168 LAND NORTH OF SIBERIA. 



There is some evidence, both historical and geographical, that 

 the unknown tract in question is occupied by land, A chief of the 

 Tuski nation told Wraugell that from the" cliffs between Cape 

 Chelagskoi and Cape North, on a clear summer day, snow-covered 

 mountains might be descried at a great distance to the north. 1 He 

 maintained that this distant northern land was inhabited, and 

 added that herds of reindeer had been seen to come across the 

 frozen sea, and return again to the north. The Tuskis also spoke 

 of a much more northern land, the lofty mountains of which were 

 visible on very clear days from Cape Jakan. 2 Wrangell himself 

 never saw this mysterious land, and the Tuskis were hardly 

 believed until it was actually re-discovered by Captain Kellett, in 

 the Herald, in 1850. In August of that year he sighted an exten- 

 sive and high land to the north and north-west of Behring Strait, 

 with very lofty peaks, which is believed to be a continuation of the 

 range of mountains seeD by the natives off Cape Jakan. 3 There 

 are geographical reasons, which have been pointed out by Admiral 

 Sherard Osborn, fur the supposition that land, either as a continent 

 or as a chain of islands, extends to the neighbourhood of the 

 westernmost of the Parry group. The nature of the ice-floes 

 between the north coast of America, off the mouths of the Colville 

 and Mackenzie, and Banks Island, leads to the conclusion that 

 the sea in which such ice is formed must be, with the exception of 

 some narrow straits, land-locked. The Eskimos of this part of 

 the coast of North America are never able to advance more than 

 30 miles to seaward. 4 The ice is aground in 7 fathoms of water, 

 and the floes, even at the outer edge, which are of course lighter 

 than the rest, are 35 to 40 feet thick. The nature of the ice is the 

 same along the west coast of Banks Island. When the Investigator 

 made her perilous voyage along this coast, the channel between the 

 ice and the cliffs was so narrow that her quarter-boats had to be 

 topped up to prevent their touching the lofty ice on one side and 

 the cliffs on the other. The pack drew 40 or 50 feet of water ; it 

 rose in rolling hills upon the surface, some of which were 100 feet 

 high from base to summit, and when it was forced against the 

 cliffs it rose at once to a level with the Investigator's fore yard- 

 arm. 5 McClintock also mentions the very heavy polar ice which 

 is pressed up on the north-western shore of Prince Patrick Island. fi 



Such awful ice as this was never seen before in the Arctic regions. 

 The only way of accounting for its formation, which must have 



1 Wrangell, p. 326. 2 Ibid., p. 342. 



3 Osborn's ' North-West Passage,' p. 49. * Ibid., p. 70. 



1 Ibid., p. 204. 6 ' Blue Book,' p. 56'J. (Further papers, 1855.) 



