xiii.j TPIE GREAT NORTHERN EXPEDITION. 537 



mission was executed I may be allowed to refer to Miiller's oft- 

 (][\ioted work, and to a paper by Von Baer : Peters des Grossen 

 Verdienste um die Eriveitcrung dcr geographischen Kenntnisse 

 {Beitrdge zur Kcnntniss des Bussischen Beichcs, B. 16, St. Peters- 

 burg, 1872). Here I can only mention that it was principally 

 through the untiring interest which KiRiLOV, the secretary of 

 the senate, took in the undertaking, that it attained such a 

 development that it may be said to have been perhaps the 

 greatest scientific expedition which has ever been sent out by 

 any country. It was determined at the same time not only to 

 ascertain the extent of Siberia to the north and east, but also to 

 examine its hitherto almost unknown ethnographical and natural 

 conditions. For this purpose the Great Northern Expedition was 

 divided into the following divisions : — 



1. An expedition to start from Archangel for the Oh} — Fortius 

 expedition two kotsches were emplo3^ed, the Ob and the Expedition, 

 •)2-i- feet long, 14 feet broad, and 8 feet deep, each manned with 

 20 men. The vessels, which were under the command of 

 Lieutenants Paulov and Muravjev, left Archangel on the ^-fth 

 July, l7o4. The first summer they only reached Mutnoi Saliv 

 in the Kara Sea, whence they returned to the Petchora and 

 wintered at Pustoscrsk. The following year they broke up iii 

 June, but did not penetrate farther than in 1734. The unfavour- 

 able issue was ascribed to the vessels' unserviceableness for 

 voyages in the Polar Sea, in consequence of which the Board 

 of Admiralty ordered two other boats, 50 to 60 feet long, to be 

 built for the expedition, which were placed under the command 

 of Skuratov and SucHOTLN, Muravjev being besides replaced 

 by Malygin who sailed with the old vessels on the ''V^^'- 1786, 



•J 27th May, ' 



down the Petchora river, at whose mouth the Expedition was 

 wrecked. Without permitting himself to be frightened by this, 

 Malygin ordered his men to go on board the other vessel, in 

 which with great dangers and ditficulties they penetrated through 

 the drift-ice to Dolgoj Island. Here on the ^|th August they 

 fell in with the new vessels sent from Archangel. Suchotin was 

 now sent back to Archangel on board the Oh ; Malygm and 

 Skuratov sailed in the new vessels to the Kara river and 

 wintered there. During the winter 1736-1737 the men suffered 

 only slightly from scurvy, which was cured by anti-scorbutic 



' Tliis expedition was under the command of the Admiralty ; the others 

 under that of Behring. In my account I have followed partly Miiller and 

 partly Wrangel, of whom the latter, in his book of travels, gives a his- 

 torical re\'iew of previous voyages along the coasts of the Asiatic Polar 

 Sea. The accounts of the voyages between the White Sea and the Yenisej 

 properly belong to a foregoing chapter in this work, but I quote them first 

 here in order that I may treat of the difEerent divisions of the Great 

 Northern Expedition in the same connection. 



