844 
THE VOYAGE OF THE VEGA. 
[chap. 
and silence which were now spread over the clay beds of the 
plains, nearly bare of all vegetation. Probably, however, a little 
farther into the country, in some valley protected from the winds 
of the Polar Sea, we might find quite different natural condi¬ 
tions, a more abundant animal life, and a vegetable world, in 
summer, as rich in flowers as that which we meet with in the 
valleys of Ice Fjord or the ‘‘Nameless Bay” (Besimannaja Bay). 
We saw no trace of man here. The accounts, which were 
current as early as the sixteenth century, relating to the nature 
of the north point of Asia, however, make it probable that the 
Siberian nomads at one time drove their reindeer herds up 
hither. It is even not impossible that Russian hunters from 
Chatanga may have prosecuted the chase here, and that Chelyus¬ 
kin actually was here, of which we have evidence in the very 
correct way in which the Cajoe, that now rightly bears his name, 
is laid down on the Russian maps.^ 
The rocks consist of a clay-slate, with crystals resembling 
chiastolite and crystals of sulphide of iron interspersed. At the 
Cape itself the clay-slate is crossed by a thick vein of pure white 
1 This has been doubted by Russian geographers. Von Baer for instance 
says;— 
“Daruber ist gar kein Zweifel, dass dieses Vorgebirge nie umsegelt 
ist, und dass es auf einem Irrtbum berubte, wenn Laptew auf einer Seefabrt 
die Bucbt, in welcbe der Taimur sich miindet, erreicbt zii haben glaubte. 
Seine eigenen spateren Fabrten erwiesen diesen Trrtbum. Die Vergleicbung 
der Bericbte und Verbaltnisse lasst micb aber auch glauben, dass selbst zu 
Lande man das Ende dieses Vorgebirges nie erreicbt babe ; sondern 
Tscbeljuskin, um dieser, man kann wobl sagen, grasslichen Versucbe 
endlicb uberhobenzu sey n, sicb zu der ungegriindeten Behauptung entscb- 
loss, er babe das Ende geseben, und sich iiberzeugt, Sibirien sei nacb 
Norden uberall vom Meere umgranzt,’’ [statement by von Baer in Neueste 
NacTiricliten uber die ndrdlichste Gegend von Siherien; von Baer and von 
Helmersen, Beitrcige zur Kenntniss des Russischen Reiches. IV. St. Petersburg, 
1841, p. 275]. In the following page in the same paper von Baer indeed 
says that he will not lay any special weight on Strahlenberg’s statement that 
Siberia and Novaya Zernlya bang together, but he appears to believe that 
they are connected by a bridge of perpetual ice. 
