90 CAPE CHELYUSKIN 



the Cape North of Captain Cook, and by rounding it 

 Nordenskiold joined up with the westernmost limit of 

 the Arctic discoveries of the great navigator. Cook 

 tried to weather it in August, 1778, but was turned 

 back by fog and snow, and thinking it was " not con- 

 sistent with prudence to make any further attempts to 

 find a passage into the Atlantic this year in any direc- 

 tion, so little was the prospect of succeeding," he sailed 

 for Hawaii, where his intention of making the attempt 

 the ensuing summer came to nought owing to his 

 death. 



On the 28th of September the Vegas progress for 

 the year was arrested by her being frozen in for the 

 winter on the eastern side of Kolyuchin Bay in the 

 northernmost part of Bering Strait, only six miles of 

 ice barring the way round Cape Serdze Kamen into the 

 open sea. During her detention of two hundred and 

 sixty-four days the scientific investigations of many 

 kinds that were undertaken were of lasting importance, 

 as they had been throughout, and when she was re- 

 leased on the 18th of July, 1879, to come home by way 

 of Yokohama, the collections and records she brought 

 with her were simply enormous. No better work with 

 greater results was done by any Arctic expedition 

 than during this successful voyage, which was too well 

 managed to have much adventure. For it Nordens- 

 kiold very justly claimed the reward of twenty-five 

 thousand guilders offered in 1596 by the States-General 

 of Holland, the endeavour to win which sent out Van 

 Heemskerck, Barents, and Rijp. 



We have seen how the Dutchmen built their house 

 at Ice Haven mainly of the driftwood from the Siberian 



