May 1, 1895.] 



KNOWLEDGE 



105 



for he too holds that as at present constituted, most flowers 

 do derive benefit from the intercrossing which insects 

 accomplish. The question at issue does not, therefore, 

 seriously aflect any of the statements advanced in the 

 present paper. 



I 



BARON VON TOLL'S EXPEDITION TO THE 

 NEW SIBERIAN ISLANDS. 



13y Carl SiE-n-EKs. 



N 1889, the Imperial Eussian Academy of Sciences 

 had received from the well-known Siberian merchant, 

 Mons. Sannikoff, information to the effect that the 

 body of a mammoth had been discovered under the 

 seventy-third degree of latitude, on the Balakhna 



After a short stay at Irkutsk, they travelled to the Aldani 

 whence they proceeded in reindeer sledges. The Verk- 

 hoyansk range was crossed by the Tukulan Pass, five 

 thousand feet high, and from Verkoyansk the explorers 

 went westwards, across the Omoloi Mountains, to Kazachiye, 

 which was reached on April 8th. Talking there with his 

 old acquaintances, Baron Toll came to the conclusion that 

 he would be able to make, in this same spring, an excursion 

 to the New Siberian Islands, travelling in dog-sledges on 

 the ice. He started immediately after Easter, with 

 Mons. Sannikoff and several men, to visit the place where 

 the mammoth body had been seen, one hundred and 

 seventy miles north-east of Ust-Yansk. Four days later 

 they began operations, and in two days the men, who 

 had already won some experience in this sort of work 

 during a previous expedition, had reached the mammoth. 



The Expedition on the frozen ocean between the Island of Ljachow and the mainland, with tlie 



of the latter in the distance. 



mountains 



Kiver, which flows into Khatanga Bay, and Baron Toll 

 was at once invited to take the leadership of an expedition 

 for the investigation of the discovery. The bad state of 

 the Baron's health compelled him, however, to decline the 

 offer, and Mons. Chersky was sent out to make collections of 

 post-tertiary mammals in the far north-east, on the rivers 

 Yana, Indighirka, and Kolyma. After Chersky's untimely 

 death, the proposal to start for the Khatanga was renewed 

 to Baron Toll, and it was decided that he should not only 

 examine the mammoth find — which; after all, might prove 

 to be of no importance — but also make a general exploration 

 of the very little known Anabar region. He left St. Peters- 

 burg on .January 2nd, 1893, in company with Lieut. 

 Shileiko, who undertook the topographical and astro- 

 nomical work of the expedition, as well as the magnetical 

 observations. 



However, Sannikofl''s hopes were not fulfilled. Only small 

 pieces of the skin, with the wool attached, parts of the 

 extremities, and the lower jaw of a young mammoth were 

 unearthed. The skull had long since been broken, and 

 the tusks had been taken away. These reUcs were all 

 lying in recent alluvial sands, deposited by the Sanga- 

 Yuryakh Eiver, which had washed them out from the 

 underlying post-tertiary beds. It was, therefore, decided to 

 return later to the spot when the snow would be gone, and 

 in the meantime to pay a visit to the islands. 



On May 1st, the two explorers, accompanied by one 

 Cossack and three Lamutes, left the mainland and landed 

 on the south coast of the Malyi Lyakhov Island. Work 

 was begun at once, and at the very start Baron Toll came 

 across the interesting fact that under the perpetual ice, in a 

 sweet- water deposit, which contained pieces of willow and 



