31fi THE VOYAGE O'd' THE VEGA. [chap. 



the appearance of the hills, have there been any glaciers in 

 former times, and this is certainly the case on the mainland. 

 The northernmost part of Asia in that case has never been 

 covered by such an ice-sheet as is* assumed by the supporters 

 of a general ice age embracing the whole globe.. 



The large island right opposite to Svjatoinos was discovered 

 in 1770 by LjACHOFF, whose name the island now bears. In 

 1788 Billings' private secretary, Martin Sauer, met with 

 Ljachoff at Yakutsk^ but he was then old and infirm, on which 

 account, when Sauer requested information regarding the 

 islands in the Polar Sea, he referred him to one of his com- 

 panions, Zaitai Protodiakonoff. He informed him that 

 the discovery was occasioned by an enormous herd of reindeer 

 which Ljachoff, in the month of April 1770, saw going from 

 Svjatoinos towards the south, and whose track came over the 

 ice from the north. On the correct supposition that the reindeer 

 came from some land lying to the north, Ljachoff followed the 

 track in a dog-sledge, and thus discovered the two most southerlv 

 of the New Siberian Islands, a discovery which was rewarded 

 by the Czarina Catherine II. with the exclusive right to hunt 

 and collect ivory on them.^ 



Ljachoff states the breadth of the sound between the main- 

 land and the nearest large island at 70 versts or 40'. On 

 Wrangel's map again the breadth is not quite 30'. On the 

 mainland side it is bounded by a rocky headland projecting 

 far into the sea, which often formed the turning point in 

 attempts to penetrate eastwards from the mouth of the river 

 Lena, and perhaps just on that account, like many other head- 

 lands dangerous to the navigator on the north coast of Russia, 

 was called Svjatoinos (the holy cape), a name which for the 

 oldest Russian Polar Sea navigators appears to have had the 

 same signification as "the cape that can be passed with difticulty." 

 No one however now thinks with any apprehension of the 

 two "holy capes," which in former times limited the voyages of 

 the Russians and Fins living on the White Sea to the east and 

 west, and this, I am quite convinced, will some time be the case 

 with this and all other holy capes in the Siberian Polar Sea. 



The sea water in the sound was much mixed with river water 

 and had a comparatively high temperature, even at a depth of 

 nine to eleven metres. The animal life at the sea bottom was 

 poor in species but rich in individuals, consisting principally of 



1 Martin Sauer, An account of a Geographical and, Astronomical Expedition 

 to the Northern parts of Russia hij Commodore Joseph Billings, London, 

 1802, p. 103. A. Ermann, Reist urn die Erde, Berlin, 1833—48, D. 1, B. 2, 

 p. 258. Ermann' s statement, that the knowledge of the existence of these 

 islands was concealed from the government up to the year 1806, is clearly 

 incorrect. 



