4.2 REY. D. GATH WHITLEY, ON 'THE 
ice in winter, and in boats in the summer. Every year great 
quantities of ivory were taken from the islands and sold in the 
markets at Yakutsk. 
On the death of Liakoff, the Russian Government granted 
the monopoly of trading in these islands, in 1805, to a 
merchant of Yakutsk named Sirovatskoi, who sent his agent 
Sannikoff to explore the islands, and, if possible, to discover 
more islands in these wonderful regions. Discoveries now 
commenced which were as remarkable as those of Liakoff, and 
which amply repaid Sirovatskoi for his labour and outlay. In 
1805, Sannikoff discovered to the east of Kotelnoi, a large 
island which he called Fadeyeffskoi; and in 1806, the younger _ 
Sirovatskoi discovered another large island still further to the 
east, which received the name of New Siberia.* Two smaller 
islands—Stolbovoi and Belkowa—were at the same _ time 
discovered. These islands were full of mammoth bones, and 
the quantity of tusks and teeth of elephants and rhinoceroses, 
found in the newly discovered island of New Siberia, were 
perfectly amazing, and surpassed anything which had as yet 
been discovered. 
Before long—as was natural—disputes arose as to the 
monopoly of collecting the fossil ivory in these wonderful 
islands, and petitions were addressed to the Russian Govern- 
ment on the subject. This induced Count Romanzoff, then 
Chancellor of Russia, to order Hedenstrom, a Siberian exile, to 
explore the islands, and Romanzoff fitted out the expedition at 
his own expense. Hedenstrém started from Ustyansk, near the 
mouth of the Yana, on March 19th, 1809, taking with him two 
companions, and for three consecutive seasons they examined 
the islands. Hedenstrém found that the quantity of fossil 
ivory on the first island found by Liakoff (7.¢., Liakofi’s Island) 
was so enormous, that, although the ivory diggers had been 
engaged in collecting ivory from it for forty years, the supply 
seemed to be quite undiminished. On an expanse of sand little 
more than half a mile in extent Hedenstrom saw ten tusks of 
mammoths sticking up, and as the ivory hunters had left these 
tusks because there were other places where the remains of 
mammoths were stil more abundant, the enormous quantity of 
elephants’ tusks and bones in the island may be imagined. 
Sannikoff—who accompanied Hedenstrom—was equally amazed 
at the quantity of the remains of the mammoth in Liakoffs 
Island, and—like Chwoinoff thirty years before—he declared 
* Wrangell’s Stberia and the Polar Sea, pp. 481, 482. 
