VI.] ROSSMUISLOV'S WINTERING, 1768-9. 211 



did not return after two days' absence it was determined to note 

 him in the journal as having "perished without burial." 



On the pth April, 1769, there was a storm from the south- 

 west, with mist, rain, and hail as large as half a bullet. On the 

 -.^djun. ^ dreadful wind raged from the north-west, brinofins: from 



2'iiia May O ^ O O 



the high mountains a "sharp smoke-like air," — it was certainly 

 afohn wind. The painful, depressing effect of this wind is generally 

 known from Switzerland and from north-western Greenland. 

 At the latter place it rushes right down with excessive violence 

 from the ice-desert of the interior. But far from on that 

 account bringing cold with it, the temjoerature suddenly rises 

 above the freezing-point, the snow disappears as if by magic 

 through melting and evaporation, and men and animals feel 

 themselves suffering from the sudden change in the weather. 

 Such winds besides occur everywhere in the Polar regions in the 

 neighbourhood of high mountains, and it is probably on their 

 account that a stay in the hill-enclosed kettle-valleys is in 

 Greenland considered to be very unhealthy and to lead to 

 attacks of scurvy among the inhabitants. 



The crew remained during the winter whole days, indeed 

 whole weeks in succession, in their confined dwellings, carefully 

 made tight, without taking any regular exercise in the open air. 

 We can easily understand from this that they could not escape 

 scur\^, by which most of them appear to have been attacked, 

 and of which seven died, among them Tschirakin. It is sur- 

 prising that any one of them could survive with such a mode of 

 life during the dark Polar night. The brewing of quass, the 

 daily baking of bread, and perhaps even the vapour-baths, mainly 

 contributed to this. 



On the |-^th July the ice on Matotschkin Schar broke up, and 

 on the ^j^ August the sound was completely free of ice. An 

 attempt was now made to continue the voyage across the Kara 

 Sea, and an endeavour Avas made for this purpose to put the vessel, 

 defective from the first, and now still further damaged by ice, in 

 repair, by stopping the leaks, as far as possible, with a mixture 

 of clay and decayed seaweed. " Floating coffins " have often 

 been used in Arctic voyages, and many times with greater success 

 than the stateliest man-of-war. This time, however, Rossmuislov, 

 after having sailed some few" miles eastward from Matotsch- 

 kin Sound, in order to avoid certain loss, had to return 

 to his winter quarters, where he fortunately fell in with a 

 Russian hunter, with whom he commenced his return to 

 Archangel. No precious metals were found, nor "any pearl- 

 mus-sels," but Tschirakin confided to Rossmuislov the secret that 

 at a certain place on the south coast he had found a block of 

 stone of such extraordinary beauty that in the light of day it 

 shone with the most splendid fire. After .Tschirakin's deat];i 



p 2 



