18 THE VOYAGE OF THE VEGA. 



With this ended the voyages west of the Lena. The northern- 

 most point of Asia, which was reached from land in 1742 by 

 Chelyuskin, one of the most energetic members of most of the 

 expeditions which we have enumerated, could not be reached 

 by sea, and still less had any one succeeded in forcing his way 

 with a vessel from the Lena to the Yenisej. Prontschischev had, 

 however, turned on the 1st September, 1736, only some few 

 minutes, and Laptev on the 2nd September, 1739, only about 50' 

 from the point named, after voyages in vessels, which clearly 

 were altogether unsuitable for the purpose in view. Among 

 the difficulties and obstacles which were met with during 

 these voyages, not only ice, but also unfavourable and stormy 

 winds played a prominent part. From fear of not being able to 

 reach any winter station visited by natives, the explorers often 

 turned at that season of the year when the Polar Sea is most 

 open. With proper allowance for these circumstances, we may 

 safely affirm that no serious obstacles to sailing round Cape 

 Chelyuskin would probably have been met with in the years 

 named, by any steamer properly fitted out for sailing among ice. 



From the sea between the Lena and Behring's Straits there 

 are much more numerous and complete observations than from 

 that further west. The liope of obtaining tribute and commercial 

 profit from the wild races living along the coast tempted the 

 adventurous Russian hunters, even before the middle of the 1 7th 

 century, to undertake a number of voyages along the coast. On 

 a map which is annexed to the previously quoted work of Miiller, 

 founded mainly on researches in the Siberian archives, there 

 is to be found a sea route pricked out with the inscrijjtion, " Route 

 anciennement fort frdquenUe. Voyage fait par mer en 1648 par 

 trois vaisseaux russes, dent un est piarvenu jusqit a la Kamschatka." ^ 



Unfortunately the details of most of these voyages have been 

 completely forgotten ; and, that we have obtained some scanty 

 accounts of one or other of them, has nearly always depended 

 on some remarkable catastrophe, on lawsuits or other circum- 

 stances which led to the interference of the authorities. This 

 is even the case with the most famous of these voyages, that 

 of the Cossack, Deschnev, of which several accounts have been 

 preserved, only through a dispute which arose between him and 

 one of his companions, concerning the right of discovery to a 

 walrus bank on the east coast of Kamschatka. This voyage, 

 however, w^as a veritable exploring expedition undertaken with 

 the approval of the Government, partly for the discovery of some 

 large islands in the Polar Sea, about which a number of rej)orts 



^ The map bears the title, " Noiivplle carte des decouvertes faites par des 

 vaisseaux Rtissiens, etc., dress^e sur des memoires authentiquea de ceiix 

 qui ont assiste a ces decouvertes, at surd'autres connais.sances dont on rend 

 raison dins iin m^moire separe. St. Petersbourg a TAcademie Imperials 

 des Sciences, 1758." 



