555 THE VOYAGE OF THE VEGA. [chap. 



considered to be further confirmed by the fact that large, 

 partially petrified tree-stems were found scattered about on the 

 island in still greater numbers than on Novaya Sibir.^ Besides 

 he found here everywhere remains of old " Yukagir dwellings " ; 

 the island had thus once been inhabited. After Sannikov had 

 fetched Chenitzyn from Faddejev Island, where he had passed 

 the summer in great want of provisions, and ordered him, who 

 was jDrobably a greater adept at the j)en, to draw up a report of 

 his own interesting researches, he commenced his return journey 

 on the s'rr^' and arrived at Ustiansk on the ?^th November. 



27th Oct.. J 12 



It may be said that through Hedenstrom's and Sannikov' s 

 exceedingly remarkable Polar journeys, the titles have been 

 written of many important chapters in the history of the 

 former and recent condition of our globe. But the inquirer 

 has hitherto waited in vain for these chapters being completed 

 through new researches carried out with improved appliances. 

 For since then the New Siberian Islands have not been visited 

 by any scientific expedition. Only in 1828 Anjou, lieutenant 

 in the Russian Navy, with the surgeon Fjgurin, and the mate 

 Ilgin, made a new attempt to penetrate over the ice to the 

 supposed lands in the north and north-east, but without success. 

 Similar attempts were made at the same time from the Siberian 

 mainland by another Russian naval officer, Ferdinand von 

 Wkangel, accompanied by Dr. Kuber, midshipman Matiuschkin, 

 and mate KosMiN, They too were unsuccessful in penetrating 

 over the ice far from the coast. Wrangel returned fully convinced 

 that all the accounts which were current in Siberia of the land 

 he wished to visit, and which now bears the name of Wrangel 

 Land, were based on legends, mistake, and intentional untruths. 

 But Anjou and Wrangel did an important service to Polar 

 research by showing that the sea, even in the neighbourhood of 

 the Pole of cold, is not covered with any strong and continuous 

 sheet of ice, even at that season of the year when cold reaches 

 its maximum. By the attempts made nearly at the same time 

 by Wrangel and Parry to penetrate farther northwards, the one 

 from the north coasts of Siberia, and the other from those of 

 Spitzbergen, Polar travellers for the first time got a correct idea 

 how uneven and impassable ice is on a frozen sea, how little the 



1 A very remarkable geological fact is the number of tree-stems in all 

 stages of decay and petrifaction, which are embedded in the rocks and 

 earthy strata of Siberia, having their origin all along from the Jurassic 

 age till now. It appears as if Siberia, during the whole of this immense 

 period of time, has not been subjected to any great changes in a purely 

 geographical respect, wdiereas in Europe there have been innumerable 

 alternations of sea and land, and alps have been formed and disappeared. 

 The Siberians call the tree-stems found on the tundra far from the sea 

 and rivers Adanis wood, to distinguish them from more recent sub-fossil 

 trees, which they call Noah's wood. 



