126 Polar Explorations. 



coasts of Spitzbergen, was unable to proceed beyond 79° 

 50'. He was further employed in 1611, but after surmoun- 

 ting numberless dijfficulties, lost his ship at Spitzbergen. In 

 1514, 15, Baffin and Fotherby were equallj unsuccessful. 



The Russians and Dutch had not slumbered upon a sub- 

 ject so interesting to commerce, and among many unavailing 

 attempts during a century, the celebrated Dutch navigator 

 Wm. Barentz succeeded so far as to winter in 1596, in Nova 

 Zembla N. 70° 20', which had already been visited by Bur- 

 rough, master of a pinnace belonging to Sir Hugh Willough- 

 by's fleet.* 



Several fruitless attempts were made by successive adven- 

 turers, who never could succeed in doubling a cape which 

 sets far into the frozen ocean beyond the most eastern branch 

 of the Lena. Of the parties embarked in these expeditions 

 some were shipwrecked — and others killed by savages — 

 while a few escaping settled in Kamschalka.- 



After the Dukes of Russia had acquired the throne and ti- 

 tle of the Tartar Czars, many enterprising individuals pushed 

 their discoveries to the north and east.t They soon found 

 the metallic treasures of the Uralian and other mountains, 

 but those who survived the rigor of the climate of the arctic 

 circle, reported the existence of enormous rivers under mass- 

 es of ice, pursuing their dreary way to the frozen ocean, and 

 of fossil islands formed near their mouths by the accumula- 

 tion of animal remains, — but no new facilities for passing 

 through those seas to the Pacific Ocean. 



Thus far, private effort had achieved all that had been 

 done. M. Cuvier asserts that " Peter the Great was the first 

 monarch who conceived those scientific expeditions, which 

 England and France have since carried to their greatest per- 

 fection." In 1715 the Cossack Markoff, accompanied by 

 nine persons, was sent by the Russian government, " to ex- 

 plore the North Sea." Finding the ocean impracticable, he 

 resorted to sledges drawn by dogs, and left the shores of Si- 

 beria under the 71st degree of N. lat. They proceeded 

 north for seven days, when the ice mountains became im- 

 passable. He ascended the highest, but could perceive noth- 

 ing except interminable ice, and having consumed his pro- 

 visions was compelled to return, which he effected with diffi- 

 culty, some of his dogs having perished. 



■ Hackluyt, Vol. 1. p. 274. t Ed. New Phil. Mag. 



