CRUISE OF STEAMER CORWIN IN THE ARCTIC OCEAN. 69 



The following year another Cossack by the name of Wagin was sent out accompanied by Per- 

 niakov to verify this report. They rode over the ice with dog sledges and not only reached and 

 explored the island seen by Permakov, which they found barren and uninhabited, but discovered 

 another, which they could not reach for want of provisions. Another point of similarity between 

 those days of early exploration and the present time is the fact that the perpetuation of the 

 memory of explorers depended more upon the tragic nature of their accounts than upon the 

 amount of their addition to knowledge; and had it not been for the fact that their men mutinied and 

 murdered Permakov and Wagin, these accounts would not have been preserved. They are said 

 by Miiller, to whom we are indebted for much of the early history of this country, to have been 

 founded on the confused information obtained during the examination of the murderers at their 

 trial. In 1763, a Cossack, named Amlrejew, was dispatched by the governor of Siberia to make 

 a trip northward over the ice with a view to ascertain the truth of these reported discoveries of 

 land in that direction. He succeeded in reaching some islands, which he landed upon and found 

 inhabited. His account is that " after driving to the north about 50 versts (33 miles) from the 

 mouth of the Krestonoi River, I discovered a group of inhabited islands containing traces of a 

 much more numerous population at some former period. The Bear Islands are 50 versts north of 

 the Krestonoi, and are undoubtedly the ones referred to." Andrejew appears, also, to have claimed 

 other discoveries, as in the instructions given to Billings, an English officer in charge of a large 

 Russian expedition fitted out some years later for the purpose of exploring the Polar Sea north 

 of the continent of Asia, the following words occur : 



One Sergeant Andrejew saw from the last of the Bear Islands a large island to which they (Andrejew and his 

 companions) traveled in dog sledges; but they turned when they had gone 20 versts from the coast, because they 

 saw fresh traces of a large number of men who had traveled in sledges drawn by reindeer. 



In- 1769, a party consisting of three surveyors, Loutiev, Lussu, and Puschkarer, were sent out 

 over the ice to the northeast, but they neither succeeded in reaching nor seeing land, although they 

 traveled in the direction indicated 130 miles. The part of the sea in which Andrejew claimed to 

 have made his discovery has since been thoroughly explored by Anjou, Wrangel, and others, but 

 no signs of any land were seen. That he could not have lauded nor even have seen Wrangel 

 Land we now know, as it is over 300 miles distant, due east, from the Bear Islands, from which 

 place the discovery is claimed to have been made. The natives who accompanied Andrejew on 

 his journey to the Bear Islands were met with by Loutiev and his party, but had no knowledge 

 of any discovery of new lands. These reports of the existence of land to the north of the conti- 

 nent led the Emperor Alexander, in 1S20, to equip two expeditions, which were to proceed to the 

 northern part of Siberia to explore and survey the coast. One of the expeditions was placed 

 under the command of Lieutenant Anjou, with instructions to commence operations at the mouth 

 of the Jana, and the other under the command of Lieutenant Wrangel, who was to commence at 

 the Kolyma, and proceed east as far as Cape Shelagehoi, and thence in a northerly direction in 

 order to ascertain whether an inhabited country existed in that quarter, as asserted by the 

 Tchuktchis. After four years spent in unavailing effort, Wrangel returned home without even 

 seeing this land or gaining the slightest particle of knowledge in relation to it. It is true he had 

 received an account from the uativcs of Cape Jakan that, on a very clear day, from a hill in the 

 vicinity, high land could be seen to the north ; but this was not new. Native reports of land seen 

 to the north had been current for over one hundred and seventy years, and on the strength of 

 these reports the land had actually been shown on Strahlenbeyg's map at least one hundred years 

 before the time of Wrangel's voyage. In submitting his report on his return Wrangel refers to it 

 as "the problematical land of the North," and evidently has no confidence in its existence. His 

 four years of exploration along the Siberian coast were conducted with great heroism, and were 

 prolific of good results, and to him, more than any one else, are we indebted for the knowledge we 

 now have of its geographical and climatic conditions; not so, however, in regard to the land 

 which now bears his name, of which he not only gave us no knowledge, but threw doubt upon 

 its very existence. In 1819, Captain Kellett, in H. B. M. ship Herald, saw this land and was 

 undoubtedly the first European who had ocular proof of its existence. On his return to England, 

 1853, his discovery was reported. A chart of the region north of Bering Straits was compiled 



