II.] 
SACRIFICIAL PLACES. 
93 
the sacrificed animal. I immediately declared that I wished 
to visit such a place. But for a long time none of the Russians 
who were present was willing to act as guide. At last how¬ 
ever a young man offered to conduct me to a place on Vaygats 
Island, where I could see what I wished. Accordingly the 
following day, accompanied by Dr. Almquist, Lieutenant 
Hovgaard, Captain Nilsson, and my Russian guide, I made 
an excursion in one of the steam launches to the other shore 
of Yugor Straits. 
The sacrificial eminence was situated on the highest point of 
the south-western headland of Vaygats Island, and consisted 
of a natural hillock which rose a couple of metres above the 
surrounding plain. The plain terminated towards the sea 
with a steep escarpment. The land was even, but rose gradually 
to a height of eighteen metres above the sea. The country 
consisted of upright strata of Silurian limestone running 
from east to west, and at certain places containing fossils 
resembling those of Gotland. Here and there were shallow 
depressions in the plain, covered with a very rich and uniformly 
green growth of grass. The high-lying dry parts again made a 
gorgeous show, covered as they were with an exceedingly 
luxuriant carpet of yellow and white saxifrages, blue Eritricliia, 
Polemonia and Parryce, and yellow Chrysosplenia, &c. The last 
named, commonly quite modest flowers, are here so luxuriant 
that they form an important part of the flower covering. 
Trees are wholly wanting. Even bushes are scarcely two feet 
high, and that only at sheltered places, in hollows and at the 
foot of steep slopes looking towards the south. The sacrificial 
mound consisted of a cairn of stones some few metres square, 
situated on a special elevation of the plain. Among the stones 
there were found :— 
I. Reindeer skulls, broken in pieces for the purpose of 
extracting the brains, but with the horns still fast to the 
coronal bone; these were now so arranged among the stones 
