Chapter XIII (3)

1778 _and_ 1779--During the third of his famous circumnavigations of the globe JAMES COOK penetrated through Behring's Straits into the Polar Sea, and then along the north-east coast of Asia westwards to Irkaipij, called by him Cape North. Thus the honour of having carried the first seagoing vessel to this sea also belongs to the great navigator. He besides confirmed Behring's determination of the position of the East Cape of Asia, and himself determined the position of the opposite coast of America.[337] The same voyage was approximately repeated the year after Cook's death by his successor CHARLES CLARKE, but without any new discoveries being made in the region in question.

1785-94.--The success which attended Cook in his exploratory voyages and the information, unlooked for even by the Russian government, which Coxe's work gave concerning the voyages of the Russian hunters in the North Pacific, led to the equipment of a grand new expedition, having for its object the further exploration of the sea which bounds the great Russian Empire on the north and east. The plan was drawn up by Pallas and Coxe, and the carrying out of it was entrusted to an English naval officer in the Russian service, J. BILLINGS, who had taken part in Cook's last voyage. Among the many others who were members of the expedition, may be mentioned Dr. MERK, Dr. ROBECK, the secretary MARTIN SAUER, and the Captains HALL, SARYTCHEV, and BEHRING the younger, in all more than a hundred persons. The expedition was fitted out on a very large scale, but in consequence of Billings' unfitness for having the command of such an expedition the result by no means corresponded to what might reasonably have been expected. The expedition made an inconsiderable excursion into the Polar Sea from the 30th/19th June to the 9th Aug/29th July 1787, and in 1791 Billings sailed up to St. Lawrence Bay, from which he went over land with eleven men to Yakutsk. The rest of this lengthened expedition does not concern the regions now in question.[338]

Among voyages during the century it remains to give account of those which have been made by OTTO VON KOTZEBUE, who during his famous circumnavigation of the globe in 1815-18, among other things also passed through Behring's Straits and discovered the strata, remarkable in a geological point of view, at Eschscholz Bay; LUeTKE, who during his circumnavigation of the globe in 1826-29, visited the islands and sound in the neighbourhood of Chukotskoj-nos; MOORE, who wintered at Chukotskoj-nos in 1848-49, and gave us much interesting information as to the mode of life of the Namollos and Chukches; KELLET, who in 1849 discovered Kellet Land and Herald Island on the coast of Wrangel Land; JOHN RODGERS, who in 1855 carried out for the American government much important hydrographical work in the seas on both sides of Behring's Straits; DALLMANN, who during a trading voyage in the Behring Sea landed at various points on Wrangel Land; LONG, who in 1867, as captain of the whaling barque _Nile_, discovered the sound between Wrangel Land and the mainland (Long Sound) and penetrated from Behring's Straits westwards farther than any of his predecessors, DALL, who, at the same time that we are indebted to him for many important contributions to the knowledge of the natural conditions of the Behring Sea, also anew examined the ice-strata at Eschscholz Bay, and many others--but as the historical part of the sketch of the voyage of the _Vega_ has already occupied more space than was calculated upon, I consider myself compelled with respect to the voyages of these explorers to refer to the numerous and for the most part accessible writings which have already been published regarding them.[339]

Was the _Vega_ actually the first, and is she at the moment when this is being written, the only vessel that has sailed from the Atlantic by the north to the Pacific? As follows from the above narrative, this question may perhaps be answered with considerable certainty in the affirmative, as it may also with truth be maintained that no vessel has gone the opposite way from the Pacific to the Atlantic.[340] But the fictitious literature of geography at all events comprehends accounts of various voyages between those seas by the north passage, and I consider myself obliged briefly to enumerate them.

The first is said to have been made as early as 1555 by a Portuguese, MARTIN CHACKE, who affirmed that he had been parted from his companions by a west wind, and had been driven forward between various islands to the entrance of a sound which ran north of America in 59 deg. N.L.; finally that he had come S.W. of Iceland, and thence sailed to Lisbon, arriving there before his companions, who took the "common way," _i.e._ south of Africa. In 1579 an English pilot certified that he had read in Lisbon in 1567 a printed account of this voyage, which however he could not procure afterwards because all the copies had been destroyed by order of the king, who considered that such a discovery would have an injurious effect on the Indian trade of Portugal (_Purchas_, iii. p. 849). We now know that there is land where Chacke's channel was said to be situated, and it is also certain that the sound between the continent of America and the Franklin archipelago lying much farther to the north was already in the sixteenth century too much filled with ice for its being possible that an account of meeting with ice could be omitted from a true sketch of a voyage along the north coast of America.

In 1588 a still more remarkable voyage was said to have been made by the Portuguese, LORENZO FERRER MALDONADO. He is believed to have been a cosomographer who among other tilings concerned himself with the still unsolved problem, of making a compass free from variation, and with the question, very difficult in his time, of finding a method of determining the longitude at sea (see the work of AMORETTI quoted below, p. 38). Of his imaginary voyage he has written a long narrative, of which a _Spanish_ copy with some drawings and maps was found in a library at Milan. The narrative was published in Italian and French translations by the superintendent of the library, Chevalier CARLO AMORETTI,[341] who besides added to the work a number of his own learned notes, which however do not give evidence of experience in Arctic waters. The same narrative has since been published in English by J. BARROW (_A Cronological History of Voyages into the Arctic Regions_, &c., London, 1818 App. p. 24.) The greater part of Maldonado's report consists of a detailed plan as to the way in which the new sea route would be used and fortified by the Spanish-Portuguese government.[342] The voyage itself is referred to merely in passing. Maldonado says that, in the beginning of March he sailed from Newfoundland along the north coast of America in a westward direction. Cold, storm, and darkness, were at first very inconvenient for navigation, but at all events he reached without difficulty "Anian Sound," which separates Asia from America. This is described in detail. Here various ships were met with prepared to sail through the sound, laden with Chinese goods. The crews appeared to be Russian or Hanseatic. Conversation was carried on with them in Latin. They stated that they came from a very large town, situated a little more than a hundred leagues from the sound. In the middle of June Maldonado returned by the way he came to the Atlantic, and on this occasion too the voyage was performed without the least difficulty. The heat at sea during the return journey was as great as when it was greatest in Spain, and meeting with ice is not mentioned. The banks of the river which falls into the haven at Anian Sound (according to Amoretti, identical with Behring's Straits) were overgrown with very large trees, bearing fruit all the year round among the animals met with in the regions seals are mentioned, but also two kinds of swine, buffaloes, &c. All these absurdities show that the whole narrative of the voyage was fictitious, having been probably written with the view of thereby giving more weight to the proposal to send out a north-west expedition from Portugal, and in the full belief that the supposed sound actually existed, and that the voyage along the north coast of America would be as easy of accomplishment as one across the North Sea.[343] The way in which the icing down of a vessel is described indicates that the narrator himself or his informant had been exposed to a winter storm in some northern sea, probably at Newfoundland, and the spirited sketch of the sound appears to have been borrowed from some East Indian traveller, who had been driven by storm to northern Japan, and who in a channel between the islands in that region believed that he had discovered the fabulous Anian Sound.

Of a third voyage in 1660 a naval officer named DE LA MADELENE gave in 1701 the following short account, probably picked up in Holland or Portugal, to Count DE PONTCHARTRIN: "The Portuguese, DAVID MELGUER, started from Japan on the 14th March, 1660, with the vessel _le Pere eternel_, and following the coast of Tartary, _i.e._ the east coast of Asia, he first sailed north to 84 deg. N.L. Thence he shaped his course between Spitzbergen and Greenland, and passing west of Scotland and Ireland came again to Oporto in Portugal." M. de la Madelene's narrative is to be found reproduced in M. BUACHE'S excellent geographical paper "Sui les differentes idees qu'on a eues de la traversee de la Mere Glaciale arctique et sur les communications ou jonctions qu'on a supposees entre diverses rivieres." (_Historie de l'Academie, Annee 1754_, Paris, 1759, _Memoires_, p. 12) The paper is accompanied by a Polar map constructed by Buache himself, which, though the voyage which led to its construction was clearly fictitious, and though it also contains many other errors--for instance, the statement that the Dutch penetrated in 1670 to the north part of Taimur Land--is yet very valuable and interesting as a specimen of what a learned and critical geographer knew in 1754 about the Polar regions. That Melguer's voyage is fictitious is shown partly by the ease with which he is said to have gone from the one sea to the other, partly by the fact that _the only detail_ which is to be found in his narrative, viz. the statement that the coast of Tartary extends to 84 deg. N.L., is incorrect.

All these and various other similar accounts of north-east, north-west, or Polar passages achieved by vessels in former times have this in common, that navigation from the one ocean to the other across the Polar Sea is said to have gone on as easily as drawing a line on the map, that meeting with ice and northern animals of the chase is never spoken of, and finally that every particular which is noted is in conflict with the known geographical, climatal, and natural conditions of the Arctic seas. All these narratives therefore can be proved to be fictitious, and to have been invented by persons who never made any voyages in the true Polar Seas.

The _Vega_ is thus the first vessel that has penetrated by the north from one of the great world-oceans to the other.

[Footnote 289: I quote this because the movement of the tides is still, in our own time, made use of to determine whether certain parts of the Polar seas are connected with each other or not. ]

[Footnote 290: Marco Polo, in 1271, at the age of seventeen or eighteen, accompanied his father Nicolo, and his uncle Maffeo Polo, to High Asia. He remained there until 1295 and during that time came into great favor with Kubla Khan, who employed him, among other things, in a great number of important public commissions, whereby he became well acquainted with the widely extended lands which lay under the sceptre of that ruler. After his return home he caused a great sensation by the riches he brought with him, which procured him the name _il Millione_, a name however which, according to others, was an expression of the doubts that were long entertained regarding the truthfulness of his, as we now know, mainly true accounts of the number of the people and the abundance of wealth in Kublai Khan's lands. "Il Millione," in the meantime, became a popular carnival character, whose cue was to relate as many and as wonderful "yarns" as possible, and in his narratives to deal preferably with millions. It is possible that the predecessor of Columbus might have descended to posterity merely as the original of this character if he had not, soon after his return home, taken part in a war against Genoa, in the course of which he was taken prisoner, and, during his imprisonment, related his recollections of his travels to a fellow-prisoner, who committed them to writing, in what language is still uncertain. The work attracted great attention and was soon spread, first in written copies, then by the press in a large number of different languages. It has not been translated into Swedish, but in the Royal Library in Stockholm there is a very important and hitherto little known manuscript of it from the middle of the fourteenth century, of which an edition is in course of publication in photo-lithographic facsimile. ]

[Footnote 291: Homines illius regionis sunt pulchri, magni, et corpulenti, sed sunt multum pallidi. . . . et sunt homines inculti, et immorigerati et bestialiter viventes. ]

[Footnote 292: See note at page 54, vol i., for an account of von Herberstein and his works. ]

[Footnote 293: As the copy of the original map to which I have had access, being coloured, is unsuitable for photo-lithographing, I give here instead a photo-lithographic reproduction of the map in the Italian edition printed in 1550. The map itself is unchanged in any essential particular, but the drawing and engraving are better. There is, besides, a still older map of Russia in the first edition of Sebastian Munster's _Cosmographia Universalis_. I have not had access to this edition, but have had to the third edition of the same work printed at Basel in 1550. A very incomplete map of Russia engraved on wood, on which, however, the Obi and the "Sybir" are to be found, is inserted in this work at page 910. The Dwina here falls not into the White Sea but into the Gulf of Finland, through a lake to which the name Ladoga is now given; places like Astracan, Asof, Viborg, Calmahori (Kolmogor), Solowki (Solovets), &c., are indicated pretty correctly, and in the White Sea there is to be seen a very faithful representation of a walrus swimming. ]

[Footnote 294: The river Ob is mentioned the first time in 1492, in the negotiations which the Austrian ambassador, Michael Snups, carried on in Moscow in order to obtain permission to travel in the interior of Russia (Adelung, _Uebersicht der Reisenden in Russland_, p. 157). ]

[Footnote 295: As before stated, Marco Polo mentions Polar bears but not walruses. ]

[Footnote 296: Herodotus places Andropagi in nearly the same regions which are now inhabited by the Samoyeds. Pliny also speaks of man-eating Scythians. ]

[Footnote 297: Arctic literature contains a nearly contemporaneous sketch of the first Russian-Siberian commercial undertakings, _Beschryvinghe vander Samoyeden Landt in Tartarien, nieulijcks onder't ghebiedt der Moscoviten gebracht. Wt de Russche tale overgheset_, Anno 1609. Amsterdam, Hessel Gerritsz, 1612; inserted in Latin, in 1613, in the same publisher's _Descriptio ac Delineatio Geographica Detectionis Freti_ (Photo-lithographic reproduction, by Frederick Mueller, Amsterdam, 1878). The same work, or more correctly, collection of small geographical pamphlets, contains also Isak Massa's map of the coast of the Polar Sea between the Kola peninsula and the Pjaesina, which I have reproduced. ]

[Footnote 298: It is a peculiar circumstance that the vanguard of the Russian stream of emigration which spread over Siberia, advanced along the northernmost part of the country by the Tas, Turuchansk, Yakutsk, Kolyma, and Anadyrsk. This depended in the first place upon the races living there having less power of resistance against the invaders, who were often very few in number, than the tribes in the south, but also on the fact that the most precious and most transportable treasures of Siberia--sable, beaver, and fox-skins--were obtained in greatest quantity from these northern regions. ]

[Footnote 299: Flat-bottomed, half-decked boats, twelve fathoms in length. The planks were fastened by wooden pins, the anchors were pieces of wood with large stones bound to them, the rigging of thongs, and the sails often of tanned reindeer hides (J.E. Fischer, _Sibirische Geschichte_, St. Petersburg, 1768, i. p. 517). ]

[Footnote 300: G.P. Mueller, _Sammlung Russischer Geschichte_, St. Petersburg, 1758 Mueller asserts in this work that it was he who, in 1736, first drew from the repositories of the Yakutsk archives the account of Deschnev's voyage, which before that time was known neither at the court of the Czar nor in the remotest parts of Siberia. This, however, is not quite correct, for long before Mueller, the Swedish prisoner-of-war, Strahlenberg, knew that the Russians travelled by sea from the Kolyma to Kamchatka, which appears from his map of Asia, constructed during his stay in Siberia, and published in _Das Nord- und Ostliche Theil von Europa und Asia_, Stockholm, 1730. On this map there is the following inscription in the sea north of the Kolyma--"Hie Rutheni ab initio per Moles glaciales, quae flante Borea ad Littora, flanteque Anstro versus Mare iterum pulsantur, magno Labore et Vitae Discrimine transvecti sunt ad Regionem Kamtszatkam." ]

[Footnote 301: Selivestrov had accompanied Staduchin during his Polar Sea voyage, and had, at his instance, been sent out to collect walrus tusks on account of the State. He appears to have come to the Anadyr by land. ]

[Footnote 302: Strahlenberg must have collected the main details of this voyage by oral communications from Russian hunters and traders. ]

[Footnote 303: According to Mueller Krascheninnikov (_Histoire et description du Kamtschatka_, Amsterdam, 1770, ii. p. 292) states, evidently from information obtained in Kamchatka, that the river Nikul is called Feodotovchina after Feodot Alexejev, who not only penetrated thither, but also sailed round the southern promontory of Kamchatka to the River Tigil where he and his followers perished in the way described by Mueller. ]

[Footnote 304: But we ought to remember that the oldest accounts of islands in the Polar Sea relate to no fewer than four different lands, viz, 1. The New Siberian Islands lying off the mouth of the Lena and Svjatoinos; 2. The Bear Islands; 3. Wrangel Land; 4. The north-western part of America. Contradictions in accounts of the islands in the Polar Sea probably depend on the uninhabited and treeless New Siberian islands being confused with America, which, in comparison with North Siberia, is thickly peopled and well wooded, with the small Bear Islands, with Wrangel Land, &c. ]

[Footnote 305: _Nouvelle carte des decouvertes faites par des vaisseaux russiens aux cotes inconnues de l'Amerique, Septentrionale avec les pais adiacentes, dressee sur des memoires authentiques des ceux qui ont assiste a ces decouvertes et sur d'autres connoissances dont on rend raison dans un memoire separe_ St. Petersbourg, l'Academie Imperiale des Sciences, 1758. ]

[Footnote 306: In this sketch of the discovery and conquest of Siberia I have followed J.E. Fischer, _Sibirische Geschichte_, St. Petersburg, 1768, and G.P. Mueller, _Sammlung Russischer Geschichte_, St. Petersburg, 1758. ]

[Footnote 307: In the twentieth chapter of _Dreyjaehrige Reise nach China, &c._, Frankfort, 1707. The first edition came out at Hamburg in 1698. ]

[Footnote 308: Mueller, iii. p. 19. An account of Atlassov's conquest of Kamchatka (_Bericht gedaen door zeker Moskovisch krygs-bediende Wolodimer Otlasofd, hoofl-man over vyftig, &c._) is besides to be found in Witsen (1705, _Nieuwe uitguaf_, 1785, p. 670) An account, written from oral communication by Atlassov himself, is to be found inserted in Strahlenberg's _Travels_, p. 431. Strahlenberg considers Kamchatka and Yezo to be the same land. A history of the conquest of Kamchatka, evidently written according to traditions current in the country, is to be found in _Krascheninnikov_ (French edition of 1770, ii. p. 291). In this account 1698 and 1699 are given as the years of Morosko's and Atlassov's expeditions. ]

[Footnote 309: Complaints were made, among other things, that in order to obtain metal for making a still, he ordered all the copper belonging to the crown which he carried with him, to be melted down. When the Cossacks first came to Kamchatka and were almost without a contest, acknowledged as masters of the country, they found life there singularly agreeable, with one drawback--there were no means of getting drunk. Finally, necessity compelled the wild adventurers to betake themselves to what we should now call chemico-technical experiments, which are described in considerable detail by Krascheninnikov (_loc. cit._ ii. p. 369). After many failures they finally succeeded in distilling spirits from a sugar-bearing plant growing in the country, and from that time this drink, or _raka_, as they themselves call it, has been found in great abundance in that country. ]

[Footnote 310: He afterwards became a monk under the name of Ignatiev, came to St. Petersburg in 1730, and himself wrote a narrative of his adventures, discoveries, and services, which was printed first in the St. Petersburg journals of the 26th March, 1730, and likewise abroad (_Mueller_, iii. p. 82) ]

[Footnote 311: Von Baer, _Beitraege zur Kentniss des Russischen Reiches_, xvi. p. 33. ]

[Footnote 312: Ambjoern Molin, lieutenant in the Scanian cavalry regiment, who was taken prisoner at the Dnieper in 1709, also took part in these journeys. Compare _Beraettelse om de i Stora Tartariet boende tartarer, som traeffats laengst nordost i Asien, pa aerkebiskop E. Benzelii begaeran upsatt af Ambjoern Molin (Account of the Tartars dwelling in Great Tartary who were met with at the north east extremity of Asia, written at the request of Archbishop E. Benzelius by Ambjoern Molin_), published in Stockholm in 1880 by Aug. Strindberg, after a manuscript in the Linkoeping library. ]

[Footnote 313: Mueller, iii. p. 102. According to an oral communication by Busch, Strahlenberg's account (p. 17) of this voyage appears to contain several mistakes. The year is stated as 1713, the return voyage is said to have occupied six days. ]

[Footnote 314: As late as 1819, James Burney, first lieutenant on one of Captain Cook's vessels during his voyage north of Behring's Straits, afterwards captain and member of the Royal Society, considered it not proved that Asia and America are separated by a sound. For he doubted the correctness of the accounts of Deschnev's voyage. Compare James Burney, _A Chronological History of North eastern Voyages of Discovery_ London, 1819, p. 298; and a paper by Burney in the _Transactions_ of the Royal Society, 1817. Burney was violently attacked for the views there expressed by Captain John Dundas Cochrane. _Narrative of a Pedestrian Journey through Russia and Siberian Tartary_, 2nd ed. London, 1824, Appendix. ]

[Footnote 315: The first astronomical determinations of position in Siberia were, perhaps, made by Swedish prisoners of war; the first in China by Jesuits (Cf. _Strahlenberg_, p. 14). ]

[Footnote 316: A short, but instructive account of Behring's first voyage, based on an official communication from the Russian Government to the King of Poland, is inserted in t. iv. p. 561 of _Description geographique de l'Empire de la Chine, par le P.J.B. Du Halde_, La Haye, 1736. The same official report was probably the source of Mueller's brief sketch of the voyage (_Mueller_, iii. p. 112). A map of it is inserted in the 1735 Paris edition of Du Halde's work, and in _Nouvel Atlas de la Chine, par M. D'Anville_, La Haye, 1737. ]

[Footnote 317: _Histoire genealogique des Tartares_ (note, p. 107), and Strahlenberg's oft-quoted work (map, text, pp. 31 and 384). ]

[Footnote 318: This expedition was under the command of the Admiralty; the others under that of Behring. In my account I have followed partly Mueller and partly Wrangel, of whom the latter, in his book of travels, gives a historical review of previous voyages along the coasts of the Asiatic Polar Sea. The accounts of the voyages between the White Sea and the Yenisej properly belong to a foregoing chapter in this work, but I quote them first here in order that I may treat of the different divisions of the Great Northern Expedition in the same connection. ]

[Footnote 319: Wrangel, i. p. 36. ]

[Footnote 320: Wrangel, i. p. 38. ]

[Footnote 321: According to P. von Haven (_Nye og forbedrede Efterretningar om det Russiske Rige_, Kjoebenhavn, 1747, ii. p. 20), "it was the custom in Petersburg to send away those whose presence was inconvenient to help Behring to make new discoveries". It also went very ill with many of the gallant Russian Polar travellers, and many of them were repaid with ingratitude. Behring was received on his return from his first voyage, so rich in results, with unjustified mistrust. Steller was exposed to continual trouble, was long prevented from returning from Siberia, and finally perished during his journey home, broken down in body and soul. Prontschischev and Lassinius succumbed to hardships and sufferings during their voyages in the Polar Sea. Owzyn was degraded, among other things, because he used to be too intimate at Obdorsk with exiles formerly of distinction. A few years before the voyage of the _Vega_, Chelyuskin's trustworthiness was still doubted. All the accounts of discoveries of islands and land in the Polar Sea by persons connected with Siberia, have till the most recent times, been considered more or less fictitious, yet they are clearly in the main true. ]

[Footnote 322: Wrangel, i. p. 46. ]

[Footnote 323: According to Wrangel (i., note at p. 38 and 48), probably after a quotation from Prontschischev's journal. The Lena must be a splendid river, for it has since made the same powerful impression, as on the seamen of the Great Northern Expedition, on all others who have traversed its forest-crowned river channel. ]

[Footnote 324: These all perished "for want of fodder." This, however, is improbable. For, in 1878, we saw numerous traces of these animals as far to the northward as Cape Chelyuskin, and very fat reindeer were shot both in 1861 and 1873, on the Seven Islands, the northernmost of all the islands of the Old World, where vegetation is much poorer than in the regions now in question. ]

[Footnote 325: Wrangel, i. pp. 48 and 72. Of the journey round the northernmost point of Asia, Wrangel says--"Von der Tajmur-Muendung bis an das Kap des heiligen Faddej konnte die Kueste nicht beschifft werden, und die Aufnahme, die der Steuermann Tschemokssin (Chelyuskin) auf dem Eise in Narten vornahm, ist so oberflaechlich und unbestimmt, dass die eigentliche Lage des nordoestlichen oder Tajmur-Kaps, welches die noerdlichste Spitse Asiens ausmacht, noch gar nicht ausgemittelt ist." ]

[Footnote 326: Wrangel, i, p. 62. I have sketched the voyages between the White Sea and the Kolyma, principally after Engelhardt's German translation of Wrangel's Travels. It is, unfortunately, in many respects defective and confused, especially with respect to the sketch of Chariton Laptev and his followers, sledge journeys, undertaken in order to survey the coast between the Chatanga and the Pjaesina. Mueller mentions these journeys only in passing. Wrangel gives as sources for his sketch (i. note at p. 38) _Memoirs of the Russian Admiralty_, also the original journals of the journeys. Chelyuskin he calls Chemokssin. ]

[Footnote 327: In this account of Behring's and Chirikov's voyages, I have followed Mueller (iii. pp. 187-268). More complete original accounts of Behring's voyage are quoted further on in the sketch of our visit to Behring Island. ]

[Footnote 328: Mueller, iii. p. 164. ]

[Footnote 329: It deserves to be noted as a literary curiosity that the famous French _savant_ and geographer, Vivien do Saint Martin, in his work, _Histoire de la Geographie et des Decouvertes geographiques_, Paris, 1873, does not say a single word regarding all those expeditions which form an epoch in our knowledge of the Old World. ]

[Footnote 330: An account of Schalaurov is given by COXE (_Russian Discoveries_, &c., 1780, p. 323) and Wrangel (i. p. 73). That the hut seen by Matiuschkin actually belonged to Schalaurov appears to me highly improbable, for the traditions of the Siberian savages seldom extend sixty years back. ]

[Footnote 331: Wrangel, i. p. 79. ]

[Footnote 332: Sauer, _An Account, &c._, Appendix, p. 48. ]

[Footnote 333: Sauer, _loc. cit._ p. 103, according to an oral communication by Ljachoff's follower Protodiakonov. ]

[Footnote 334: Compare Wrangel, i. p. 98. ]

[Footnote 335: Matthias Hedenstroem, Aulic Councillor, whose name indicates that he was of Swedish birth, died at the village Hajdukovo, seven versts from Tomsk, on the 2nd October (20th September), 1845, at the age of sixty-five. Biographical notes regarding Hedenstroem are to be found in the Calendar for the Irkutsh government for the year 1865, pp. 57-60; I have not, however, succeeded in procuring this work, or in finding any other notices of Hedenstroem's birthplace and life. ]

[Footnote 336: A very remarkable geological fact is the number of tree-stems in all stages of decay and petrifaction, which are embedded in the rocks and earthy strata of Siberia, having their origin all along from the Jurassic age till now. It appears as if Siberia, during the whole of this immense period of time, has not been subjected to any great changes in a purely geographical respect, whereas in Europe there have been innumerable alternations of sea and land, and alps have been formed and disappeared. The Siberians call the tree-stems found on the _tundra_ far from the sea and rivers _Adam's wood_, to distinguish them from more recent sub fossil trees, which they call _Noah's wood_. ]

[Footnote 337: The first European who visited the part of America lying right opposite to Asia was Schestakov's companion, the surveyor Gvosdev. He crossed Behring's Straits to the American side as early as 1730 (_Mueller_, iii. p. 131), and therefore ought properly to be considered as the discoverer of this sound. The north-westernmost part of America, Behring's Straits and the islands situated in it, are besides shown in Strahlenberg's map, which was made at least a decade before Gvosdev's voyage. There north-western America is delineated as a large island, inhabited by a tribe, the _Pucho-chotski_, who lived in a constant state of warfare with the _Giuchieghi_, who inhabited the islands in the sound. Wrangel Land is also shown in this remarkable map. In 1767, eleven years before Cook's voyage in the Polar Sea, the American side of Behring's Straits was also visited by Lieut. SYND with a Russian expedition, that started from Okotsk in 1764. In the short account of the voyage which is to be found in William Coxe's, _Account of the Russian Discoveries, &c._, London, 1780, p. 300, it is said expressly that Synd considered the coast on which he landed to belong to America. On Synd's map, published by Coxe, the north part of the Behring Sea is enriched with a number of fictitious islands (St. Agaphonis, St. Myronis, St. Titi, St. Samuels, and St. Andreae). As Synd, according to Sarytchev in the work quoted below, p. 11, made the voyage in a boat, it is probable that by these names islands were indicated which lay quite close to the coast and were not so far from land as shown in the map, besides, the mountain-summits on St. Lawrence Island, which are separated by extensive low lands, may perhaps have been taken for separate islands. ]

[Footnote 338: Billings' voyage is described in Martin Sauer's _Account of a Geographical and Astronomical Expedition to the Northern Parts of Asia, &c., by Commodore Joseph Billings_, London, 1802, and Gavrila Sarychev's _Achtjaehrige Reise im noerdlichen Siberien, auf dem Eismeere und dem nordoestlichen Ocean. Aus dem Russischen uebersetzt von J.H. Busse_, Leipzig, 1805-1806. As interesting to our Swedish readers it may be mentioned that the Russian hunter Prybilov informed Sauer that a Swedish brigantine, _Merkur_, coppered, carrying sixteen cannon, commanded by J.H. Coxe, in 1788, cruised in the Behring Sea in order to destroy the Russian settlements there. They however, according to Prybilov's statement to Sauer, "did no damage, because they saw that we had nothing worth taking away. They instead gave us gifts, because they were ashamed to offer violence to such poor fellows as we" (Sauer, p. 213). ]

[Footnote 339: Otto von Kotzebue, _Entdeckungs-Reise in die Sud-See und nach der Behrings Strasse_, Weimar, 1821 (Part III., Contributions in Natural History, by Adelbert von Chamisso)--Louis Choris, _Voyage pittoresque autour du monde_, Paris, 1822.

Frederik Luetke, _Voyage autour du monde_, Paris, 1835-36.--F.H. von Kittlitz, _Denkuuerdigkeiten einer Reise nach dem russischen Amerika, nach Mikronesien und durch Kamtschatka_, Gotha, 1858.

Kellet, _Voyage of H.M.S. "Herald,"_ 1845-51, London, 1853 (Discovery of Herald Island and the east coast of Wrangel Land).

W.H. Hooper, _Ten Months among the Tents of the Tuski_, London, 1853 (Moore's wintering at Chukotskoj-nos).

John Rodgers, Behring's Sea and Arctic Ocean, from Surveys of the North Pacific Surveying Expedition, 1855 (only charts).--W. Heine, _Die Expedition in die Seen von China, Japan und Ochotsk, unter Commando von Commodore Colin Ringgold und Commodore John Rodgers_, Leipzig, 1858 (the expedition arrived at the result that Wrangel Land did not exist).

(Lindemann) _Wrangels Land im Jahre_ 1866, _durch Kapiten Dallmann besucht (Deutsche Geograph. Blaetter_, B. iv. p. 54, 1881).

Petermann, _Entdeckung eines neuen Polar-Landes durch den amerikan, Capt Long_, 1867 (Mittheil. 1868, p. 1).--_Das neu-entdeckte Polar-Land_, &c. (Mittheil 1869, p. 26). ]

[Footnote 340: It ought to be remembered that the voyage of the distinguished Arctic explorer, McClure, carried out with so much gallantry and admirable perseverance, from the Pacific to the Atlantic along the north coast of America, took place to no inconsiderable extent _by sled journeys over the ice_, and that no English vessel has ever sailed by this route from the one sea to the other. The North-west Passage has thus never been accomplished by a vessel. ]

[Footnote 341: Amoretti, _Viaggio del mare Atlantico al Pasifico per la via del Nord-Ovest, &c. Fatto del capitano Lorenzo Ferrer Maldonado, l'anno MDLXXXVIII_. Milano, 1811. ]

[Footnote 342: At the date of Maldonado's voyage Spain and Portugal were united. ]

[Footnote 343: The narratives of the Russian voyagers in the Polar Seas bear a quite different stamp. Details are seldom wanting in these, and they correspond with known facts, and the discoveries made are of reasonably modest dimensions. I therefore consider, as I have said already, that the doubts of the trustworthiness of Deschnev, Chelyuskin, Andrejev, Hedenstroem, Sannikov, &c., are completely unfounded, and it is highly desirable that all journals of Russian explorers in the Polar Sea yet in existence be published as soon as possible, and not in a mutilated shape, but in a complete and unaltered form. ]