208 THE VOYAGE OF THE VEGA. [chap. 



watches at Matvejev Island and at Yugor Straits.^ These were 

 to receive payments from the hunters and merchants, and the 

 regulations and exactions connected with this arrangement 

 deprived the Polar Sea voyages of just that charm which had 

 hitherto induced the bravest and hardiest of the population 

 to devote themselves to the dangerous traffic to the Ob, and 

 to the employment of hunting, in which they were exposed to 

 so many dangers, and subject to so great privations. 



The circumstance to which we have referred may also be the 

 reason why we do not know of a single voyage in this part 

 of the Polar Sea during the period which elapsed from the 

 voyage of Rodivan Ivanov to " the great Northern Expedition." 

 It examined, among other parts of the widely extended north 

 coast of the Russian empire, the southern portion also of the 

 navigable waters here in question, in the years 1734, 35, 

 under Muravjev and Paulov, and in 1736, 37 under Malygin, 

 Skuratov, and Suchotin. Their main working field however did 

 not lie here, but in Siberia itself ; and I shall give an account 

 of their voyages in the Kara Sea further on, when I come to 

 treat of the development of our knowledge of the north coast 

 of Asia. Here I will only state that they actually succeeded, 

 after untold exertions, in penetrating from the White Sea to the 

 Ob, and that the maps of the land between that river and the 

 Petchora, which are still in use, are mainly grounded on the 

 work of the great northern expedition, but that the bad repute 

 of the Kara Sea also arose from the difficulties to which these 

 explorers were exposed, difficulties owing in no small degree 

 to the defective nature of the vessels, and a number of mistakes 

 which were made in connection with their equipment, the choice 

 of the time of sailing, &c. 



Like all distant unknown regions, Novaya Zemlya was of old 

 renowned for its richness in the noble metals. The report indeed 

 has never been confirmed, and probably was occasioned only by the 

 occurrence of traces of ore, and the beautiful gold-glancing film 

 of pyrites with which a number of the fossils found here are 

 covered ; but it has, notwithstanding, given occasion to a number 

 of voyages to Novaya Zemlya, of which the first known is that 

 of the mate Juschkov, in 1757. As the mate of a hunting- 

 vessel he had observed the stones glittering with gold and 

 silver, and he succeeded in convincing an Archangel tallow- 

 merchant that they indicated great riches in the interior of 

 the earth. In order to get possession of these treasures the 



1 Wifsen, p. 915. Klingstedt states that fifty soldiers with their wives 

 and children were removed in 1648 to Pustosersk, and that the vojvode 

 there had so large an income that in three or four years he could ac- 

 cumulate 12,000 to 15,000 roubles {Historische Nachrtchten von den 

 Samcjjeden, &c., p. 53). 



