356 



GEOGRAPHICAL PROGRESS AND DISCOVERY. 



ful attempts in small, unseaworthy boats to 

 reach the mouth of the Kolyma in the last cen- 

 tury. From the Kolyma to Behring Strait the 

 Cossack Dechnef made a memorable voyage in 

 1648. lie was the first discoverer of Behring 

 Strait. Starting from the mouth of the Kolyma 

 with seven small vessels on the 1st of July, 

 three of them reached Tchutskoynos in an 

 open sea. He then coasted along the eastern 

 shores of Kamtchatka, and reached Anodyr in 

 October. The next year Staduschin sailed from 

 the Kolyma seven days to the eastward with- 

 out encountering ice. The sea between the 

 New Siberian Islands and the coast is said to 

 be tolerably clear every summer. Those islands 

 were surveyed by Hadenstrom, and afterward, 

 in 1823, by Lieutenant Anjou. Among the at- 

 tempts to penetrate westward along the Si- 

 berian coast from Behring Strait were those of 

 Captain Cook, who reached the 180th meridian 

 in 1778, Behring having only penetrated to 

 172 W.; of the American Captain Rodgers, who 

 reached 176 E. in 1855; and of the American 

 whaling skipper Long, who sailed as far as Cape 

 Jaekaen, in Ion. 170 E., through an open sea, 

 in 1867. The Russian expedition to Wrangell 

 Land in 1876 was stopped by the ice. Profes- 

 sor Nordenskjold conjectures that the New 

 Siberian Islands and Wrangell Land are only 

 parts of a long chain of islands running par- 

 allel to the north coast of Asia, which prevent 

 the ice in the intermediate seas from drifting 

 away, and favor its formation in winter, but 

 on the other hand protect those waters from 

 the north polar ice. 



The Vega sailed out of Gothenburg on the 

 4th of July, and, joining the Lena at Tromso, 

 left that port July 25th. They passed through 

 the Jngar Strait August 1st, and crossed the 

 Sea of Kara to the mouth of the Yenisei in six 

 days, sailing with the Fraser and Express, and 

 anchoring on the 6th of August in Dickson's 

 Harbor, and sailing on their on ward course to 

 the northward on the 10th, after Lieutenant 

 Bove had completed a sketch of that fine 

 haven. They steered for the most western of 

 the Kamenni Islands. The sea was perfectly 

 clear of ice as far as the eye reached. The tem- 

 perature of the air was 10-4 C. They sailed 

 py small islands not marked on the chart, lay- 

 ing to by one of them on account of the dense 

 fog ; it was a low bank of gneissic formation 

 thinly spread with gravel, and containing only 

 a scanty growth of moss, except on one side, 

 where there was a varied vegetation of lichens. 

 On the llth they proceeded, meeting with ice- 

 floes, which increased toward night in an 

 alarming degree, though without hindering 

 their passage. It was bay ice, almost entirely 

 decomposed by the warmth. They sailed by 

 an unknown route to the northeast, passing 

 numbers of islets, by one of which, or by a 

 block of ice, when the fog made sailing in- 

 secure, they moored their vessel. There seems 

 to be a wall of islands and shoals extending 

 from Port Dickson to Cape Chili uskin. The 



saltness of the sea increased toward the north, 

 and its biology consequently began to multiply. 

 Large specimens of the crinoid Alecto Es- 

 chrichtii, numerous starfish, as the Asteria 

 SiniMi and panopla, and pycnogonids, were 

 found ; and near the shore large sea algae were 

 collected. The shore fauna and flora were very 

 poor compared with Nova Zembla and Spitz- 

 bergen. The only birds seen in large numbers 

 were snow-sparrows, six or seven species of 

 waders, and some species of geese. The only 

 other birds were the mountain owls, the ptar- 

 migan, and a kind of falcon. A few walruses 

 and large seals (Plioca barbata), and great 

 numbers of the smaller seal (Phoca hispida), 

 were seen in the water. While looking on one 

 of the blocks of floating ice for the substance 

 of cosmic origin which he had found in the ice 

 north of Spitzbergen in 1872, he came across 

 remarkable small yellow crystals scattered on 

 the surface. He supposes this curious sand to 

 be a substance crystallized from the sea-w T aters 

 by the action of the winter frost. They lay at 

 anchor in the excellent harbor, which he named 

 Actinia, from the 14th to the 18th, waiting for 

 clear weather. It is situated in the sound be- 

 tween Taimyr Island and the coast ; he gave it 

 that name on account of the numbers of ac- 

 tinias dredged there. The land was overgrown 

 with grasses, moss, and lichens, which fur- 

 nished abundance of specimens of the two lat- 

 ter families, but few species of the phanerogams. 

 No snow was seen. Notwithstanding the rich 

 pasturage, only few reindeer were seen, prob- 

 ably owing to the ravages of wolves. The 

 sound between Taimyr Island and the shore of 

 the continent was explored in the steam-launch, 

 and found too shallow and traversed by too 

 strong a westerly current for the Vega to reach 

 Taimyr Bay by that route. They set out again 

 on their course on the 18th, although the dense 

 fogs still continued, and, as later observations 

 of the weather indicate, do continue in that 

 latitude until the formation of ice. Taimyr 

 Island is encompassed by islets not marked on 

 any chart ; the northern extremity of the 

 island is more to the south than the maps in- 

 dicate. Little ice was seen on the 18th even 

 in Taimyr Bay, and that was in very small 

 pieces and very rotten. On the 19th a large 

 field of solid ice was observed in a bay on the 

 western side of the Cheliuskin Peninsula. They 

 landed on the North Cape, in the mouth of a 

 creek, on the evening of the 19th. The fog 

 had cleared, and the promontory was illumi- 

 nated by the sun. A polar bear was waiting 

 on the beach to dispute their landing. Cape 

 Cheliuskin is a low promontory, divided by 

 the creek into two parts. The land rises from 

 the eastern beach to a ridge which runs par- 

 allel to the coast. Their astronomical observa- 

 tions located the western point of the promon- 

 tory in lat. 77 36' 37" N. and Ion. 103 25' 5" 

 E., and the eastern point in lat. 77 42' N. and 

 Ion. 104 1' E., which is. somewhat to the 

 northward of its position as laid down on 



