322 



THE VOYAGE OF THE VEGA. 



[chap. 



On tlie 3rd September, after we had sailed past the Bear 

 Islands, the course was shaped right for Cape Chelagskoj. This 

 course, as will be seen by a glance at the map, carried us far 

 from the coast, and thus out of the channel next the land, in 

 which we had hitherto sailed. The ice was heavy and close, 

 although at first so distributed that it was navigable. But with 

 a north wind, which began to blow on the night before the 

 1st September, the temperature fell below the freezing-point, 

 and the water between the pieces of drift-ice was covered with a 

 very thick crust of ice, and the drift-ice came closer and closer 

 together. It thus became impossible to continue the course 

 which we had taken. We therefore turned towards the land, 

 and at 6 o'clock P.M., after various bends in the ice and a few 

 concussions against the pieces of ice that barred our way, again 



BEAKER SPliNiiES. 



From the sea off the mouth of the Kolyina. 



reached the ice-free channel, eight to twelve kilometres broad, 

 next the land. While we lay a little way in among the drift- 

 ice fields we could see no sign of open water, but it appeared as 

 if the compact ice extended all the way to land, a circumstance 

 which shows how careful the navigator ought to be in express- 

 ino' an opinion as to the nature of the ])acJ>: beyond the imme- 

 diate neighbourhood of the vessel. The temperature of the air, 

 which in the ice-field had sunk to — 3°, now rose at once to 

 + 4°'l, while that of the water rose from — 1°"2 to + 3°"5, 

 and its salinity fell from 2'4 to 1"3 per cent. All showed that 

 we had now come into the current of the Kolyma, Avhich from 

 causes which have been already stated, runs from the mouth of 

 the river along the land in an easterly direction. 



