46 REV. D. GATH WHITLEY, ON THE 
traders made their living by collecting mammoths’ tusks on the 
New Siberian Islands, and the ivory hunters declared that in 
summer the sea between these islands and the mainland is 
generally free from floating ice.* 
On August 28th, 1878, ‘the Vega sighted the most western of 
the Liakoff Islands, 2.., Semenoffskoi aml Stolbovoi, but the sea 
was so shallow and was so encumbered with rotten ice that 
navigation was slow and difficult. Nordenskiold thus describes 
his further experiences amongst the islands :— 
“It was not until August 30th that we were off the west side 
of Liakoff’s Island, on which I intended to land. The north 
coast and, as it appeared the day after, the east coast was clear 
of ice, but the winds recently prevailing, had heaped a mass of 
rotten ice on the west coast. The sea besides was so shallow 
here, that, already at a distance of 15 feet from land, we had 
a depth of only 8 metres. The ice heaped against the west 
coast of the island did not indeed form any very serious obstacle 
to the advance of the Vega, but in case we had attempted to 
land there it might have been inconvenient enough, when the 
considerable distance between the vessel and the land was to be 
traversed in a boat or the steam launch. The prospect of 
wandering about for some days on the island did not appear to 
me to outweigh the danger of the possible failure of the main 
object of the expedition. I therefore gave up for a time my 
intention of landing. The course was shaped southwards 
towards the sound, of so bad repute in the history of the 
Siberian Polar Sea, which separates Liakoffs Island from the 
mainland. 
“So far as we could judge at a distance from the appearance 
of the rocks, Stolbovoi consisted of stratified rocks, Liakoff's 
Island, on the contrary, like the mainland opposite, of high 
hills, much shattered, probably formed of Plutonic stone- 
masses. Between these there are extensive plains, which, 
according to a statement by the land surveyor, Chwoinoff, who 
by order of the Czarina visited the island in 1775, are formed 
of ice and sand, in which lie embedded enormous masses of the 
bones and tusks of the mammoth, mixed with the horns and 
skulls of some kind of ox and with rhinoceros’ horns. Bones 
of the whale and walrus are not mentioned as occurring there, 
but ‘long small screw-formed bones,’ by which are probably 
meant the tusks of the narwhal. 5 | 
* Voyage of the “ fey vol. i, pp. 24, 27. 
+ Ibid., pp. 415-418 
