24G THE VOYAGE OF THE VEGA." [chap. 



of beetles is rendered difficult by their inability to pass broad 

 expanses of water. 



By afternoon the air bad again cleared somewhat, so that we 

 could sail on. A piece of ice was seen here and there, and at 

 night the ice increased for a little to an unpleasant extent. 

 Now, however, it did not occur in such quantity as to prove an 

 obstacle to navigation in clear weather or in known waters. 



On the 12th August .we still sailed through considerable 

 fields of scattered drift-ice, consisting partly of old ice of large 

 dimensions, partly of very rotten year's ice. It formed, how- 

 ever, no serious obstacle to our advance, and nearer the shore 

 we would probably have had quite open water, but of course it 

 Avas not advisable to go too near land in the fog and unknown 

 waters, without being obliged. A large number of fish (Gadus 

 2)olaris) were seen above the foot of a large block of ground ice, 

 near which we lay-to for some hours. Next day we saw near one 

 of the islands, where the water was very clear, the sea-bottom 

 bestrewed with innumerable fish of the same species. They 

 had probably perished from the same cause, which often kills 

 fish in the river Ob in so great numbers that the water is in- 

 fected, namely, from a large shoal of fish having been enclosed 

 by ice in a small hole, where the water, when its surface has 

 frozen, could no longer by absorption from the air replace 

 the oxygen consumed, and where the fish have thus been 

 literally drowned. I mention this inconsiderable Jind of some 

 self-dead fish, because self-dead vertebrate animals, even fish, 

 are found exceedingly seldom. Such Jinds therefore deserve to 

 be noted with much greater care than, for instance, the occur- 

 rence of animal species in the neighbourhood of places where 

 they have been seen a thousand times before. During my nine 

 expeditions in the Arctic regions, where animal life during 

 summer is so exceedingly abundant, the case just mentioned 

 has been one of the few in which I have found remains of recent 

 vertebrate animals which could be proved to have died a natural 

 death. Near hunting-grounds there are to be seen often enough 

 the remains of reindeer, seals, foxes, or birds that have died 

 from gunshot wounds, but no self-dead Polar bear, seal, walrus, 

 white whale, fox, goose, auk, lemming or other vertebrate. The 

 Polar bear and the reindeer are found there in hundreds, the 

 seal, walrus, and white whale in thousands, and birds in millions.^ 

 These animals must die a "natural" death in untold numbers 

 What becomes of their bodies ? Of this we have for the 

 present no idea, and yet we have here a problem of immense 



1 I can remember only one other instance of finding self-dead vertebrate 

 animals, viz. when in 1873, as has already been stated (p. 86), I found 

 a large number of dead rotges on the ice at the mouth of Hinloopen 

 Strait. 



