26 TRAVEL, ADVENTURE, AND SPORT. 



and we had our first real snowfall. On the 3d of 

 September, during the day, in a snowstorm, we 

 rounded the point lying north-east of the mouth 

 of Kolyma Eiver. The coast here was somewhat 

 high and mountainous. We sailed at some cables'- 

 length distance from the coast, and with alternate 

 snowstorms and clear weather passed between the 

 Bear Islands. On the most easterly of these there 

 stand four pillars, which, like so many beacons, spring 

 erect above the land. These pillars, which are com- 

 posed of some plutonic mineral, are, according to 

 Baron von Wrangel, forty feet high. After passing 

 the Bear Islands, and proceeding in an easterly 

 direction among very compact drift-ice, during the 

 night we steered north-east, with the hope of reach- 

 ing that portion of land as yet untrodden by the foot 

 of civilised man known as Wrangel Land, also some- 

 times called Kellet Land. The Americans and 

 Eussians have called this land after Admiral von 

 Wrangel, who, during his three years' stay (1821-23) 

 on the Siberian coast of the Arctic Sea, made two 

 fruitless attempts to reach it (its existence being 

 already known to the Tchuktchis) from Kolyma by 

 means of dog-sledges. 



The natives at Cape Yakan and North Cape 1 

 had repeatedly in very clear weather, most probably 



1 By North Cape is meant here and hereafter, that promon- 

 tory lying in lat. N. 68 50' and long. E. 180, which properly 

 should bear the name used by the natives, Irkaipi. 



