BILLINGS' AND WEANGELL'S VOYAGES. 100 



fore relinquished his plan of sailing to Cape Chelagskoi, and de- 

 termined to proceed by land. Eeturning in the ship to Metchigme 

 Bay, he commenced his journey on reindeer sledges to Koliutchen 

 Bay. Sending his companion Gilew in a Tchntski baidar with 

 orders to survey the coast from East Cape to Koliutchen Island, 

 Gilew followed the coast to East Cape, where the ice was pressed 

 so closely on the shore that he was compelled to drag the baidar 

 across a narrow neck of land. He then followed the coast until 

 within 00 miles of Koliutchen Island, when the Tchutski refused to 

 go any further. Fortunately he fell in with a tribe of reindeer 

 Tchutski, who conducted him to Koliutchen Bay, where he met 

 with Captain Billings. After surveying the shores of this bay, 

 Billings proceeded with the Tchutski to the first Bussian settle- 

 ment on the Aniui (a tributary of the Kolyma), where he arrived 

 on February 17th. Speaking of the Tchutski land as barren in the 

 extreme, he says, " before July there is no symptoms of summer, 

 and on the 20th of August the winter sets in." 



Baron Wrangell reached the mouth of the Kolyma on February 

 21st, 1821, temperature 26°, loading of each sleigh 1000 lbs. Leaving 

 on the 22nd, the Great Baranika was reached on the 27th, where 

 great quantities of drift-wood were found. At Chelagskoi Ness on 

 March oth ice hummocks were 90 feet high. They then proceeded 

 40 milas east of Cape Chelagskoi, and returned to Niznei Kolymsk 

 on March 14th, having been absent twenty-two days, and travelled 

 over 650 miles. 



With eight men, besides dog-drivers, 240 dogs, and twenty-two 

 sledges, carrying thirty days' provisions, he left the mouth of the 

 Kolyma on March 26th, temperature 4- 21° F. At a mile from the 

 shore they came to a chain of ice hummocks, and a wide fissure 

 in the ice. After three hours' labour they got through the hum- 

 mocks, and came upon an extensive plain of ice, broken only by a 

 few scattered masses ; at noon on the 28th, in lat. 69° 58' n., numer< ms 

 traces of foxes going in the same direction as ourselves. March 

 29th, temperature -f- 14°, at 4 P.M., reached the Bear Islands: an 

 appearance of open water to the n.n.w. There was a much greater 

 quantity of drift-wood on the north than the south side of the 

 islands. March 31st, wind north-east, temperature 4- 7° a.m. 4- 14 

 P.M., came upon sharp grains of sea-alt ; snow more soft and damp ; 

 fog so moist as to wet our clothing. Camped under a wall of ice 

 30 feet liigh. Thickness of ice H? feet ; lat. 70° 5:5' n. 



April 1st. — Thermometer 4- 2:{ a.m. 4- 7 p.m. After pursuing a 

 N. by E. COXU'Se for 14 miles tracks of foxes were seen, and the Lee 



