Chapter XIX: Book IV: chap. 27). Certain it is that during the middle ages such (2)

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.

On the 27th we continued our course in somewhat open water to Kolyutschin Bay. No large river debouches in the bottom of this great fjord, the only one on the north coast of Asia which, by its long narrow form, the configuration of the neighbouring shores, and its division into two at the bottom, reminds us of the Spitzbergen fjords which have been excavated by glaciers. The mouth of the bay was filled with very closely packed drift-ice that had gathered round the island situated there, which was inhabited by a large number of Chukch families. In order to avoid this ice the _Vega_ made a considerable _detour_ up the fjord. The weather was calm and fine, but new ice was formed everywhere among the old drift-ice where it was closely packed. Small seals swarmed by hundreds among the ice, following the wake of the vessel with curiosity. Birds on the contrary were seen in limited numbers. Host of them had evidently already migrated to more southerly seas. At 4.45 P.M. the vessel was anchored to an ice-floe near the eastern shore of the fjord. It could be seen from this point that the ice at the headland, which bounded the mouth of the fjord to the east, lay so near land that there was a risk that the open water next the shore would not be deep enough for the _Vega_.

Lieutenant Hovgaard was therefore sent with the steam launch to take soundings. He returned with the report that the water off the headland was sufficiently deep. At the same time, accompanied by several of the naturalists, I made an excursion on land. In the course of this excursion the hunter Johnsen was sent to the top of the range of heights which occupied the interior of the promontory, in order to get a view of the state of the ice farther to the east. Johnsen too returned with the very comforting news that a very broad open channel extended beyond the headland along the coast to the south-east. I was wandering about along with my comrades on the slopes near the beach in order, so far as the falling darkness permitted, to examine its natural conditions, when Johnsen came down; he informed us that from the top of the height one could hear bustle and noise and see fires at an encampment on the other side of the headland. He supposed that the natives were celebrating some festival. I had a strong inclination to go thither in order, as I thought, "to take farewell of the Chukches," for I was quite certain that on some of the following days we should sail into the Pacific. But it was already late in the evening and dark, and we were not yet sufficiently acquainted with the disposition of the Chukches to go by night, without any serious occasion, in small numbers and provided only with the weapons of the chase, to an encampment with which we were not acquainted. It was not until afterwards that we learned that such a visit was not attended with any danger. Instead of going to the encampment, as the vessel in any case could not weigh anchor this evening, we remained some hours longer on the beach and lighted there an immense log fire of drift-wood, round which we were soon all collected, chatting merrily about the remaining part of the voyage in seas where not cold but heat would trouble us, and where our progress at least would not be obstructed by ice, continual fog, and unknown shallows. None of us then had any idea that, instead of the heat of the tropics, we would for the next ten months be experiencing a winter at the pole of cold, frozen in on an unprotected road, under almost continual snow-storms, and with a temperature which often sank below the freezing-point of mercury.

The evening was glorious, the sky clear, and the air so calm that the flames and smoke of the log fire rose high against the sky. The dark surface of the water, covered as it was with a thin film of ice, reflected its light as a fire-way straight as a line, bounded far away at the horizon by a belt of ice, whose inequalities appeared in the darkness as the summits of a distant high mountain chain. The temperature in the quite draught-free air was felt to be mild, and the thermometer showed only 2 deg. under the freezing-point. This slight degree of cold was however sufficient to cover the sea in the course of the night with a sheet of newly-frozen ice, which, as the following days' experience showed, at the opener places could indeed only delay, not obstruct the advance of the _Vega_, but which however bound together the fields of drift-ice collected off the coast so firmly that a vessel, even with the help of steam, could with difficulty force her way through.

When on the following day, the 28th September, we had sailed past the headland which bounds Kolyutschin Bay on the east, the channel next the coast, clear of drift-ice, but covered with newly formed ice, became suddenly shallow. The depth was too small for the _Vega_, for which we had now to seek a course among the blocks of ground-ice and fields of drift-ice in the offing. The night's frost had bound these so firmly together that the attempt failed. We were thus compelled to lie-to at a ground-ice so much the more certain of getting off with the first shift of the wind, and of being able to traverse the few miles that separated us from the open water at Behring's Straits, as whalers on several occasions had not left this region until the middle of October.

As American whalers had during the last decades extended their whale-fishing to the North Behring Sea, I applied before my departure from home both directly and through the Foreign Office to several American scientific men and authorities with a request for information as to the state of the ice in that sea. In all quarters my request was received with special good-will and best wishes for the projected journey. I thus obtained both a large quantity of printed matter otherwise difficult of access, and maps of the sea between North America and North Asia, and oral and written communications from several persons: among whom may be mentioned the distinguished naturalist, Prof. W.H. DALL of Washington, who lived for a long time in the Territory of Alaska and the north part of the Pacific; Admiral JOHN RODGERS, who was commander of the American man-of-war, _Vincennes_, when cruising north of Behring's Straits in 1855; and WASHBURN MAYNOD, lieutenant in the American Navy. I had besides obtained important information from the German sea-captain E. DALLMANN, who for several years commanded a vessel in these waters for coast traffic with the natives. Space does not permit me to insert all these writings here. But to show that there were good grounds for not considering the season of navigation in the sea between Kolyutschin Bay and Behring's Straits closed at the end of September, I shall make some extracts from a letter sent to me, through the American Consul-General in Stockholm, N.A. ELVING, from Mr. MILLER, the president of the Alaska Commercial Company.

"The following is an epitome of the information we have
received regarding the subject of your inquiry.

"The bark _Massachusetts_, Captain O. WILLIAMS, was in 74 deg.
30' N.L. and 173 deg. W.L. on the 21st Sept.
1807. No ice in sight in the north, but to the east saw
ice. Saw high peaks bearing W.N.W. about 60'. Captain
Williams is of opinion that Plover Island, so-called by
Kellet, is a headland of Wrangel Land. Captain Williams
says that he is of opinion from his observations, that
usually after the middle of August there is no ice south
of 70 deg.--west of 175 deg., until the 1st of
October. There is hardly a year but that you could go as
far as Cape North (Irkaipij), which is 180 deg., during
the month of September. If the winds through July and
August have prevailed from the S.W., as is usual, the
north shore will be found clear of ice. The season of 1877
was regarded as an 'icy season,' a good deal of ice to
southward. 1876 was an open season; as was 1875. Our
captain, GUSTAV NIEBAUM, states that the east side of
Behring's Straits is open till November; he passed through
the Straits as late as October 22nd two different seasons.
The north shore was clear of all danger within reasonable
distance. In 1869 the bark _Navy_ anchored under
Kolyutschin Island from the 8th to the 10th October. On
the 10th October of that year there was no ice south and
east of Wrangel Land."

These accounts show that I indeed might have reason to be uneasy at my ill luck in again losing some days at a place at whose bare coast, exposed to the winds of the Polar Sea, there was little of scientific interest to employ ourselves with, little at least in comparison with what one could do in a few days, for instance, at the islands in Behring's Straits or in St. Lawrence Bay, lying as it does south of the easternmost promontory of Asia and therefore sheltered from the winds of the Arctic Ocean, but that there were no grounds for fearing that it would be necessary to winter there. I also thought that I could come to the same conclusion from the experience gained in my wintering on Spitzbergen in 1872-73, when permanent ice was first formed in our haven, in the 80th degree of latitude, during the month of February. Now, however, the case was quite different. The fragile ice-sheet, which on the 28th September bound together the ground-ices and hindered our progress, increased daily in strength under the influence of severer and severer cold until it was melted by the summer heat of the following year. Long after we were beset, however, there was still open water on the coast four or five kilometres from our winter haven, and after our return home I was informed that, on the day on which we were frozen in, an American whaler was anchored at that place.

Whether our sailing along the north coast of Asia to Kolyutschin Bay was a fortunate accident or not, the future will show. I for my part believe that it was a fortunate accident, which will often happen. Certain it is, in any case, that when we had come so far as to this point, our being frozen in was a quite accidental misfortune brought about by an unusual state of the ice in the autumn of 1878 in the North Behring Sea.

[Footnote 214: Further information on this point is given by A.J. Malmgren in a paper on the occurrence and extent of mammoth-finds, and on the conditions of this animal's existence in former times (_Finska Vet.-Soc. Foerhandl_ 1874-5). ]

[Footnote 215: Compare Ph. Avril, _Voyage en divers etats d'Europe et d'Asie entrepris pour decouvrir un nouveau chemin a la Chine_, etc., Paris, 1692, p. 209. Henry H. Howorth, "The Mammoth in Siberia" (_Geolog. Mag._ 1880, p. 408). ]

[Footnote 216: As will be stated in detail further on, there were found during the _Vega_ expedition very remarkable sub-fossil animal remains, not of the mammoth, however, but of various different species of the whale. ]

[Footnote 217: The word _mummies_ is used by Von Middendorff to designate carcases of ancient animals found in the frozen soil of Siberia. ]

[Footnote 218: The calculation is probably rather too low than too high. The steamer alone, in which I travelled up the Yenisej in 1875, carried over a hundred tusks, of which however the most were blackened, and many were so decayed that I cannot comprehend how the great expense of transport from the _tundra_ of the Yenisej could be covered by the value of this article. According to the statement of the ivory dealers the whole parcel, good and bad together, was paid for at a common average price. ]

[Footnote 219: Notices of yet other _finds_ of mammoth carcases occur, according to Middendorff (_Sib. Reise_, IV. i. p. 274) in the scarce and to me inaccessible first edition of Witsen's _Noord en Oost Tartarye_ (1692, Vol. II. p. 473). ]

[Footnote 220: E. Yssbrants Ides, _Dreyjarige Reise nach China_, etc., Frankfort, 1707, p. 55. The first edition was published in Amsterdam, in Dutch, in 1704. ]

[Footnote 221: Strahlenberg in _Das Nord- und Ostliche Theil von Europa und Asia_, Stockholm, 1730, p. 393, also gives a large number of statements regarding the fossil Siberian ivory, and mentions that the distinguished Siberian traveller Messerschmidt found a complete skeleton on the river Tom. ]

[Footnote 222: Tilesius, _De skeleto mammonteo Sibirico (Mem. de l'Acad. de St. Petersbourg, T.V. pour l'annee 1812_, p. 409). Middendorff, _Sib. Reise_, IV. i. p. 274. Von Olfers, _Die Ueberreste vorweltlicher Riesenthiere in Beziehung zu Ostasia-tischen Sagen und Chinesischen Schriften (Abhandl. der Akad. d. Wissensch. zu Berlin aus dem Jahre 1839_, p 51). ]

[Footnote 223: P.S. Pallas, _De reliquiis animalium exoticorum per Asiam borealem repertis complementum (Novi commentarii Acad. Sc. Petropolitanae_, XVII. pro anno 1772, p. 576), and _Reise durch verschiedene Provinzen des Russischen Reichs_, Th. III. St. Petersburg, 1776, p. 97. ]

[Footnote 224: Hedenstroem, _Otrywki o Sibiri_, St. Petersburg, 1830, p. 125. Ermann's _Archiv_, Part 24, p. 140. ]

[Footnote 225: Compare K.E. v. Baer's paper in _Melanges Biologiques_, T.V. St. Petersbourg, 1866, p. 691; Middendorff, IV. i. p. 277; Gavrila Sarytschev's _Achtjaehrige Reise in nordoestlichen Sibirien_, etc., translated by J.H. Busse, Th. 1, Leipzig, 1806, p. 106. ]

[Footnote 226: Adams' account is inserted at p. 431 in the work of Tilesius already quoted. Von Baer gives a detailed account of this and other important _finds_ of the same nature in the above-quoted paper in Tome V. of _Melanges Biologiques_; St. Petersbourg, pp. 645-740. ]

[Footnote 227: Middendorff, IV. 1, p. 272. ]

[Footnote 228: Friedrich Schmidt, _Wissenschastliche Resultate der sur Aussuchung eines Mammuthcadavers ausgesandten Expedition (Mem. de l'Acad. de St. Petersbourg_, Ser. VII. T. XVIII. No. 1, 1872). ]

[Footnote 229: Brandt, _Berichte der preussischen Akad. der Wissenchasten_, 1846, p. 224. Von Schmalhausen, _Bull de l'Acad. de St. Petersbourg_, T. XXII. p. 291. ]

[Footnote 230: The _find_ is described by Heir Czersky in the Transactions published by the East Siberian division of the St. Petersburg Geographical Society; and subsequently by Dr. Leopold von Schrenck in _Mem. de l'Acad. de St. Petersbourg_, Ser. VII. T. XXVII. No. 7, 1880. ]

[Footnote 231: The mean temperature of the different months is shown in the following table:--

JAN. -48 deg. 9
FEB. -47 deg. 2
MARCH -33 deg. 9
APRIL -14 deg. 9
MAY -0 deg. 40
JUNE +13 deg. 4
JULY +15 deg. 4
AUG. +11 deg. 9
SEPT. +2 deg. 3
OCT. -13 deg. 9
NOV. -39 deg. 1
DEC. -45 deg. 7
Of the Year. -16 deg. 7 ]

[Footnote 232: Hedenstroem, _loc. cit._ p. 128. To find stranded driftwood in an upright position is nothing uncommon. ]

[Footnote 233: Martin Sauer, _An account of a Geographical and Astronomical Expedition the Northern parts of Russia by Commodore Joseph Billings_, London, 1802, p. 105. The walrus does not occur in the sea between the mouth of the Chatanga and Wrangel Land, and large whales are never seen at the New Siberian Islands, but during Hedenstroem's stay in these regions three narwhals were enclosed in the ice near the shore at the mouth of the Yana (_Otrywki o Sibiri_, p. 131). ]

[Footnote 234: Martin Sauer, _An account of a Geographical and Astronomical Expedition to the Northern parts of Russia by Commodore Joseph Billings_, London, 1802, p. 103. A. Ermann, _Reise um die Erde_, Berlin, 1833-48, D. 1, B. 2, p. 258. Ermann's statement, that the knowledge of the existence of these islands was concealed from the government up to the year 1806, is clearly incorrect. ]

[Footnote 235: Of course the earth here at an inconsiderable depth under the surface is constantly frozen, but I have nowhere seen such alternating layers of earth and ice, crossed by veins of ice, as Hedenstroem in his oft-quoted work (_Otrywki o Sibiri_, p. 119) says he found at the sea-coast. Probably such a peculiar formation arises only at places where the spring floods bring down thick layers of mud, which cover the beds of ice formed during the winter and protect them for thousands of years from melting. I shall have an opportunity of returning to the interesting questions relating to this point. ]

[Footnote 236: Since we discovered the Chukches also bury their dead by laying them out on the _tundra_, we have begun to entertain doubts whether the collection of bones delineated here was actually a grave. Possibly these mounds were only the remains of fireplaces, where the Chukches had used as fuel train-drenched bones, and which they bad afterwards for some reason or other endeavoured to protect from the action of the atmosphere. ]

[Footnote 237: H. Rink, _Groenland geographisk og statistisk beskrevet_, Bd. 2, Copenhagen, 1857, p. 344. ]

[Footnote 238: C. von Dittmar, _Bulletin hist.-philolog, de l'acad. de St. Petersbourg_, XIII. 1856, p. 130. ]

[Footnote 239: Krascheninnikov, _Histoire et Description du Kamtschatka_, Amsterdam 1770, II. p. 95. A. Ennan, _Reise urn die Erde_, D.1, B.2, p. 255. ]

[Footnote 240: _Ankali_ signifies in Chukch dwellers on the coast, and is now used to denote the Chukches living on the coast. A similar word, Onkilon, was formerly used as the name of the Eskimo tribe that lived on the coast of the Polar Sea when the Chukch migration reached that point. ]

[Footnote 241: The walrus now appears to be very rare in the sea north of Behring's Straits, but formerly it must have been found there in large numbers, and made that region a veritable paradise for every hunting tribe. While we during our long stay there saw only a few walruses, Cook, in 1778, saw an enormous number, and an interesting drawing of walruses is to be found in the account of his third voyage. _A Voyage to the Pacific Ocean, etc._ Vol. III. (by James King), London, 1784, p. 259, pl. 52. ]

[Footnote 242: The greatest number of mammoth tusks is obtained from the stretches of land and the islands between the Chatanga and Chaum Bay. Here the walrus is wanting. The inhabitants of North Siberia therefore praise the wisdom of the Creator, who lets the walrus live in the regions where the mammoth is wanting, and has scattered mammoth ivory in the earthy layers of the coasts where the walrus does not occur (A. Erman, _Reise um die Erde_, Berlin, 1833--48, D.1, B.2, p. 264). ]

[Footnote 243: Among the bears' skulls brought home from this place Lieut. Nordquist found after his return home the skull of a sea-lion (_Otaria Stelleri_). It is, however, uncertain whether the animal was captured in the region, or whether the cranium was brought hither from Kamchatka. ]

[Footnote 244: Wrangel's _Reise_, Th. 2, Berlin, 1839, p. 220. ]

[Footnote 245: According to a paper in _Deutsche Geografische Blaetter_, B. IV. p. 54, Captain E. Dallmann, in 1866, as commander of the Havai schooner _W.C. Talbot_, not only saw but landed on Wrangel Land. As Captain Dallmann of recent years has been in pretty close contact with a large number of geographers, and communications from him have been previously inserted in geographical journals, it appears strange that he has now for the first time made public this important voyage. At all events, Dallmann's statement that the musk-ox occurs on the coast of the Polar Sea and on Wrangel Land is erroneous. He has here confused the musk-ox with the reindeer. ]

[Footnote 246: Cf. _Redogoerelse foer den svenska polarexpeditionen ar 1872-73_ (Bihang till Vet Ak. handl. Bd. 2, No. 18, p. 91). ]

[Footnote 247: A more dangerous kind of icing down threatens the navigator in severe weather not only in the Polar Seas but also in the Baltic and the North Sea. For it happens at that season that the sea-water at the surface is over-cooled, that is, cooled below the freezing-point without being frozen. Every wave which strikes the vessel is then converted by the concussion into ice-sludge, which increases and freezes together to hard ice so speedily that all attempts to remove it from the deck are in vain. In a few hours the vessel may be changed into an unmanageable floating block of ice which the sailors, exhausted by hard labour, must in despair abandon to its fate. Such an icing down, though with a fortunate issue, befell the steamer _Sofia_ in the month of October off Bear Island, during the Swedish Polar Expedition of 1868. ]

[Footnote 248: Irkaipij lies in 180 deg. long. from Greenwich. To bring our day-reckoning into agreement with that of the New World, we ought thus to have here lessened our date by one day, and have written the 17th for the 18th September. But as, with the exception of the short excursion to Port Clarence and St. Edward Island, we always followed the coasts of the Old World, and during our stay in the new hemisphere did not visit any place inhabited by Europeans, we retained during the whole of our voyage our European day-reckoning unaltered. If we had met with an American whaler, we would have been before him one day, our 27th September would thus have corresponded to his 26th. The same would have been the case on our coming to an American port. ]