INTRODUCTION 
23 
in the Siberian Polar Sea. Often disputed, but persistently taken 
up by the hunting races, these reports have finally been verified 
by the discovery of the islands of New Siberia, of Wrangehs 
Land, and of the part of North America east of Behring’s Straits, 
whose natural state gave occasion to the golden glamour of 
tradition with which the belief of the common people in¬ 
correctly adorned the bleak, treeless islands in the Polar Sea. 
All these attempts to force a passage in the open sea from the 
Siberian coasts northwards, failed, for the single reason, that an 
open sea with a fresh breeze was as destructive to the craft 
which were at the disposal of the adventurous, but ill-equipped 
Siberian polar explorer as an ice-filled sea; indeed, more dangerous, 
for in the latter case the crew, if the vessel was nipped, generally 
saved themselves on the ice, and had only to contend with 
hunger, snow, cold, and other difficulties to which the most 
of them had been accustomed from their childhood; but in the 
open sea the ill-built, w^eak vessel, caulked with moss mixed 
with clay, and held together with willows, leaked already with 
a moderate sea, and with a heavier, was helplessly lost, if a 
harbour could not be reached in time of need. 
The explorers soon preferred to reach the islands by sledge 
journeys on the ice, and thus at last discovered the whole of the 
large group of islands which is named New Siberia. The islands 
were often visited by hunters for the purpose of collecting mam¬ 
moth tusks, of which great masses, together with the bones 
of the mammoth, rhinoceros, sheep, ox, horse, etc., are found 
imbedded in the beds of clay and sand here. Afterwards they 
were completely surveyed during Hedenstrom’s expeditions, fitted 
out by Count Bumanzov, Chancellor of the Russian Empire, in 
the years 1809-1811, and during Lieutenant Anjou’s in 1823. 
Hedenstrom’s expeditions were carried out by travelling with 
dog-sledges on the ice, before it broke, to the islands, passing 
the summer there, and returning in autumn, when the sea was 
again covered with ice. As the question relates to the possibility 
of navigating this sea, these expeditions, carried out in a very 
praiseworthy way, might be expected to have great interest, 
especially through observations from land, concerning the state 
of the ice in autumn; but in the short account of Hedenstrdm’s 
expeditions which is inserted in Wrangel’s Travels, pp, 99-119, the 
only source accessible to me in this respect, there is not a single 
word on this point.^ Information on this subject, so important 
^ Wrangel’s own journeys were carried out during winter, with dog 
sledges on the ice, and, however interesting in many other respects, do not 
