108 VITUS BERING. 



World were attacked.* For a whole decade these discov- 

 erers struggled with all the obstacles which a terrible 

 climate and the resources of a half developed country 

 obliged them to contend with. They surmounted these 

 obstacles. The expeditions were renewed, two, three, 

 yes, even four times. If the vessels were frozen in, they 

 were hauled upon shore the next spring, repaired, and the 

 expedition continued. And if these intrepid fellows were 

 checked in their course by masses of impenetrable ice, 

 they continued their explorations on dog sledges, which 

 here for the first time were employed in Arctic explora- 

 tion. Cold, scurvy, and every degree of discomfort 

 wrought sad havoc among them, but many survived the 

 long polar winter in miserable wooden huts or barracks. 

 Nowhere has Russian hardiness erected for itself a more 

 enduring monument. 



It was especially the projecting points and peninsulas 

 in this region that caused these explorers innumerable 

 difficulties. These points and capes had hitherto been 

 unknown. The crude maps of this period represented 

 the Arctic coast of Siberia as almost a straight line. It 

 was first necessary for the navigators to send cartographers 

 to these regions, build beacons and sea-marks, establish 

 magazines, collect herds of reindeer, which, partly as an 

 itinerant food supply, and partly to be used as an eventual 



* Middendorff gives the f oUowing interesting outline of these expeditions : 

 From Petchora to the Obi : From the Obi : 



Muravjoff and Pavloff. 

 Malygin and Skuratoff. 



From the Yeuesei : 



Eastward : 

 Minin. 



