SIBERIAN COMMERCE. 741 
The attempts made in the two following years were less successful. Of seven 
ships which left in 1879 only one was able to accomplish the voyage around the 
North Cape. In 1880 five ships penetrated into the sea of Kara. The two 
German steamers, the Zuwfse and the Dah/mann, bound for the Yenisei river, 
forced to return. The Dahlmann encountered to the northward of Novayo: 
Zemlya, a sea of ice as impenetrable as that which it had met with in the south 
side of the island. The ship JVordland, freighted by the well known Russian 
Merchant Siberiakoff, twice entered the Sea of Kara but its progress was also 
stopped by heavy masses of ice and had to return to Europe. This failure did 
not discourage the enterprising merchant, for in July, 1880, he himself started 
for the North in the steamer Oscar Dickson, charted in Gothenburg and provis- 
‘ioned for ten months. He left Vard6 in August, arrived in Jugor Strait before 
the end of the month, but the whole month of September was spent in vain at- 
tempts to cross the Kara Sea. Later in the year the ship was seen by the cap- 
tain of the steamer /Vepfune in the Matotskin Schar, sailing up and down to the 
ea tward of Novayo Zemlya, and once returning through that strait to the western 
side of the island. For sometime no farther news was received of the where- 
abouts of the Dickson, excepting a rumor that she was frozen in at the mouth of 
the Yenesei. In consequence of this rumor Siberakoff’s brother sent an over- 
land expedition to the mouth of that river. Subsequently news was received of 
the Dickson's safe arrival at Tobolsk. ; 
Only the fifth ship, the Veptune, already mentioned, reached the mouth of 
the Orbi arfd returned in the same season to Europe laden with grain. The con- 
dition of navigation in the Kara Sea as shown by the experience of the’last three 
years, have disappointed the hopes of a productive and profitable commerce 
hitherto entertained, but it is possible that further experience and observations 
will remove many of the obstacles that were encountered. 
For this purpose observing stations are about to be established at the mouth 
of the Lena and Kolyma, or upon one of the New Siberian Islands. Lieut. 
Turgens has been assigned to the direction of the station on the Lena. 
METEOROLOGICAL STATIONS IN BEHRINGS SEA. 
The Signal Service, in codperation with the Smithsonian Institution, the N. 
W. Trading Co., the Western Fur and Trading Co., and the Alaska Commercia] 
Co., proposes to establish an extensive system of stations during the present year, 
for the purpose of making an exhaustive study of the meteorological and other 
natural phenomena of the exterme northwest coast of the American continent, 
and of the islands in Behrings Sea. 
The stations named below have been partially decided upon for occupation. 
The Latitude and Longitude given are approximative only: 
