FreezinG OF THE 
Icy SEa. 
1 3G WF Rasee A: 
the eaft, it grows mountanous, covered with ftones, and full of coal. On the 
fummit of the chain, to the eaft of Simovie Retchinoie, is an amazing bed of fmall 
Mofiels, of a fpecies not obferved in the fubjacent fea. I think them brought there 
by fea-fowl, to eat at leifure; for it is not wonderful that numbers of objects of 
natural hiftory fhould efcape the eye in fuch a fea as this. Many parts again are 
low; but in moft places the fea near the fhore is rugged with pointed rocks. The 
coaft about the bay of cape T/chut/ki, the moft eaftern extremity of Afa, is in 
fome places rocky, in others floping and verdant; but within land rifing into a 
double ridge of high mountains. 
About the end of 4ugu/f; there is not a day in which this fea might not be frozen 5 
but in general it never efcapes later than the firft of Ofober. The thaw commences 
about the twelfth of ‘fume, at the fame time with that of the mouth of tne Fene/ei*. 
From the great headlands, there is at all times a fixed, rugged, and mountanous 
ice, which projects far into the fea. No fea is of fo uncertain and dangerous navi- 
gation: itis, in one part or other, always abundant in floating ice. During fum- 
mer, the wind never blows hard twenty-four hours from the north, but every part 
of the fhore is filled for a vaft diftance with ice; even the ftreights of Bering are 
obftructed with it +. On the reverfe, a ftrong fouth wind drives it towards the 
pole, and leaves the coaft free from all except the fixedice. During winter, the fea 
is covered, to the diftance of at left fix degrees from land. Markoff, a hardy Coffac, 
on March 15th, O. S. in the year 1715, attempted, with nine other perfons, a 
journey from the mouth of the Yana, in 71 nerth lat. to the north, over the ice, on 
fledges drawn by dogs. He went on fuccefsfully fome days, till he had reached 
lat. 77. or 78: he was then impeded by moft mountanous ice. He climbed to the 
fummit of one of the Jcebergs; and feeing nothing but ice as far as his eye could 
reach, returned on Apri/ 3d, with the utmoft difficulty : feveral of his dogs died, 
and ferved as food for the reft }. 
I hall juft mention fome of the attempts made to pafs through the Jcy Sea to 
that of Kamt/chatka. The firft was in 1636, from the fettlement of Yakutzk. The 
rivers from the ‘ana to the Kelyma were in confequence difcovered. In 1646 a 
company of Ruffian adventurers, called Promy/chleni, or Sable-hunters, made a 
voyage from the Kolyma to the country of the T/chut/ki, and traded with thofe peo- 
ple for the teeth of the Walrus. A fecond, but unfuccefsful voyage was made in 
the next year; but in 1648 one De/chnew, on the 20th of Fune, began his memo- 
rable voyage, was fortunate in a feafon free fromice, doubled the TchutfRi-nofs, 
arrived near the river O/utora, fouth of the river Anadyr, where he {fuffered thip- 
* Voy. en Siberie, ii. 295 t+ Pattas: Alfo Narrative of four Ruffian failors caft away on 
E£aft Spitzbergen, 55. t Forfler’s Obf. 81. 
wreck, 
