138 POLAR PROBLEMS 



edge of the immovable ice cover, either with the phenomenon of ice 

 shock and pressure or else with various degrees of loosening of the 

 floating ice masses up to an entirely open space of water. This last is 

 called polynya. Of course, the phenomenon of polynya can be ob- 

 served wherever there is a floating ice cover capable of motion, while 

 the size of the polynya will depend on the shifting of the margin of 

 floating ice, which shifting is connected with the immediate motion of 

 the ice and also with the phenomenon of hummocking and heaping 

 up of ice masses. 



Undoubtedly the Kara Sea offers conditions under which the 

 formation of a more or less considerable polynya will take place on the 

 margin of the coastal fast-ice, but one may assume that such polynyas 

 will be closely related to the direction of the wind and will not be ex- 

 tensive in development. In fact, the phenomena of hummocking and 

 heaping-up of ice, which bear on the size of polynyas according to the 

 observations in the Kara Sea, do not take place on so large a scale in 

 this basin as in the Siberian Sea, the latter being a shallow open gulf 

 of the Arctic Ocean. To our regret all consideration of the polynyas 

 of the Kara Sea must remain in the domain of hypothesis owing to an 

 almost complete lack of observations. Quite different, from this point 

 of view, is the polynya that follows the edge of the coastal fast-ice 

 of the Siberian and Yukagir Seas, in particular north of the New 

 Siberian Islands, which, together with the Lyakhov Islands, lie within 

 a vast area occupied by an immovable ice cover that extends from the 

 Siberian coast. The attempts of the first explorers of the New Siberian 

 Islands, Ustyansk tradesmen, to penetrate beyond them to the north 

 in their search for new lands — attempts which were connected with 

 the monopoly of the trade in mammoth tusks and Arctic fox pelts — 

 met an unsurmountable obstacle in the fact that the open sea begins 

 several miles from the northern coast of the New Siberian Islands. 



The explorations of Hedenstrom, Pshenitsyn, and chiefly of Lieu- 

 tenant Anjou's expedition in 1 820-1 824 confirmed this discovery, 

 and the fact of the existence of a polynya in the north of the Siberian 

 Sea became established beyond doubt. Farther to the east sledge 

 journeys on the ice by Kolyma tradesmen and the explorations of 

 Lieutenant Wrangel's expedition in 1820-1824 showed the existence 

 of a polynya beyond the limit of the wide immovable zone of ice off 

 the coast of the Kolyma region. 



The recent explorations of the Russian Polar Expedition of 1900- 

 1903 on the Zarya and on sledge trips made by myself. Lieutenant 

 Mattisen, and Engineer Brusnev north of the Byelkovski, Kotelny, 

 Faddeevski (Thaddeus), and Novaya Sibir Islands are in complete 

 accord with the information about the existence of a polynya north 

 of the New Siberian Islands based on the reports of Hedenstrom, 

 Pshenitsyn, and Anjou and give reason to suppose that the polynya 



