NORDENSK/JOLD’S LABORS. 357 
After spending a day in surveying the harbor, the vessels continued their 
eastward voyage. 
On the roth of August the first object of the expedition was accomplished, 
by its arrival at the extreme north point of the Old World, named variously 
Cape Chelyuskin, Cape Severo, or Northeast Cape, its latitude being 77° 41’ N., 
longitude 104° 1’ E. On this part of the voyage a good deal of detention had 
been caused by fogs, but the little ice met with had been either too much de- 
cayed or the floes too open to prevent the easy and safe passage of the steamers, 
being rather an advantage than otherwise, because the water was kept smooth. 
A day was spent at this interesting spot in taking bearings and collecting 
specimens of all kinds. The ships then resumed their route, steering nearly due 
east away from the land (instead of following the coast line, which here turned 
to the south), in the direction of the New Siberian Islands; but a dense ice-pack 
met with on the 22d put a stop to their advance in this direction, and they had to 
retrace their way, and by the evening of the 23d were again in open water; 
then, by keeping more to the southward, no more ice was met with up to the 
mouths of the river Lena, where the little vessel of that name parted company 
with her larger consort on the night of the 27th, the latter continuing her course 
toward Behring Strait. 
In three days, notwithstanding that there was much time lost in dredging 
and taking soundings, 360 miles were accomplished, showing how little obstruc- 
tion there had been by ice, which was, however, seen in greater or less quanti 
ties to the north. As they advanced, however, it was necessary to keep to the 
open channel along the coast, which they had to hug closely, as the strip of water 
became narrower every hour; yet no serious delay was caused as far as Cape 
Schelagskoi, which was arrived at on the 6th of September, being still about 500 
miles from Behring Strait. 
The ice was now found so closely packed, that it was requisite to approach 
still nearer the coast to find an open channel. Whilst attempting with much dif- 
ficulty to do this, two large skin boats, of the same build as the Oomiaks of the 
Eskimos, came off full of natives, the first people that had been seen since leav- 
ing Chabarova, about 2,500 miles to the east. These could speak neither Rus- 
sian nor any other language understood by the Swedes, One boy could count 
ten in English, showing that they had probably more communication with Amer- 
ican whalers than with the Russians. These Tchuktché were found still to use 
some implements of stone and bone, and their features have an undoubted re- 
semblance to the Mongols of the Old World, and the Eskimos and Indians (?) 
of the New. Evidently these Tchuktché resemble closely in habits the Eskimos, 
and preserve like them the contents of the reindeer paunch for food. + 
The winter quarters of the ‘‘ Vega” proved safe, and were in other respects 
j At page 385 of “ Nordenskjold’s Arctic Voyages,’’ he says of the Tchuktches—‘‘a tribe doubtless dle 
scended from the Eskimos of Greenland.”’ In my communications with the Eskimos at several positions on 
the American coast, I was led to believe, from what they told me, that they had migrated from the W’esz, and 
not from the £as¢, and therefore the Greenlanders were most probably descended from the Asiatics, 
