202 THE POLAR WORLD. 



Stoplien Glottoff the island of Kudiak in 1763, and Krcnitzin the i)eninsula of 

 Aljaska in 1 7t'>>^. ^VlM■n we consider the scanty resources of these Russian 

 naviiiators, the bad condition of their miserable barks, their own imperfect nau- 

 tical kiiowledi^e, and tlie iidiospitable nature of the seas which they traversed, 

 we can not but admire their intre])idity. 



In the Polar Sea there are neither sables nor otters, and thus the islands ly- 

 iwj; to the nuilli of Siberia might have renuiined unknown till the ])resent day, 

 if the search after mammotli-teeth had not, in a similar manner, led to their dis- 

 covery. 



Ill March, 1770, while a merchant of the name of Liichow was busy collect- 

 ing fossil ivory about Cajie Sviatoinoss, he saw a large herd of deer coming over 

 the ice from the north. IJesolute and courageous, he at once resolved to follo\v 

 their tracks, and after a sledge-journey of seventy versts, he came to an island, 

 and twenty versts farther reached a second island, at which, owing to the rough- 

 ness of the ice, his excursion terminated. He saw enough, howevei", of the rich- 

 ness of the two islands in nuimmotli-teeth, to sliow him that another visit would 

 be a valuable speculation; and on making his re])ort to the Ilussian Govern- 

 ment, he obtained an exclusive privilege to dig for mammoth-bones on the isl- 

 ands which he had discovered, and to which his name had been given. In the 

 summer of 177;Hie consequently returned, and ascertained the existence of a 

 third island, nuich larger than the others, mountainous, and having its coasts 

 covered with drift-wood, lie then went back to tlie first island, wintered there, 

 and rctiu'ned to Ustjansk in spring with a valuable cargo of mainmoth-tusks. 



There hardly exists a more remarkable article of commerce than these re- 

 mains of an extinct animal. In North Siberia, along the Obi, the Jenissei, the 

 Lena, and their tributaries, from lat. 58° to 70°, or along the shores of the Polar 

 Ocean as far as the American side of Bering Strait, the remains of a species of 

 elephant are found imbedded in the frozen soil, or become exposed, by the an- 

 nual thawing and crumbling of the river-banks. Dozens of tusks are frequently 

 found together, but the most astonishing dej)Osit of mammoth-bones occurs in 

 the Liichow Islands, where, in some localities, they are accumulated in such 

 quantities as to forni the chief substance of the soil. Year after year the tusk- 

 hunters work every summer at the cliffs, Avithout producing any sensible dim- 

 inution of the stock. The solidly-frozen matrix in which the bones lie thaws 

 to a certain extent anmially, allowing tlie tusks to drop out or to be quarried. 

 In 1821, 20,000 lbs. of the fossil ivory were procured from the island of New 

 Siberia. 



The ice in which the mammoth remains are imbedded sometimes preserves 

 their entire bodies, in spite of the countless ages whidi must liave elapsed since 

 they walked on earth. In 1799 the carcass of a mammoth was discovered so 

 fresh that the dogs ate the flesh for two summers. The skeleton is preserved 

 at St. Petersburg, and specimens of the woolly hair — proving that the climate 

 of Siberia, though then no doubt much milder than at ])resent, still required 

 the protection of a warm and shaggy coat— were presented to the chief muse- 

 ums of p]urope. 



The remains of a rhinoceros, very similar to the Indian species, are likewise 



I 



