1(54 THE VOYAGE OF THE VEGA. [chap. 



men on its roof were compelled to work night and day to keep 

 the pieces of ice at a distance with poles. 



The great inundation had even taken the migrating birds at 

 unawares. For long stretches there was not a dry spot for 

 them to rest upon, and thus it happened that exhausted ptarmigan 

 alighted among the men on the roof; once a ptarmigan settled 

 on Meyenwaldt's head, and a pair on the dogs. 



On the 23rd June the water began to fall, and by the 25th it 

 had sunk so low that Nummelin and his companions could leave 

 the roof and remove to the deserted interior of the house. 



The narrative of Nummelin's return to Europe by sea, in 

 company with Schwanenberg, belongs to a following chapter. 



CHAPTER V. 



The history of the North-Eiist Passage from 1556 to 1878— Burrongh, 1556 

 —Pet and Jackman, 1580— The first voyage of the Dutch, 1594— Oliver 

 Brunei — The second voyage, 1595 — -The third voyage, 1596 — Hudson, 

 1608— Gourdon, 1611 — Bosman, 1625 — De la Martiniere, 1653 — 

 Vlamingh, 1664 — Snobberger, 1675 — ^Roule reaches a land north of 

 Novaya Zemlya — Wood and Flawes, 1676 -Discussion in England con- 

 cerning the state of the ice in the Polar Sea — -Views of the condition of 

 the Polar Sea still divided — Payer and Weyprecht, 1872-74. 



The sea which washes the north coast of European Russia 

 is named by King Alfred (Orosius, Book I. Chaps, i. ii.) the 

 Quaen Sea (in Anglo-Saxon Owen Sae),^ a distinctive name, 

 which unquestionably has the priority, and well deserves to be 

 retained. To the inhabitants of Western Europe the islands, 

 Novaya Zemlya and Vaygats, first became known through 

 Stephen Burrough's voyage of discovery in 1556. Burrough 

 therefore is often called the discoverer of Novaya Zemlya, but 

 incorrectly. For when he came thither he found Russian 

 vessels, manned by hunters v/ell acquainted with the navigable 

 waters and the land. It is clear from this that Novaya Zemlya 

 had then already been known to the inhabitants of Northern 

 Russia for such a length of time that a very actively prosecuted 

 hunting could arise tliere. It is even probable that in the 

 same way as the northernmost part of Norway was already 

 known for a thousand years back, not only to wandering Lapps, 

 but also to Norwegians and Quaens, the lands round Yugor 

 Schar and Vaygats were known several centuries before Bur- 

 rough's time, not only to the nomad Samoyeds on the main- 



■^ In Bosworth's translation this name is replaced by White Sea, an un- 

 necessary modernising of the name, and incorrect besides, as the White 

 Sea is only a bay of the ocean which bounds Europe on the north. 



