XI.] THE INTERIOR OF THE CHUKCH PENINSULA. 419 



liberal payment, two sledges drawn by dogs from Rotschitlen, a 

 Chukcli at Irgunnuk. The dogs and sledges surpassed our 

 expectation. In fourteen hours we traversed a distance of 

 nearly forty minutes, including bends, which corresponds to a 

 speed of three, perhaps four, English miles an hour, if we deduct 

 the rests which were caused by the objects of the journey — 

 scientific researches. This speed strikes me as not inconsider- 

 able, if we consider the weight which the dogs must draw, and 

 the badness and unevenness of the way. For the ground was 

 undulating, like a sea agitated by a storm. But pleased as we 

 were with our sledges and dogs, we were as dissatisfied with 

 Rotschitlen, a faint-hearted youth, without activity or experience. 

 With another driver we might have been able in a few days to 

 penetrate as far as the bottom of Kolyiitschin Bay, which differs 

 greatly in its form from that which Russian, English, and 

 German maps give to it. It is not improbable that it is almost 

 connected by lakes, lagoons, and rivers with St. Lawrence Bay or 

 Metschigme Bay, whose inner parts are not yet investigated. 



" After we left the lagoons at Pitlekaj and Yinretlen, the coast 

 began gradually to rise by escarj^ments, each about five metres 

 in height. The plains between the escarpments are full of 

 lagoons or marshes. Such a terrain continued until, about five 

 hours' way from the vessel, we came to a height of twenty-seven 

 metres. From this point the terrace-formations cease, and the 

 terrain then consists of a large number of ranges of heights, 

 intersected by rivulets, which during the snow-melting season 

 must be very much flooded. Seven or eight hours' way from 

 the vessel we met with such a rivulet, which farther to the 

 S.S.E. unites with another which runs between two rocky 

 escarpments twenty metres high. On one of these we pitched 

 our tent, in order to draw and examine some hills which were 

 already divested of the winter dress they had worn for nine long 

 months. On the top of one of the hills we found marks of two 

 recently-struck tents, which probably belonged to a reindeer 

 Chukch, who had now settled halfway between Pitlekaj and 

 Table Mount upon a chain of heights which appears to separate 

 the Irgunnuk lagoon from the rocky eastern shore of Kolyutschin 

 Bay. At our resting place we found a large number of reindeer 

 lionis and a heap of broken bones. 



" After resuming our journey we came in a short time to the 

 foot of Table Mount, whose height I reckoned at 180 metres. 

 It slopes gently to the west and south (about 10°), but more 

 steeply to the east and north (about 15°). The animal world 

 there showed great activity. In less than an hour we saw more 

 than a dozen foxes that ran up and down the hills and circled 

 round us, as if they ran with a line. Fortunately for them they 

 kept at a respectful distance from our doctor's sure gun. 



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