THE NOKTH-EAST PASSAGE. 27 



under peculiar atmospheric conditions, seen land 

 in the north-east ; this suggested to Admiral von 

 Wrangel, (who was sent out by the Russian Govern- 

 ment to survey the Siberian coast,) an endeavour 

 to reach that land. Wrangel was met either by 

 an impassable barrier of ice (high torosser} or by 

 ice-fields here and there rent asunder, with large 

 fissures between the latter, called by the Russians 

 poly nj or. 1 The result was that he had to return 

 without arriving at or even seeing the land in 

 question. As the natives relate that for some time 

 past they have seen during the winter people un- 

 known to them coming over the ice from the north- 

 east, and returning the same way, it is inferred 

 that Wrangel Land is inhabited. 



The English have called the land after their 

 countryman Kellet, commander of the English man-of- 

 war Herald, with which, in 1849, he endeavoured to 

 penetrate thither. Kellet's attempt with that object 

 succeeded no better than Wrangel's. He arrived 

 at an island, which received the name of Herald 

 Island, from whence, under the atmospheric condi- 

 tions formerly alluded to, he believed he saw 

 Wrangel Land. 



The American whaling-captain Long (of the barque 

 Nile, 1867) is the last who saw and also took 



1 It is a misapprehension of these polynjor, described by 

 Wrangel, which first gave rise to the popular but groundless 

 hypothesis of an open polar sea. 



