542 THE VOYAGE OF THE VEGA. [chap. 



to the great sorrow of his men, by whom he was held in great 

 regard. The mate, Chelyuskin, now took .the command. On 

 the ^^ Sept. he succeeded in carrying his vessel into the river 

 Olenek. On its bank Prontschischev was buried with all the 

 solemnities which circumstances permitted. To Prontschisnev's 

 melancholy fate there attaches an interest which is quite unique 

 in the history of the Arctic exploratory voyages. He was 

 newly married when he started. His young wife accompanied 

 him on his journey, took part in his dangers and sufferings, 

 survived him only two days, and now rests by his side in the 

 grave on the desolate shore of the Polar Sea. 



On the f^^ °''^' the Olenek was frozen over and the winter 



2Sth Sept. 



became very severe for Chelyuskin and his companions. The 

 following summer they returned to Yakutsk convinced of the 

 impossibility of sailing round the north point of Asia, and as 

 Behring was no longer to be found in that town, Chelyuskin 

 started for St. Petersburg in order to give an oral account of 

 Prontschischev' s voyages. The Board of Admiralty, however, 

 did not favour Chelyuskin's views, but considered that another 

 attempt ought to be made by land, but if this, too, was un- 

 successful, that the coast should be surveyed by land journeys 

 Lieut. Chariton Laptev was appointed to carry out this last 

 attempt to reach the Yenisej by sea from the Lena. 



Laptev, accompanied by a number of small craft carr3dng pro- 

 visions, left Yakutsk on the "Ti^th July, 1739, and on the -- of the 

 same month reached the mouth-arm of the Lena called Kres- 

 tovskoj, on which he built, on a point jutting out into the sea, a 

 high signal tower, one of the few monuments that are to be 

 found on the north coast of Asia, and which is on that account 

 mentioned by succeeding travellers in those regions. He sailed 

 hence along the coast past the mouth of the Olenek and past a 

 large bay to which, for what reason I know not, he gave the 

 purely Swedish name of Nordvik. This bay was still covered 

 with unbroken ice. After having been beset for several days in 

 Chatanga Bay, the voyagers on the ?i^ August reached Cape 

 Thaddeus, where the vessel was anchored the following day in 

 76° 47' N. L. A signal tower was built on the extremity of the 

 cape, and the land-measurer Chekin was sent to examine the 

 neighbouring territory, and Chelyuskin to search for the mouth 

 of the river Taimur. Chekin could carry out no geodetic work 

 on account of mist. Chelyuskin again reported that the whole 

 bay and the sea in the offing were, as far as the eye could reach, 

 covered with unbroken ice. This induced Laptev to turn. After 

 many difficulties among the ice, he came, on the P^— to the 

 confluence of the river Bludnaya with the Chatanga. Here the 

 winter was passed among a tribe of Tunguses living on the spot, 

 who owned no reindeer, and were therefore settled. They used 



