552 THE VOYAGE OF THE VEGA. [chap. 



number of men, who had travelled in sledges drawn by rein- 

 deer." ^ 



In order to visit the large land in the north-east seen by 

 Andrejev, there was sent out in the years 1769, 1770, and 1771 

 another expedition, consisting of the three surveyors, Leontiev, 

 Lussov, and Puschkarev, with dog-sledges over the ice to the 

 north-east, but they succeeded neither in reaching the land in 

 question, nor even ascertaining with certainty whether it actually 

 existed or not. Among the natives, however, the belief in it 

 was maintained very persistently, and they even knew how to 

 give names to the tribes inhabiting it. 



The New Siberian Islands, which previously had often been 

 seen by travellers along the coast, were visited the first time in 

 1770 by Ljachoff, who besides Ljachoff's island lying nearest 

 the coast, also discovered the islands Maloj and Kotelnoj. On 

 this account he obtained an exclusive right to collect mammoth 

 tusks there, a branch of industry which since that time appears 

 to have been carried on in these remote regions with no in- 

 considerable profit. The importance of the discovery led the 

 government some years after to send thither a land surveyor, 

 Chvoinov,^ by whom the islands were surveyed, and some 

 further information obtained rec^arding^ the remarkable natural 

 conditions in that region. According to Chvoinov the ground 

 there consists at many places of a mixture of ice and sand 

 with mammoth tusks, bones of a fossil species of ox, of the 

 rhinoceros, &c. At many j^laces one can literally roll off the 

 carpet-like bed of moss from the ground, when it is found that 

 the close, green vegetable covering has clear ice underlying 

 it, a circumstance which I have also observed at several jjlaces 

 in the Polar regions. The new islands were rich not only in 

 ivory, but also in foxes with valuable skins, and other spoils of 

 the chase of various kinds. They therefore formed for a time 

 the goal of various hunters' expeditions. Among these hunters 

 may be named Sannikov, who in 1805 discovered the islands 

 Stolbovoj and Faddejev, SmoVATSKOJ, who in 1806 discovered 

 Novaya Sibir, and Bjelkov, who in 1808 discovered the small 

 islands named after him. In the meantime disputes arose about 

 the hunting monopoly, especially after Bjelkov and others 

 petitioned for permission to establish on Kotelnoj Island a 

 hunting and trading station. (?) ^ This induced Romanzov, then 

 (Chancellor of Russia, to order once more these distant territories 

 to be explored by Hedenstrom,'^ a Siberian exile, who had 



^ Sauer, An Account, &c., Appendix, p. 48. 



^ Sauer, loc. cit. p. 103, according- to an oral communication by Ljaclioil's 

 follower Protodiakonov. 



3 Compnre Wrangel, i. p. 98. 



'' Matthias Hedenstroin, Aulic Councillor, whose name indicates that he 

 was of Swedish birth, died at the village Hajdukovo, seven versts from 



