THE VARIOUS EXPEDITIOiN^S. 109 



means of conveyance, followed along the coast with the 

 vessels, while here and there, especially on the Taimyr 

 peninsula, small fishing stations were established for sup- 

 plying the vessels. 



In the summer of 1737 Malygin and Skuratoff crossed 

 the Kara Sea and sailed up the Gulf of Obi. In the 

 same year the able Ofzyn charted the coast between the 

 Obi and the Yenesei, but was reduced to the rank of a 

 common sailor, because in Berezov he had sought the 

 company of the exiled Prince Dolgoruki. 



In the year previous, Pronchisheif all but succeeded 

 in doubling the Taimyr peninsula, and reached the 

 highest latitude (77° 29') that had been reached by water 

 before the Vega expedition. But it was especially in the 

 second attempt, from 1738 to 1743, that the greatest 

 results were attained. The two cousins, Chariton and 

 Dmitri Laptjef, who were equipped anew and vested with 

 great authority, attacked the task of doubling the 

 Taimyr and Bering peninsulas with renewed vigor. By 

 extensive sledging expeditions, the former linked his 

 explorations to those undertaken by Minin and Sterlegoff 

 from the west, and his mate, Chelyuskin, in 1742, 

 planted his feet on the Old World^s most northerly point, 

 and thus relegated the story of a certain Jelmerland, said 

 to connect northern Asia with Novaia Zemlia, to that 

 lumber-room which contains so many ingenious carto- 

 graphical ideas. But even these contributions to science 

 were, perhaps, surpassed by those of Dmitri Laptjef. As 

 Lassenius's successor he charted, in three summers, the 

 Siberian coast from the Lena to the great Baranoff Cliff, 

 a distance of thirty-seven degrees. On this coast, toward 



