66 
THE VOYAGE OF THE VEGA. 
[CHAl’. 
became clear of snow ia the beginning of July, and thus the ' 
slush and the flood water were lessened, which during the pre- ! 
ceding weeks had collected on its surface and made it very ^ 
difficult to walk from the vessel to land. Now, again pretty 
dry-shod and on a hard blue ice-surface, we could make ex¬ 
cursions in the neighbourhood of the vessel. We had however 
to be cautious. The former cracks had in many places been ! 
widened to greater or smaller openings by the flood water run- ’ 
ning down, and where a thin black object—a little gravel, a 
piece of tin from the preserved provision-cases, &c.—had lain 
on the ice there were formed round holes, resembling the seal- j 
holes which I saw in spring laid bare after the melting of the • 
snow on the ice in the fjords of Spitzbergen. The strength 
of the ice besides was nearly unaltered, and on the 16th July j 
a heavily loaded double sledge could still be driven from the 
vessel to the shore. 
On the I7th the “year’s ice” next the land at last broke up, 
so that an extensive land clearing arose. But the ground- 
ices were still undisturbed, and between these the “ year’s ice ” 
even lay so fast, that all were agreed that at least fourteen 
days must still pass before there was any prospect of getting 
free. 
When on the 16th the reindeer-Chukch Yettugin came on 
board, and, talking of the collection of whale-bones in which 
we had been engaged some days before, informed us that 
there was a mammoth bone at his tent, and that a mammoth 
tusk stuck out at a place where the spring floods had cut into 
the bank of a river which flows from Table Mount to Biraitinop, 
I therefore did not hesitate to undertake an excursion to the 
place. Our absence from the vessel was reckoned at five or six 
days. It was my intention to go up the river in a skin boat 
belonging to Notti to the place where the mammoth tusk was, 
and thence to proceed on foot to Yettugin’s tent. Yettugin 
assured us that the river was sufficiently deep for the flat- 
