VI.] 
ROSSMUISLOV’S DISAPPOINTMENT. 
277 
Sea, and an endeavour was made for this purpose to put the vessel, 
defective from the first, aud now still further damaged by ice, in 
repair, by stopping the leaks, as far as possible, with a mixture 
of clay and decayed seaweed. '' Floating coffins ” have often 
been used in Arctic voyages, and many times with greater success 
than the stateliest man-of-war. This time, however, Kossmuislov, 
after having sailed some few miles eastward from Matotsch- 
kin Sound, in order to avoid certain loss, had to return 
to his winter quarters, where he fortunately fell in with a 
Russian hunter, with whom he commenced his return to 
Archangel. No precious metals were found, nor ''any pearl- 
mussels,” but Tschirakin confided to Rossmuislov the secret that 
at a certain place on the south coast he had found a block of 
stone of such extraordinary beauty that in the light of day it 
shone with the most splendid fire. After Tschirakin’s death 
Rossmuislov sought for the stone, but without success, and he 
therefore broke out in violent reproaches of his deceased 
comrade. I can, however, free him from the blame of deception ; 
for, during my voyage in 1875, I found in several of the blocks 
of schist in the region small veins of quartz, crossing the mass of 
stone. The walls of these veins were covered with hundreds of 
sharply-developed rock crystals with mirror-bright faces. 
Tschirakin’s precious stone was doubtless nothing else than a 
druse of this shining but valueless mineral. 
Once more, nearly fifty years after Rossmuislov’s voyage, in 
the year 1807, a miner, Ludlow, was sent out to investigate more 
thoroughly the supposed richness of the island in metals. He 
returned without having found any ore, but with the first 
accounts of the geological formation of the country; and we have 
his companion PoSPJELOV to thank for some careful surveys on 
the west coast of Novaya Zemlya. 
The next expedition to the island was equipped and sent out 
from the naval dockyard at Archangel in 1819 under Lieutenant 
Lasarev, and had, in comparison with its predecessors, very 
