a2 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL.- 66 
The Kolyma is the most easterly of the great rivers of northern Siberia, 
and is here about three versts (two miles) [a verst is 0.621 mile] wide. It 
heads in the Stanovoi Mountains and approaches the Alaskan Yukon in length, 
drainage, and volume. 
The town site is situated near the lower end of a narrow, low island sur- 
rounded by two arms of the Kolyma River and about 100 versts long. Near 
the upper end of this island the Omolon empties into the Kolyma from the 
right. Opposite Nizhni Kolymsk and but a few versts apart, the two Anyui 
rivers—Big and Little—flow into the Kolyma, likewise from the right. 
These three rivers are the most important tributaries and head also in the 
Stanovoi Mountains. But while the mountain passes beyond the sources of the 
Kolyma and Omolon lead to tributaries of the Sea of Okhotsk, the headwaters 
of the two Anyui connect with those of the Anadyr. 
Fic. 43—Little Anyui River. First elevated silt bank, showing detail; going 
up-river, September, 1914. 
As there remained only a few weeks of open weather before the beginning 
of winter, | concluded the nearest field for promising research would be the 
two Anyui rivers. Accordingly I started upon my first exploring trip on 
September 3 in the schooner’s dory, accompanied by three members of the 
party who intended to do some hunting and photographing. 
We entered the Little Anyui and explored this river for a distance of approxi- 
mately 150 versts from the mouth upward. For about the first 100 versts the 
ascent was quite easy and made by rowing. After that tracking had to be 
resorted to almost exclusively, the current of the river increasing rapidly 
almost at once. 
For the lower 100 versts the river flows—after the manner of many sub- 
Arctic rivers in Alaska and Canada—through a low tundra, covered with 
dense willow thickets and puny larches, the east forelopers of the great 
Siberian taiga that stretches from the Urals to the Pacific. The river course 
forms enormous bends swinging alternately from the right to the left. The 
