CHAP. XIV.] ST. LAWEENCE ISLAND. £87 



neigiiboiu-liood of the volcanic hearths of Kamchatka, which f(3r 

 instance is shown by the hot spring, which Hooper discovered 

 not i'ar from the coast during a sledge journey towards Behring's 

 Straits. In the middle of the severe cold of February its waters 

 had a temperature of + 69° C. Hot steam and drifting snow 

 combined had thrown over the spring a lofty vault of dazzling 

 whiteness formed of masses of snow converted into ice and 

 covered with ice-crystals. The Chukches themselves appear 

 to have found the contrast striking between the hot spring 

 from the interior of the earth and the cold, snow, and ice on its 

 surface. They offered blue glass beads to the spring, and 

 showed Hooper, as something remarkable, that it was possible 

 to boil fish in it, though the mineral water gave the boiled fish 

 a bitter unpleasant taste.^ 



The interior of Konyam Bay was during our stay there still 

 covered by an unbroken sheet of ice. This broke up on the 

 afternoon of the 30th July, and had almost, rotten as it was, 

 suddenly brought the voyage of the Ve</a to a termination by 

 pressing her ashore. Fortunately the danger was observed in 

 time. Steam was got up, the anchor weighed, and the vessel 

 removed to the open part of the fjord. As on this account 

 several cubic feet of coal had to be used for getting up steam, as 

 our hitherto abundant stock of coal must now be saved, and as 

 in the last place I was still urged forward by the fear that a 

 too lengthened delay in sending home despatches might not 

 only cause much anxiety but also lead to a heavy exj^enditure 

 of money, I preferred to sail on immediately rather than to 

 enter a safer harbour in the neighbourhood from which tie 

 scientific work might continue to be prosecuted. 



The course was now shaped for the north-west point of St. 

 Lawrence Island. A little off Senjavin Sound we saw drift-ice 

 f(jr the last time. On the whole the quantity of ice which drifts 

 down througii Behring's Straits into the Pacific is not very 

 great, and most of that which is met with in summer on the 

 Asiatic side of the Behring Sea, is evidently formed in fjords and 

 bays along the coast. South of Behring's Straits accordingly I 

 saw not a single iceberg nor any large block of glacier-ice, but 

 only even and very rotten fields of bay-ice. 



The Vega was anchored on the 31st Jidy in an open bay on 

 the n<jrth-w"estern side of St. Lawrence Island. This island, 

 called by the natives Enguae, is the largest one between the 

 Aleutian Islands and Behring's Straits. It lies nearer Asia 



1 That a fire-emitting rnountidn was to be found in Siberia cast of the 

 Yenisej is already mentioned in a treatise by Isaak Mtissa, inserted in 

 Hessal Gerritz, Detectio Fred, Amsterdam, 1612. Tlie rumour about the 

 volcanos of Kamchatka thus appears to have reached Europe at that early 

 date. 



