60 
THE VOYAGE OF THE VEGA. 
[chap. 
indeed was pretty high, but did not by any steep or bold cliffs 
yield any contribution to such a picturesque landscape border as 
is seldom wanting on the portions of Spitzbergen, Greenland, and 
the north part of Novaya Zemlya which I have visited; south 
Novaya Zemlya has at least at most places bold picturesque 
shore-cliffs. If I except the rocky promontory at Yinretlen, 
where a cliff inhabited by ravens rises boldly out of the sea, 
and some cliffs situated farther in along the beach of Kolyut- 
schin Bay, the shore in the immediate neighbourhood of our 
wintering station consisted everywhere only of a low beach 
formed of coarse sand. UiDon this sand, which was always 
frozen, there ran parallel with the shore a broad bank or 
dune, 50 to 100 metres broad, of fine sand, not water-drenched 
in summer, and accordingly not bound together by ice in 
winter. It is upon this dune that the Chukches erect their 
tents. Marks of them are therefore met with nearly every¬ 
where, and the dune accordingly is everywhere bestrewed with 
broken implements or refuse from the chase. Indeed it may 
be said without exaggeration that the whole north-eastern 
coast of the Siberian Polar Sea is bordered with a belt of 
sweepings and refuse of various kinds. 
The coarse sand which underlies the dune is, as has been 
stated, continually frozen, excepting the shallow layer which 
is thawed in summer. It is here that the “ frost formation ” 
of Siberia begins, that is to say, the continually frozen layer of 
earth, which, with certain interruptions, extends from the Polar 
Sea far to the south, not only under the treeless tundra, but 
also under splendid forests and cultivated corn-fields.^ To 
^ Even pretty far south, in Scandinavia, there occur places with frozen 
earth which seldom thaws. Thus in Egyptinkorpi mosses in Nurmi and 
Pjeli parishes in Finland pinewoods are found growing over layers or 
“tufts” of frozen sand; but also, in other places in Eastern Finland, 
we find layers containing stumps, roots, &c., of different generations of 
trees, alternating with layers of frozen mould, according to a communi¬ 
cation from the agronome Axel Asplund. A contribution to the knowledge 
