IX.] LJACHOFF'S ISLAND. ol3 



Semenoffskoj and Stolbovoj, the sea became so shallow that for 

 long stretches we were compelled to sail in six to seven metres 

 water. Some very rotten ice, or rather ice sludge, was also met 

 with, Avhich compelled us to make tedious detours, and prevented 

 the Vega from going at full speed. 



The animal life was among the scantiest I had seen during my 

 many travels in the Polar Seas. A few seals were visible. Of 

 birds we saw some terns and gulls, and even far out at sea 

 a pretty large number of phalaropes — the most common kind of 

 bird on the coast of the Asiatic Polar Sea, at least in autumn. 

 Stolbovoj Island was, especially on the north side, high with 

 precipitous shore-cliffs which afforded splendid breeding-places 

 for looms, black guillemots and giiUs. At all such cliffs there 

 breed on Sj^itzbergen millions of sea fowl, which are met with 

 out on the surrounding sea in great flocks searching for their 

 food. Here not a single loom was seen, and even the number of 

 the gulls was small, which indeed in some degree was to be 

 accounted for by the late season of the year, but also by the 

 circumstance that no colony of birds had settled on the rocky 

 shores of the island. 



The sea bottom consisted at certain places of hard packed 

 sand, or rather, as I shall endeavour to show farther on, of 

 frozen sand, from which the trawl net brought up no animals. 

 At other places there was found a clay, exceedingly rich in 

 Icloihea cntomon and Sahinei and an extraordinary mass of 

 bryozoa, resembling collections of the eggs of mollusca. 



It was not until the 80th of August that we were off the west. 

 side of Ljachoff's Island, on which I intended to land. The 

 north coast, and, as it appeared the day after, the east coast was 

 clear of ice, but the winds recently prevailing had heaped a 

 mass of rotten ice on the west coast. The sea besides was so 

 shallow here, that already at a distance 15' from land we hail 

 a depth of only eight metres. The ice heaped against the west 

 roast of the island did not indeed form any very serious obstacle 

 to the advance of the Vega, but in case we had attempted to 

 land there it might have been inconvenient enough, when the 

 considerable distance between the vessel and the land was to 

 be traversed in a boat or the steam launch, and it might even, 

 if a sudden frost had occurred, have become a fetter, which would 

 have confined us to that spot for the winter. Even a storm 

 arising hastily might in this shallow water have been actually 

 dangerous to the vessel anchored in an open road. The prospect 

 of wandering about for some days on the island did not appear 

 to me to outweigh the danger of the possible failure of the main 

 object of the expedition. I therefore gave up for the time 

 my intention of landing. The course was shaped southwards 

 towards the sound, of so bad repute in the history of the 



