212 THE VOYAGE OF THE VEGA. [ohap. 



Rossmuislov sought for the stone, but without success, and he 

 therefore broke out in violent reproaches of his deceased 

 comrade. I can, however, free him from the blame of deception ; 

 for, during my voyage in 1875, I found in several of the blocks 

 of schist in the region small veins of quartz, crossing the mass of 

 stone. The walls of these veins were covered with hundreds of 

 sharply-developed rock crystals with mirror-bright faces. 

 Tschirakin's precious stone was doubtless nothing else than a 

 druse of this shining but valueless mineral. 



Once more, nearly fifty years after Rossmuislov's voyage, in 

 the year 1807, a miner, Ludlow, was sent out to investigate more 

 thoroughly the supposed richness of the island in metals. He 

 returned without having found any ore, but with the first 

 accounts of the geological formation of the country ; and we have 

 his companion Pospjelov to thank for some careful surveys on 

 the west coast of Novaya Zemlya. 



The next expedition to the island was equipped and sent out 

 from the naval dockyard at Archangel in 1819 under Lieutenant 

 Lasarev, and had, in comparison with its predecessors, very 

 abundant resources. But Lasarev was clearly unfit for the task 

 he had undertaken, of commanding an Arctic exploratory 

 expedition. In the middle of summer many of his crew were 

 attacked by scurvy. Some few weeks after his departure from 

 Archangel, at a time when pools of excellent drinking-water are 

 to be found on nearly every large piece of drift-ice, and rapid 

 torrents of melted snow empty themselves everywhere along the 

 coast into the sea, he complains of the difficulty of procuring 

 fresh water, &c. The expedition accordingly was altogether 

 fruitless. 



Of much greater importance were Captain-lieutenant (after- 

 wards Admiral Count) LCtke's voyages to Novaya Zemlya in the 

 summers of 1821, 1822, 1823, and 1824, voyages conducted with 

 special skill and scientific insight. The narrative of them forms 

 one of the richest sources of our knowledge of tliis part of the 

 Polar Sea. But as he did not penetrate in any direction farther 

 than his predecessors, an account of these voyages does not enter 

 into the plan of the historical part of this work. 



Among Russian journeys the following may be noticed : — 



Those of the mate Ivanov in 1822-28, during which he 

 surveyed the coast between the Kara river and the Petchora by 

 overland travelling in Samoyed sleighs. 



Pachtussov's voyages in 1832-35. ^ W. Brandt, merchant, 



^ These remarkable voyages were described for the first time, after the 

 accounts of Zivolka, by the academician K. E. v. Baer in Bulletin scienti- 

 fique puhl. par V Acad. Imp. des Sciences de St. Petersburg., t. ii. No. 9, 10, 

 11 (1837). Before this there does not appear to have been in St. Petersburg 

 any knowledge of Pachtussov's voyages, the most remarkable which the 

 history of Russian Polar Sea exploration has to show. 



