CLVIIL 
Derrn. 
IcEe 
1 a Chaos ¢ S77 A. 
feated in the antient Permia or Biormia, and not far fouth of the river Peczora. 
From thence the Biormas, who feem to have been the factors, embarked with the 
merchandize on that river, went down with it to the coafts of the Frozen Sea; and, 
after obtaining furs in exchange, they returned and delivered them, at T/cherdy*, to 
the foreign merchants * : and from them the antients might pick up accounts. 
The Icy Sea extends from Nova Zemlja to the coaft of America. We have 
feen how unable even the Ruffians have been to furvey its coafts, except by in- 
terrupted detail, notwithftanding it formed part of their own vaft empire. To 
our navigators was given the honor not only of fettling parts of its geography 
with precifion, but of exploring the whole fpace between the moft northern pro- 
montory of Afia and the fartheft acceffible part of America. This was a tract 
of one hundred leagues +. “The traverfing it was a work of infinite difficulty 
and danger. ‘The fea fhallow ; and the change from the greateft depth, which did 
not exceed thirty fathoms, to the left, which was only eight, was fudden : the 
bottom muddy, caufed by the quantity of earth brought down from the vaft ri- 
vers which pour into it from the Afatic fide. We fufpect that it receives but 
few from the American, their general tendency being eaft and weft. The Icy Sea 
is fhallow, not only becaufe its tides and currents are very inconfiderable ; but its 
outlet through the ftreights of Bering very narrow, and even obftructed in the 
middle by the iflands of St. Diomedes: both which circumftances impede the ° 
carrying away of the mud. Thecurrent, fmall as it is, comes chiefly from the 
fouth-weft, and is another impediment. The land of each continent is very low near 
the fhores, and high at a {mall diftance from them : the former is one inftance of 
a correfpondent fhallownefs of water. The foundings off each continent, at the 
fame diftances from the fhore, were exactly the fame. 
The ice of this fea differs greatly from that of Spitzbergen. It probably is en- 
tirely generated from the fea-water. The Jcy Sea feems to be in no part bounded 
by lofty land, in the valleys of which might have been formed the ftupendous 
icebergs, which, tumbling down, form thofe lofty iflands we had before occafion 
to mention. The ice here is moveable, except about the great headlands, which 
are befet with a rugged mountanous ice. It is notorious, that a ftrong gale 
from the north in twenty-four hours covers the whole coaft, for numbers of miles 
in breadth; will fill the ftreights of BErinG, and even the Kamt/chatkan feas 5 
and in fmaller pieces extend to its iflands. In the Icy Sea it confifts chiefly 
of field ice. Some fields, very large, and furrounded with lefler, from forty 
* Nichols's Rufian Nations, i, 1765 + Voyage, iit. 277. 
¢e 
