358 



GEOGRAPHICAL PEOGRESS AND DISCOVERY. 



abar, Olonek, Lena, Indigitka, and Kolyma. 

 Not anchoring in the mouth of the Lena, but, 

 parting there with the steamer Lena in the 

 night of the 27th, the expedition sailed for 

 Eadh'hef Island, with the intention of re- 

 maining there several days, and then making 

 directly for Bearing Strait and Japan. A dis- 

 patch was received at St. Petersburg in Janu- 

 ary, 187U, from the Governor of Siberia, to 

 the effect that the Vega was ice-bound 40 

 miles to the east of East Cape. Relief was 

 dispatched by reindeer- and dog-sledge parties, 

 and a Russian naval vessel sailed to Behring 

 Strait to endeavor to feee the Vega from her 

 icy prison. 



The principal difficulty in the utilization of 

 the new ocean route to the mouths of the Ob 

 and Yenisei in northern Siberia consists in the 

 lack of a sufficient survey, which the Russian 

 Government seems not yet disposed to pro- 

 cure. Several mercantile voyages were un- 

 dertaken over the new maritime route during 

 the past season, most of which were success- 

 fully accomplished. The Neptune, a Danish 

 ship of 420 tons, Captain Rasmussen, sailed 

 from Hamburg for the mouth of the Ob, pass- 

 ing the Kara Straits August 2d, and, seeing ice 

 in the sea on the other side, coasted along the 

 shore of the Samoyed Peninsula into the Gulf 

 of Ob, where she found many difficulties in 

 navigation on account of a faulty chart. She 

 changed her cargo in the mouth of the Nadym 

 in the Gulf of Ob, lat. 66 13' N., Ion. 72 14' 

 E., and returned through the narrow Matoch- 

 kin Shar. She is the first vessel which has 

 made the outward and return voyage in the 

 same season. The English steamship Wark- 

 worth, Captain Joseph Wiggins, made for the 

 same port and returned, grounding twice on 

 her return voyage. Baron Knoop freighted 

 two vessels for the Yenisei in Bremen ; a car- 

 go was transferred twice on account of the 

 grounding of the vessels, once off Norway and 

 once in the mouth of the Yenisei. The Eraser 

 and the Express, the latter a Swedish steamer, 

 the two vessels mentioned above which sailed 

 from Tromso in company with the Vega, brought 

 full cargoes of wheat, etc., from the Yenisei. 

 The Dawn, a small, flat-bottomed craft, draw- 

 ing only 2 j feet of water, Captain Schwanen- 

 berg, sent out by Michael Sidorof of the Russian 

 Geographical Society, entered the Sea of Kara 

 on August 9th ; stopped at White Island, which 

 had never been landed upon before, where 

 traces of reindeer and bears were seen ; sailed 

 for Matochkin Shar, which was found blocked 

 with ice, encountering fog, drift-ice, and ke- 

 gs ; made then for the Straits of Kara, in 

 which a violent storm nearly drove her upon 

 the rocks of the Nova Zembla coast. M. Si- 



orof sent out the Aurora Borealis from Yeni- 

 : ia 1876. The crew were compelled to 



nnter on the river at the- Malobrekhovsk 

 .slands. Three were frozen, and the assistant 

 rargeon perished in trying to escape across 

 country. The mate, Numelin, took daily ob- 



servations of the temperature, except when the 

 mercury was frozen. The thermometer did 

 not rise to the freezing point until the 26th of 

 April. In June, while a relief expedition were 

 extricating the vessel, a flood came which cov- 

 ered the surrounding country as far as the eye 

 could reach ; the waters rose fifteen feet above 

 their ordinary level. The mariners took ref- 

 uge on the roof of their wintering hut. They 

 were rescued as the freshet was subsiding by 

 Captain Schwanenberg in the steamer Alexan- 

 dria. The expedition in the Dawn was the 

 continuance of the project undertaken in the 

 Aurora Borealis. 



An expedition left Copenhagen in the spring 

 of 1878, commissioned by the Danish Govern- 

 ment to make trigonometrical measurements 

 of the regions lying between the colonies of 

 Godthaab and Eredrikshaab, Greenland, and 

 to visit and explore as far as possible the vast 

 plateaus of eternal ice in the interior. The ex- 

 ploration has solved a vexed geographical ques- 

 tion. They reached the chain of snowy peaks 

 seen by Dalager from the top of the mountain 

 called Nanutack, which is in the middle of 

 the glacial plain north of Fredrikshaab, and 

 ascended the highest peak in the chain, which 

 is about 5,000 feet above the level of the sea. 

 * These mountains were taken by their first dis- 

 coverer to be the eastern coast of Greenland; 

 but the exploring party of the Danish expedi- 

 tion found that there extended beyond them 

 plains of ice and snow, forming a single gigantic 

 glacier, which seemed to rise gradually as it 

 approached the horizon. The mountains are 

 situated about 235 miles from the edge of the 

 ice-fields. The detachment, composed of three 

 Danes and one Esquimau, entered the glacial 

 plateau on the 14th of July, conducting three 

 sledges drawn by dogs, and attained the foot 

 of the mountains on the 24th. The drifting 

 snow made the journey one of great difficulty. 

 Several times they fell into hidden cracks. 

 The light from the summer sun was very dim. 

 The surface of the ice was unequal and full of 

 ravines. In the valleys they had to cross with 

 difficulty rapid streams and little lakes contain- 

 ing fish. They saw some wild reindeer and 

 white hares. Arrived amid a tempest of snow 

 at the foot of the mountains, they were unable 

 to make the ascent until, on the 31st, when 

 Lieutenant Jenson, the commander of the party, 

 was on the point of giving the order to return 

 since the provisions were giving out and they 

 were afflicted with ophthalmia, the sky sud- 

 denly cleared and the wind fell ; the ascent 

 was then made without accident. The moun- 

 tain is a huge mass of rock. After making the 

 scientific observations, they regained their dog- 

 train and returned to the edge of the plateau, 

 after having passed twenty-two days in the 

 ice-fields. The Danish expedition has gathered 

 valuable data on the geological composition and 

 the natural history of Greenland. 



A project has been on foot some time for 

 the connection of the upper waters of the Ob 



