented by deep fjords.

2. Glacier Ice-blocks. These, which indeed have often been called icebergs, are distinguished from true icebergs not only by their size, but also by the way in which they are formed. They have seldom a cross section of more than thirty or forty metres, and it is only exceptionally that they are more than ten metres high above the surface of the water. They originate from the "calving" of glaciers which project into the sea with a straight and evenly high precipitous border. Such glaciers occur in large numbers on the coasts of Spitzbergen, and they are there of the same height as similar evenly-cut glaciers on Greenland. According to the statement of the Dane PETERSEN, who took part both in KANE'S expedition in 1853-55 and in Torell's in 1861, the glaciers, for instance, at Hinloopen Strait in Spitzbergen, are fully equal, with respect to their size and the height of their borders above the sea-level, to the enormous and much bewritten Humboldt glacier in Greenland. In Spitzbergen too we find at two places miniatures of the Greenland ice-currents, for instance the glacier which filled the North Haven in Bell Sound, another glacier which filled an old Dutch whaling haven between Recherche Bay and Van Keulen Bay, a glacier on the north side of Wablenberg Bay and perhaps at that part of the inland ice marked in my map of the expedition of 1872 as a bay on the east coast of North-east Land. It is even possible that small icebergs may be projected from the last-mentioned place, and thence drift out into the sea on the east coast of Spitzbergen.

Glacier-ice shows a great disposition to fall asunder into smaller pieces without any perceptible cause. It is full of cavities, containing compressed air, which, when the ice melts, bursts its attenuated envelope with a crackling sound like that of the electric spark. It thus behaves in this respect in the same way as some mineral salts which dissolve in water with slight explosions. Barents relates that on the 20/10th August 1596 he anchored his vessel to a block of ice which was aground on the coast of Novaya Zemlya. Suddenly, and without any perceptible cause, the rock of ice burst asunder into hundreds of smaller pieces with a tremendous noise, and to the great terror of all the men on board. Similar occurrences on a smaller scale I have myself witnessed. The cause to which they are due appears to me to be the following. The ice-block while part of the glacier is exposed to very severe pressure, which ceases when it falls into the sea. The pressure now in most cases equalises itself without any bursting asunder, but it sometimes happens that the inner strongly compressed portions of the ice-block cannot, although the pressure has ceased, expand freely in consequence of the continuous ice-envelope by which they are still surrounded. A powerful internal tension must thereby arise in the whole mass, which finally leads to its bursting into a thousand pieces. We have here a Prince Rupert's drop, but one whose diameter may rise to fifty metres, and which consists not of glass but of ice.

Glacier ice-blocks occur abundantly on the coasts of Spitzbergen and north Novaya Zemlya, but appear to be wanting or exceedingly rare along the whole north coast of Asia, between Yugor Schar and Wrangel Land. East of this they again occur, but not in any great numbers. This appears to show that the Western Siberian Polar Sea is not surrounded by any glacial lands. The glacier ice is commonly of a blue colour. When melted it yields a pure water, free of salt. Sometimes however it gives traces of salt, which are derived from the spray which the storms have carried high up on the surface of the glacier.

3. Pieces of ice from the ice-foot formed along the sea beach or the banks of rivers. They rise sometimes five or six metres above the surface of the water. They consist commonly of dirty ice, mixed with earth.

4. River Ice, level, comparatively small ice fields, which, when they reach the sea, are already so rotten that they soon melt away and disappear.

5. The walrus-hunters' Bay Ice; by which we understand level ice-fields formed in fjords and bays along the coast, and which have there been exposed to a comparatively early summer heat. The bay ice therefore melts away completely during summer, and it is not commonly much pressed together. When all the snow upon it has disappeared, there is to be seen above the surface of the water a little ice of the same colour as the water, while under water very considerable portions of unmelted hard ice are still remaining. This has given rise to the walrus-hunters' statement, which has been warmly maintained, that the ice in autumn finally disappears by sinking. Nearly all the ice we met with in the course of our voyage belonged to this variety.

6. Sea Ice, or heavy ice, which often exhibits traces of having been much pressed together, but has not been exposed to any early summer heat. The walrus-hunters call it sea ice, wishing, I imagine, to indicate thereby that it is formed in the sea farther up towards the north. That it has drifted down from the north is indeed correct, but that it has been formed far from land over a considerable depth in the open sea is perhaps uncertain, as the ice that is formed there cannot, we think, be very thick. It has rather perhaps drifted down from the neighbourhood of some yet unknown Polar continent. Of this ice are formed most of the ice-fields in the seas east of Greenland, north of Spitzbergen, between Spitzbergen and the north island of Novaya Zemlya, and north of Behring's Straits. In the northern seas it does not melt completely during the summer, and remains of sea ice therefore often enter as component parts into the bay ice formed during the following winter. The latter then becomes rough and uneven, from remnants of old sea ice being frozen into the newly formed ice. Sea ice is often pressed together so as to form great torosses or ice-casts, formed of pieces of ice which at first are angular and piled loose on each other, but gradually become rounded, and freeze together into enormous blocks of ice, which, together with the glacier ice-blocks, form the principal mass of the ground ice found on the coasts of the Polar lands. The water which is obtained by melting sea-ice is not completely free from salt, but the older it is the less salt does it contain.

East of the Bear Islands heavy sea-ice in pretty compact masses had drifted down towards the coast, but still left an open ice-free channel along the land. Here the higher animal world was exceedingly poor, which, as far as the avi-fauna was concerned, must be in some degree ascribed to the late season of the year. For Wrangel mentions a cliff at the Bear Islands which was covered with numberless birds' nests. He saw besides, on the largest of these islands, traces of the bear, wolf, fox, lemming, and reindeer (Wrangel's Reise, i. pp. 304 and 327). Now the surrounding sea was completely deserted. No Polar bear saluted us from the ice-floes, no walruses, and only very few seals were visible. During many watches not a single natatory bird was seen. Only the phalarope was still met with in large numbers, even pretty far out at sea. Perhaps it was then migrating from the north. The lower animal world was more abundant. From the surface of the sea the drag-net brought up various small surface crustacea, inconsiderable in themselves, but important as food for larger animals; and from the sea-bottom were obtained a large number of the same animal forms as from the sound at Svjatoinos, and in addition some beautiful asterids and a multitude of very large beaker sponges.

On the 3rd September, after we had sailed past the Bear Islands, the course was shaped right for Cape Chelagskoj. This course, as will be seen by a glance at the map, carried us far from the coast, and thus out of the channel next the land, in which we had hitherto sailed. The ice was heavy and close, although at first so distributed that it was navigable. But with a north wind, which began to blow on the night before the 1st September, the temperature fell below the freezing-point, and the water between the pieces of drift-ice was covered with a very thick crust of ice, and the drift-ice came closer and closer together. It thus became impossible to continue the course which we had taken. We therefore turned towards the land, and at 6 o'clock P.M., after various bends in the ice and a few concussions against the pieces of ice that barred our way, again reached the ice-free channel, eight to twelve kilometres broad, next the land. While we lay a little way in among the drift-ice fields we could see no sign of open water, but it appeared as if the compact ice extended all the way to land, a circumstance which shows how careful the navigator ought to be in expressing an opinion as to the nature of the pack beyond the immediate neighbourhood of the vessel. The temperature of the air, which in the ice-field had sunk to -3 deg., now rose at once to + 4.1 deg., while that of the water rose from -1 deg..2 to +3.5 deg., and its salinity fell from 2.4 to 13 per cent. All showed that we had now come into the current of the Kolyma, which from causes which have been already stated, runs from the mouth of the river along the land in an easterly direction.



The Bear Islands lying off the mouth of the Kolyma are, for the most part, formed of a plutonic rock, whose upper part has weathered away, leaving gigantic isolated pillars. Four such pillars have given to the easternmost of the islands the name Lighthouse Island (Fyrpelaroen). Similar ruin-like formations are found not only on Cape Baranov, which lies right opposite, but also at a great number of other places in that portion of the north coast of Siberia which lies farther to the east. Generally these cliff-ruins are collected together over considerable areas in groups or regular rows. They have thus, when seen from the sea, so bewildering a resemblance to the ruins of a gigantic city which had once been surrounded by strong walls and been full of temples and splendid buildings, that one is almost tempted to see in them memorials of the exploits of a Tamerlane or a Chingis Khan, up here in the high north.

The north side of the hill-tops was powdered with new-fallen snow, but the rest of the land was clear of snow. The distance between the south point of Ljachoff's Island and the Bear Islands is 360'. This distance we had traversed in three days, having thus made 120' in the twenty-four hours, or 5' per hour. If we consider the time lost in dredging, sounding, and determining the temperature and salinity of the water, and the caution which the navigator must observe during a voyage in quite unknown waters, this speed shows that during this part of our voyage we were hindered by ice only to a slight extent. Cape Baranov was passed on the night before the 5th September, the mouth of Chaun Bay on the night before the 6th September, and Cape Chelagskoj was reached on the 6th at 4 o'clock P.M. The distance in a right line between this headland and the Bear Islands is 180'. In consequence of the many detours in the ice we had required 2-1/2 days to traverse this distance, which corresponds to 72' per day, or 3' per hour, a speed which in a voyage in unknown, and for the most part ice-bestrewed waters, must yet be considered very satisfactory. But after this our progress began to be much slower. At midnight the sun was already 12 deg. to 13 degree below the horizon, and the nights were now so dark that at that time of day we were compelled to lie still anchored to some large ground-ice. A farther loss of time was caused by the dense fog which often prevailed by day, and which in the unknown shallow water next the land compelled Captain Palander to advance with extreme caution. The navigation along the north coast of Asia began to get somewhat monotonous. Even the most zealous Polar traveller may tire at last of mere ice, shallow water and fog; and mere fog, shallow water and ice.

Now, however, a pleasant change began, by our coming at last in contact with natives. In the whole stretch from Yugor Schar to Cape Chelagskoj we had seen neither men nor human habitations, if I except the old uninhabited hut between Cape Chelyuskin and the Chatanga. But on the 6th September, when we were a little way off Cape Chelagskoj, two boats were sighted. Every man, with the exception of the cook, who could be induced by no catastrophe to leave his pots and pans, and who had circumnavigated Asia and Europe perhaps without having been once on land, rushed on deck. The boats were of skin, built in the same way as the "umiaks" or women's boats of the Eskimo. They were fully laden with laughing and chattering natives, men, women, and children, who indicated by cries and gesticulations that they wished to come on board. The engine was stopped, the boats lay to, and a large number of skin-clad, bare-headed beings climbed up over the gunwale in a way that clearly indicated that they had seen vessels before. A lively talk began, but we soon became aware that none of the crew of the boats or the vessel knew any language common to both. It was an unfortunate circumstance, but signs were employed as far as possible. This did not prevent the chatter from going on, and great gladness soon came to prevail, especially when some presents began to be distributed, mainly consisting of tobacco and Dutch clay pipes. It was remarkable that none of them could speak a single word of Russian, while a boy could count tolerably well up to ten in English, which shows that the natives here come into closer contact with American whalers than with Russian traders. They acknowledged the name chukch or chautchu.



Many of them were tall, well-grown men. They were clothed in close fitting skin trousers and "pesks" of reindeer skin. The head was bare, the hair always clipped short, with the exception of a small fringe in front, where the hair had a length of four centimetres and was combed down over the brow. Some had a cap of the sort used by the Russians at Chabarova, stuck into the belt behind, but they appeared to consider the weather still too warm for the use of this head-covering. The hair of most of them was bluish-black and exceedingly thick. The women were tattooed with black or bluish-black lines on the brow and nose, a number of similar lines on the chin, and finally some embellishments on the cheeks. The type of face did not strike one as so unpleasant as that of the Samoyeds or Eskimo. Some of the young girls were even not absolutely ugly. In comparison with the Samoyeds they were even rather cleanly, and had a beautiful, almost reddish-white complexion. Two of the men were quite fair. Probably they were descendants of Russians, who for some reason or other, as prisoners of war or fugitives, had come to live among the Chukches and had been nationalised by them.

In a little we continued our voyage, after the Chukches had returned to their boats, evidently well pleased with the gifts they had received and the leaf tobacco I had dealt out in bundles,—along with the clay pipes, of which every one got as many as he could carry between his fingers,—with the finery and old clothes which my comrades and the crew strewed around them with generous hand. For we were all convinced that after some days we should come to waters where winter clothes would be altogether unnecessary, where our want of any article could easily be supplied at the nearest port, and where the means of exchange would not consist of goods, but of stamped pieces of metal and slips of paper.



On the 7th September, we steamed the whole day along the coast in pretty open ice. At night we lay to at a floe. The hempen tangles and the trawl-net were put out and yielded a very rich harvest. But in the morning we found ourselves again so surrounded by ice and fog, that, after several unsuccessful attempts to make an immediate advance, we were compelled to lie-to at a large piece of drift-ice near the shore. When the fog had lightened so much that the vessel could be seen from the land, we were again visited by a large number of natives, whom as before we entertained as best we could. They invited us by evident signs to land and visit their tents. As it was in any case impossible immediately to continue our voyage, I accepted the invitation, ordered a boat to be put out, and landed along with most of my comrades.

The beach here is formed of a low bank of sand which runs between the sea and a small shallow lagoon or fresh-water lake, whose surface is nearly on a level with that of the sea. Farther into the interior the land rises gradually to bare hills, clear of snow or only covered with a thin coating of powdered snow from the fall of the last few days. Lagoon formations, with either fresh or salt water, of the same kind as those which we saw here for the first time, are distinctive of the north-eastern coast of Siberia. It is these formations which gave rise to the statement that on the north coast of Siberia it is difficult to settle the boundaries between sea and land. In winter this may be difficult enough, for the low bank which separates the lagoon from the sea is not easily distinguished when it has become covered with snow, and it may therefore readily happen in winter journeys along the coast that one is far into the land while he still believes himself to be out on the sea-ice. But when the snow has melted, the boundary is sharp enough, and the sea by no means shallow for such a distance as old accounts would indicate. A continual ice-mud-work also goes on here during the whole summer. Quite close to the beach accordingly the depth of water is two metres, and a kilometre farther out ten to eleven metres. Off the high rocky promontories the water is commonly navigable even for vessels of considerable draught close to the foot of the cliffs.

The villages of the Chukches commonly stand on the bank of sand which separates the lagoon from the sea. The dwellings consist of roomy skin tents, which enclose a sleeping chamber of the form of a parallelepiped surrounded by warm well-prepared reindeer skins, and lighted and warmed by one or more train-oil lamps. It is here that the family sleep during summer, and here most of them live day and night during winter. In summer, less frequently in winter, a fire is lighted besides in the outer tent with wood, for which purpose a hole is opened in the top of the raised tent-roof. But to be compelled to use wood for heating the inner tent the Chukches consider the extremity of scarcity of fuel.



We were received everywhere in a very friendly way, and were offered whatever the house afforded. At the time the supply of food was abundant. In one tent reindeer beef was being boiled in a large cast-iron pot. At another two recently shot or slaughtered reindeer were being cut in pieces. At a third an old woman was employed in taking out of the paunch of the reindeer the green spinage-like contents and cramming them into a sealskin bag, evidently to be preserved for green food during winter. The hand was used in this case as a scoop, and the naked arms were coloured high up with the certainly unappetising spinage, which however, according to the statements of Danish colonists in Greenland, has no unpleasant taste. Other skin sacks filled with train-oil stood in rows along the walls of the tent.

The Chukches offered train-oil for sale, and appeared to be surprised that we would not purchase any. In all the tents were found seals cut in pieces, a proof that the catch of seals had recently been abundant. At one tent lay two fresh walrus heads with large beautiful tusks. I tried without success to purchase these heads, but next day the tusks were offered to us. The Chukches appear to have a prejudice against disposing of the heads of slain animals. According to older travellers they even pay the walrus-head a sort of worship.

Children were met with in great numbers, healthy and thriving. In the inner tent the older children went nearly naked, and I saw them go out from it without shoes or other covering and run between the tents on the hoarfrost-covered ground. The younger were carried on the shoulders both of men and women, and were then so wrapped up that they resembled balls of skin. The children were treated with marked friendliness, and the older ones were never heard to utter an angry word. I purchased here a large number of household articles and dresses, which I shall describe further on.

On the morning of the 9th September we endeavoured to steam on, but were soon compelled by the dense fog to lie-to again at a ground-ice, which, when the fog lightened, was found to have stranded quite close to land. The depth here was eleven metres. At this place we lay till the morning of the 10th. The beach, was formed of a sandbank,[235] which immediately above high-water mark was covered with a close grassy turf, a proof that the climate here, notwithstanding the neighbourhood of the pole of cold, is much more favourable to the development of vegetation than even the most favoured parts of the west coast of Spitzbergen. Farther inland was seen a very high, but snow-free, range of hills, and far beyond them some high snow-covered mountain summits. No glaciers were found here, though I consider it probable that small ones may be found in the valleys between the high fells in the interior. Nor were any erratic blocks found either in the interior of the coast country or along the strand bank. Thus it is probable that no such ice-covered land as Greenland for the present bounds the Siberian Polar Sea towards the north. At two places at the level of the sea in the neighbourhood of our anchorage the solid rock was bare. There it formed perpendicular shore cliffs, nine to twelve metres high, consisting of magnesian slate, limestone more or less mixed with quartz, and silicious slate. The strata were nearly perpendicular, ran from north to south, and did not contain any fossils. From a geological point of view therefore these rocks were of little interest. But they were abundantly covered with lichens, and yielded to Dr. Almquist important contributions to a knowledge of the previously quite unknown lichen flora of this region.

The harvest of the higher land plants on the other hand was, in consequence of the far advanced season of the year, inconsiderable, if also of great scientific interest, as coming from a region never before visited by any botanist. In the sea Dr. Kjellman dredged without success for algae. Of the higher animals we saw only a walrus and some few seals, but no land mammalia. Lemmings must however occasionally occur in incredible numbers, to judge by the holes and passages, excavated by these animals, by which the ground is crossed in all directions. Of birds the phalarope was still the most common species, especially at sea, where in flocks of six or seven it swam incessantly backwards and forwards between the pieces of ice.

(After a drawing by A. Stuxberg.) a. Layer of burned bones, much weathered. b. Layer of turf and twigs. c. Stones. ]

No tents were met with in the neighbourhood of the vessel's anchorage, but at many places along the beach there were seen marks of old encampments, sooty rolled stones which had been used in the erection of the tents, broken household articles, and above all remains of the bones of the seal, reindeer, and walrus. At one place, a large number of walrus skulls lay in a ring, possibly remains from an entertainment following a large catch. Near the place where the tents had stood, at the mouth of a small stream not yet dried up or frozen, Dr. Stuxberg discovered some small mounds containing burnt bones. The cremation had been so complete that only one of the pieces of bone that were found could be determined by Dr. Almquist. It was a human tooth. After cremation the remains of the bones and the ash had been collected in an excavation, and covered first with turf and then with small flat stones. The encampments struck me as having been abandoned only a few years ago, and even the collections of bones did not appear to me to be old. But we ought to be very cautious when we endeavour in the Arctic regions to estimate the age of an old encampment, because in judging of the changes which the surface of the earth undergoes with time we are apt to be guided by our experience from more southerly regions. To how limited an extent this experience may be utilised in the high north is shown by RINK'S assertion that on Greenland at some of the huts of the Norwegian colonists, which have been deserted for centuries, footpaths can still be distinguished,[237] an observation to which I would scarcely give credence, until I had myself seen something similar at the site of a house in the bottom of Jacobshaven ice-fjord in northwestern Greenland, which had been abandoned for one or two centuries. Here footpaths as sharply defined as if they had been trampled yesterday ran from the ruin in different directions. It may therefore very readily happen that the encampments in the neighbourhood of our present anchorage were older than we would be inclined at first sight to suppose. No refuse heaps of any importance were seen here.

This was the first time that any vessel had lain-to on this coast. Our arrival was therefore evidently considered by the natives a very remarkable occurrence, and the report of it appears to have spread very rapidly. For though there were no tents in the neighbourhood, we had many visitors. I still availed myself of the opportunity of procuring by barter a large number of articles distinctive of the Chukches' mode of life. Eight years before I had collected and purchased a large number of ethnographical articles, and I was now surprised at the close correspondence there was between the household articles purchased from the Chukches, and those found in Greenland in old Eskimo graves.

My traffic with the natives was on this occasion attended with great difficulty. For I suffered from a sensible want of the first condition for the successful prosecution of a commercial undertaking, goods in demand. Because, during the expeditions of 1875 and 1876, I found myself unable to make use of the small wares I carried with me for barter with the natives, and found that Russian paper-money was readily taken. I had, at the departure of the Vega from Sweden, taken with me only money, not wares intended for barter. But money was of little use here. A twenty-five rouble note was less valued by the Chukches than a showy soap-box, and a gold or silver coin less than tin or brass buttons. I could, indeed, get rid of a few fifty-oere pieces, but only after I had first adapted them by boring to take the place of earrings.

The only proper wares for barter I now had were tobacco and Dutch clay pipes. Of tobacco I had only some dozen bundles, taken from a parcel which Mr. Sibiriakoff intended to import into Siberia by the Yenisej. Certain as I was of reaching the Pacific this autumn, I scattered my stock of tobacco around me with so liberal a hand that it was soon exhausted, and my Chukch friends' wants satisfied for several weeks. I therefore, as far as this currency was concerned, already when-the Vega was beset, suffered the prodigal's fate of being soon left with an empty purse. Dutch clay pipes, again, I had in great abundance, from the accident that two boxes of these pipes, which were to have been imported into Siberia with the expedition of 1876, did not reach Trondhjem until the Ymer had sailed from that town. They were instead taken on the Vega, and now, though quite too fragile for the hard fingers of Chukches, answered well for smaller bargains, as gifts of welcome to a large number of natives collected at the vessel, and as gifts to children in order to gain the favour of their parents. I besides distributed a large quantity of silver coin with King Oscar's effigy, in order, if any misfortune overtook us, to afford a means of ascertaining the places we had visited.

For the benefit of future travellers I may state that the wares most in demand are large sewing and darning needles, pots, knives (preferably large), axes, saws, boring tools and other iron tools, linen and woollen shirts (preferably of bright colours, but also white), neckerchiefs, tobacco and sugar. To these may be added the spirits which are in so great request among all savages; a currency of which, indeed, there was great abundance on the Vega, but which I considered myself prevented from making use of. In exchange for this it is possible to obtain, in short, anything whatever from many of the natives, but by no means from all, for even here there are men who will not taste spirits, but with a gesture of disdain refuse the glass that is offered them. The Chukches are otherwise shrewd and calculating men of business, accustomed to study their own advantage. They have been brought up to this from childhood through the barter which they carry on between America and Siberia. Many a beaver-skin that comes to the market at Irbit belongs to an animal that has been caught in America, whose skin has passed from hand to hand among the wild men of America and Siberia, until it finally reaches the Russian merchant. For this barter a sort of market is held on an island in Behring's Straits. At the most remote markets in Polar America, a beaver-skin is said some years ago to have been occasionally exchanged for a leaf of tobacco.[238] An exceedingly beautiful black fox-skin was offered to me by a Chukch for a pot. Unfortunately I had none that I could dispense with. Here, too, prices have risen. When the Russians first came to Kamchatka, they got eight sable-skins for a knife, and eighteen for an axe, and yet the Kamchadales laughed at the credulous foreigners who were so easily deceived. At Yakutsk, when the Russians first settled there, a pot was even sold for as many sable-skins as it could hold.[239]

During the night before the 10th September, the surface of the sea was covered with a very thick sheet of newly-frozen ice, which was broken up again in the neighbourhood of the vessel by blocks of old ice drifting about. The pack itself appeared to have scattered a little. We therefore weighed anchor to continue our voyage. At first a detour towards the west was necessary to get round a field of drift-ice. Here too, however, our way was barred by a belt of old ice, which was bound together so firmly by the ice that had been formed in the course of the night, that a couple of hours' work with axes and ice-hatchets was required to open a channel through it. On the other side of this belt of ice we came again into pretty open water, but the fog, instead, became so dense that we had again to lie-to at a ground-ice, lying farther out to the sea but more to the west than our former resting-place. On the night before the 11th there was a violent motion among the ice. Fortunately the air cleared in the morning, so that we could hold on our course among pretty open ice, until on the approach of night we were obliged as usual to lie-to at a ground-ice.

The following day, the 12th September, when we had passed Irkaipij, or Cape North, a good way, we fell in with so close ice that there was no possibility of penetrating farther. We were therefore compelled to return, and were able to make our way with great difficulty among the closely packed masses of drift ice. Here the vessel was anchored in the lee of a ground-ice, which had stranded near the northernmost spur of Irkaipij, until a strong tidal current began to carry large pieces of drift-ice past the vessel's anchorage. She was now removed and anchored anew in a little bay open to the north, which was formed by two rocky points jutting out from the mainland. Unfortunately we were detained here, waiting for a better state of the ice, until the 18th September. It was this involuntary delay which must be considered the main cause of our wintering.



Irkaipij is the northernmost promontory in that part of Asia, which was seen by Cook in 1778. It was, therefore, called by him Cape North, a name which has since been adopted in most maps, although it is apt to lead to confusion from capes similarly named being found in most countries. It is also incorrect, because the cape does not form the northernmost promontory either of the whole of Siberia, or of any considerable portion of it. For the northernmost point of the mainland of Siberia is Cape Chelyuskin, the northernmost in the land east of the Lena Svjatoinos, the northernmost in the stretch of coast east of Chaun Bay, Cape Chelagskoj, and so on. Cape North ought, therefore, to be replaced by the original name Irkaipij, which is well known to all the natives between Chaun Bay and Behring's Straits.



On the neck of land which connects Irkaipij with the mainland, there was at the time of our visit a village consisting of sixteen tents. We saw here also ruins, viz. the remains of a large number of old house-sites, which belonged to a race called Onkilon[240] who formerly inhabited these regions, and some centuries ago were driven by the Chukches, according to tradition, to some remote islands in the Polar Sea. At these old house-sites Dr. Almquist and Lieutenant Nordquist set on foot excavations in order to collect contributions to the ethnography of this traditional race. The houses appear to have been built, at least partly, of the bones of the whale, and half sunk in the earth. The refuse heaps in the neighbourhood contained bones of several species of the whale, among them the white whale, and of the seal, walrus, reindeer, bear, dog, fox, and various kinds of birds. Besides these remains of the produce of the chase, there were found implements of stone and bone, among which were stone axes, which, after lying 250 years in the earth, were still fixed to their handles of wood or bone. Even the thongs with which the axe had been bound fast to, or wedged into, the handle, were still remaining. The tusks of the walrus[241] had to the former inhabitants of the place, as to the Chukches of the present, yielded a material which in many cases may be used with greater advantage than flint for spear-heads, bird-arrows, fishhooks, ice-axes, &c. Walrus tusks, more or less worked, accordingly were found in the excavations in great abundance. The bones of the whale had also been employed on a great scale, but we did not find any large pieces of mammoth tusks, an indication that the race was not in any intimate contact with the inhabitants of the regions to the westward, so rich in the remains of the mammoth.[242] At many places the old Onkilon houses were used by the Chukches as stores for blubber; and at others, excavations had been made in the refuse heaps in search of walrus tusks. Our researches were regarded by the Chukches with mistrust. An old man who came, as it were by chance, from the interior of the country past the place where we worked, remained there a while, regarding our labours with apparent indifference, until he convinced himself that from simplicity, or some other reason unintelligible to him, we avoided touching the blubber-stores, but instead rooted up in search of old fragments of bone or stone-flakes.



Remains of old dwellings were found even at the highest points among the stone mounds of Irkaipij, and here perhaps was the last asylum of the Onkilon race. At many places on the mountain slopes were seen large collections of bones, consisting partly of a large number (at one place up to fifty) of bears' skulls overgrown with lichens, laid in circles, with the nose inwards, partly of the skulls of the reindeer, Polar bear,[243] and walrus, mixed together in a less regular circle, in the midst of which reindeer horns were found set up. Along with the reindeer horns there was found the coronal bone of an elk with portions of the horns still attached. Beside the other bones lay innumerable temple-bones of the seal, for the most part fresh and not lichen-covered. Other seal bones were almost completely absent, which shows that temple-bones were not remains of weathered seal skulls, but had been gathered to the place for one reason or another in recent times. No portions of human skeletons were found in the neighbourhood. These places are sacrificial places, which the one race has inherited from the other.

Wrangel gives the following account of the tribe which lived here in former times:—

"As is well known the sea-coast at Anadyr Bay is inhabited by a race of men, who, by their bodily formation, dress, language, differ manifestly from the Chukches, and call themselves Onkilon—seafolk. In the account of Captain Billing's journey through the country of the Chukches, he shows the near relationship the language of this coast tribe has to that of the Aleutians at Kadyak, who are of the same primitive stem as the Greenlanders. Tradition relates that upwards of two hundred years ago these Onkilon occupied the whole of the Chukch coast, from Cape Chelagskoj to Behring's Straits, and indeed we still find along the whole of this stretch remains of their earth huts, which must have been very unlike the present dwellings of the Chukches; they have the form of small mounds, are half sunk in the ground and closed above with whale ribs, which are covered with a thick layer of earth. A violent quarrel between Kraechoj, the chief of these North-Asiatic Eskimo, and an errim or chief of the reindeer Chukches, broke out into open feud. Kraechoj drew the shorter straw, and found himself compelled to fly, and leave the country with his people; since then the whole coast has been desolate and uninhabited. Of the emigration of these Onkilon, the inhabitants of the village Irkaipij, where Kraechoj appears to have lived, narrated the following story. He had killed a Ohukch errim, and was therefore eagerly pursued by the son of the murdered man, whose pursuit he for a considerable time escaped. Finally Kraechoj believed that he had found a secure asylum on the rock at Irkaipij, where he fortified himself behind a sort of natural wall, which can still be seen. But the young Chukch errim, driven by desire to avenge his father's death, finds means to make his way within the fortification and kills Kraechoj's son. Although the blood-revenge was now probably complete according to the prevailing ideas, Kraechoj must have feared a further pursuit by his unrelenting enemy, for during night he lowers himself with thongs from his lofty asylum, nearly overhanging the sea, enters a boat, which waits for him at the foot of the cliff, and, in order to lead his pursuers astray, steers first towards the east, but at nightfall turns to the west, reaches Schalaurov Island, and there fortifies himself in an earth hut, whose remains we (Wrangel's expedition) have still seen. Here he then collected all the members of his tribe, and fled with them in 15 "baydars" to the land whose mountains the Chukches assure themselves they can in clear sunshine see from Cape Yakan. During the following winter a Chukch related to Kraechoj disappeared in addition with his family and reindeer, and it is supposed that he too betook himself to the land beyond the sea. With this another tradition agrees, which was communicated to us by the inhabitants of Kolyutschin Island. For an old man informed me (Wrangel) that during his grandfather's lifetime a "baydar" with seven Chukches, among them a woman, had ventured too far out to sea. After they had long been driven hither and thither by the wind, they stranded on a country unknown to them, whose inhabitants struck the Chukches themselves as coarse and brutish. The shipwrecked men were all murdered. Only the woman was saved, was very well treated, and taken round the whole country, and shown to the natives as something rare and remarkable. So she came at last to the Kargauts, a race living on the American coast at Behring's Straits, whence she found means to escape to her own tribe. This woman told her countrymen much about her travels and adventures; among other things she said that she had been in a great land which lay north of Kolyutschin Island, stretched far to the west, and was probably connected with America. This land was inhabited by several races of men; those living in the west resembled the Chukches in every respect, but those living in the east were so wild and brutish, that they scarcely deserved to be called men. The whole account, both of the woman herself and of the narrators of the tradition, is mixed up with so many improbable adventures, that it would scarcely be deserving of any attention were it not remarkable for its correspondence with the history of Kraechoj."[244]

When Wrangel wrote that, he did not believe in the existence of the land which is to be found set out on his map in 177 deg. E.L. and 71 deg. N.L., and which, afterwards discovered by the Englishman Kellet, according to the saying, lucus a non lucendo, obtained the name of Wrangel Land. Now we know that the land spoken of by tradition actually exists, and therefore there is much that even tells in favour of its extending as far as to the archipelago on the north coast of America.

With this fresh light thrown upon it, the old Chukch woman's story ought to furnish a valuable hint for future exploratory voyages in the sea north of Behring's Straits, and an important contribution towards forming a judgment of the fate which has befallen the American Jeannette expedition, of which, while this is being written, accounts are still wanting.[245] Between us and the inhabitants of the present Chukch village at Irkaipij there soon arose very friendly relations. A somewhat stout, well-grown, tall and handsome man named Chepurin, we took at first to be chief. He was therefore repeatedly entertained in the gunroom, on which occasions small gifts were given him to secure his friendship. Chepurin had clearly a weakness for gentility and grandeur, and could now, by means of the barter he carried on with us and the presents he received, gratify his love of show to a degree of which he probably had never before dreamed. When during the last days of our stay he paid a visit to the Vega he was clad in a red woollen shirt drawn over his "pesk," and from either ear hung a gilt watch-chain, to the lower end of which a perforated ten-oere piece was fastened. Already on our arrival he was better clothed than the others, his tent was larger and provided with two sleeping apartments, one for each of his wives. But notwithstanding all this we soon found that we had made a mistake, when, thinking that a society could not exist without government, we assigned to him so exalted a position. Here, as in all Chukch villages which we afterwards visited, absolute anarchy prevailed.

At the same time the greatest unanimity reigned in the little headless community. Children, healthy and thriving, tenderly cared for by the inhabitants, were found in large numbers. A good word to them was sufficient to pave the way for a friendly reception in the tent. The women were treated as the equals of the men, and the wife was always consulted by the husband when a more important bargain than usual was to be made; many times it was carried through only after the giver of advice had been bribed with a neckerchief or a variegated handkerchief. The articles which the man purchased were immediately committed to the wife's keeping. One of the children had round his neck a band of pearls with a Chinese coin having a square hole in the middle, suspended from it; another bore a perforated American cent piece. None knew a word of Russian, but here too a youngster could count ten in English. They also knew the word "ship." In all the tents, reindeer stomachs were seen with their contents, or sacks stuffed full of other green herbs. Several times we were offered in return for the bits of sugar and pieces of tobacco which we distributed, wrinkled root-bulbs somewhat larger than a hazel nut, which had an exceedingly pleasant taste, resembling that of fresh nuts. A seal caught in a net among the ice during our visit was cut up in the tent by the women. On this occasion they were surrounded by a large number of children, who were now and then treated to bloody strips of flesh. The youngsters carried on the work of cutting up con amore, coquetting a little with their bloody arms and faces.

The rock which prevails in this region consists mainly of gabbro, which in the interior forms several isolated, black, plateau-formed hills, 100 to 150 metres high, between which an even, grassy, but treeless plain extends. It probably rests on sedimentary strata. For on the western side of Irkaipij the plutonic rock is seen to rest on a black slate with traces of fossils, for the most part obscure vegetable impressions, probably belonging to the Permian Carboniferous formation.

Uneasy at the protracted delay here I made an excursion to a hill in the neighbourhood of our anchorage, which, according to a barometrical measurement, was 129 metres high, in order, from a considerable height, to get a better view of the ice than was possible by a boat reconnaisance. The hill was called by the Chukches Hammong-Ommang. From it we had an extensive view of the sea. It was everywhere covered with closely packed drift-ice. Only next the land was seen an open channel, which, however, was interrupted in an ominous way by belts of ice.

The plutonic rock, of which the hill was formed, was almost everywhere broken up by the action of the frost into angular blocks of stone, so that its surface was converted into an enormous stone mound. The stones were on the wind side covered with a translucent glassy ice-crust, which readily fell away, and added considerably to the difficulty of the ascent. I had previously observed the formation of such an ice-crust on the northernmost mountain summits of Spitzbergen.[246] It arises undoubtedly from the fall of super-cooled mist, that is to say of mist whose vesicles have been cooled considerably below the freezing-point without being changed to ice, which first takes place when, after falling, they come in contact with ice or snow, or some angular hard object. It is such a mist that causes the icing down of the rigging of vessels, a very unpleasant phenomenon for the navigator, which we experienced during the following days, when the tackling of the Vega was covered with pieces of ice so large, and layers so thick, that accidents might have happened by the falling of the ice on the deck.[247]

The dredgings here yielded to Dr. Kjellman some algae, and to Dr. Stuxberg masses of a species of cumacea, Diastylis Rathkei Kr., of Acanthostephia Malmgreni Goes, and Liparis gelatinosus Pallas, but little else. On the steep slopes of the north side of Irkaipij a species of cormorant had settled in so large numbers that the cliff there might be called a true fowl-fell. A large number of seals were visible among the ice, and along with the cormorant a few other birds, principally phalaropes. Fish were now seen only in exceedingly small numbers.



Even in the summer, fishing here does not appear to be specially abundant, to judge from the fact that the Chukches had not collected any stock for the winter. We were offered, however, a salmon or two of small size.



On the 18th September[248] the state of the ice was quite unchanged. If a wintering was to be avoided, it was, however, not advisable to remain longer here. It had besides appeared from the hill-top which I visited the day before that an open water channel, only interrupted at two places by ice, was still to be found along the coast. The anchor accordingly was weighed, and the Vega steamed on, but in a depth of only 6 to 8 metres. As the Vegas draught is from 4.8 to 5 metres, we had only a little water under the keel, and that among ice in quite unknown waters. About twenty kilometres from the anchorage, we met with a belt of ice through which we could make our way though only with great difficulty, thanks to the Vega's strong bow enabling her to withstand the violent concussions. Our voyage was then continued, often in yet shallower water than before, until the vessel, at 8 o'clock in the morning, struck on a ground ice foot. The tide was falling, and on that account it was not until next morning that we could get off, after a considerable portion of the ground-ice, on whose foot the Vega had run up, had been hewn away with axes and ice-hatchets. Some attempts were made to blast the ice with gunpowder, but they were unsuccessful. For this purpose dynamite is much more efficacious, and this explosive ought therefore always to form part of the equipment in voyages in which belts of ice have to be broken through.

On the 19th we continued our voyage in the same way as before, in still and for the most part shallow water near the coast, between high masses of ground-ice, which frequently had the most picturesque forms. Later in the day we again fell in with very low ice formed in rivers and shut-in inlets of the sea, and came into slightly salt water having a temperature above the freezing-point.

After having been moored during the night to a large ground-ice, the Vega continued her course on the 20th September almost exclusively among low, dirty ice, which had not been much pressed together during the preceding winter. This ice was not so deep in the water as the blue ground-ice, and could therefore drift nearer the coast, a great inconvenience for our vessel, which drew so much water. We soon came to a place where the ice was packed so close to land that an open channel only 3-1/2 to 4-1/2 metres deep remained close to the shore. We were therefore compelled after some hours' sailing to lie-to at a ground-ice to await more favourable circumstances. The wind had now gone from west to north and north-west. Notwithstanding this the temperature became milder and the weather rainy, a sign that great open stretches of water lay to the north and north-west of us. During the night before the 21st it rained heavily, the wind being N.N.W. and the temperature +2 deg.. An attempt was made on that day to find some place where the belt of drift-ice that was pressed against the land could be broken through, but it was unsuccessful, probably in consequence of the exceedingly dense fog which prevailed.



Dredging gave but a scanty yield here, probably because the animal life in water so shallow as that in which we were anchored, is destroyed by the ground-ices, which drift about here for the greater part of the year. Excursions to the neighbouring coast on the other hand, notwithstanding the late season of the year, afforded to the botanists of the Vega valuable information regarding the flora of the region.

On the 22nd I made, along with Captain Palander, an excursion in the steam launch to take soundings farther to the east. We soon succeeded in discovering a channel of sufficient depth and not too much blocked with ice, and on the 23rd the Vega was able to resume her voyage among very closely packed drift-ice, often so near the land that she had only a fourth of a metre of water under her keel. We went forward however, if slowly.

The land here formed a grassy plain, still clear of snow, rising inland to gently sloping hills or earthy heights. The beach was strewn with a not inconsiderable quantity of driftwood, and here and there were seen the remains of old dwelling-places. On the evening of the 23rd September we lay-to at a ground-ice in a pretty large opening of the ice-field. This opening closed in the course of the night, so that on the 24th and 25th we could make only very little progress, but on the 26th we continued our course, at first with difficulty, but afterwards in pretty open water to the headland which on the maps is called Cape Onman. The natives too, who came on board here, gave the place that name. The ice we met with on that day was heavier than before, and bluish-white, not dirty. It was accordingly formed farther out at sea.