204 
THE VOYAGE OF THE VEGA. 
[chap. 
was maintained very persistently, and they even knew how to 
give names to the tribes inhabiting it. 
The New Siberian Islands, which previously had often been 
seen by travellers along the coast, were visited the first time in 
1770 by Lj achoff, who besides Ljachoff’s island lying nearest 
the coast, also discovered the islands Maloj and Kotelnoj. On 
this account he obtained an exclusive right to collect mammoth 
tusks there, a branch of industry which since that time appears 
to have been carried on in these remote regions with no in¬ 
considerable profit. The importance of the discovery led the 
government some years after to send thither a land surveyor, 
ChVOINOV,^ by whom the islands were surveyed, and somie 
further information obtained regarding the remarkable natural 
conditions in that region. According to Chvoinov the ground 
there consists at many places of a mixture of ice and sand 
with mammoth tusks, bones of a fossil species of ox, of the 
rhinoceros, &c. At many places one can literally roll off the 
carpet-like bed of moss from the ground, when it is found that 
the close, green vegetable covering has clear ice underlying 
it, a circumstance which I have also observed at several places 
in the Polar regions. The new islands were rich not only in 
ivory, but also in foxes with valuable skins, and other spoils of 
the chase of various kinds. They therefore formed for a time 
the goal of various hunters’ expeditions. Among these hunters 
may be named Sannikov, who in 1805 discovered the islands 
Stolbovoj and Faddejev, SiEOVATSKOJ, who in 1806 discovered 
Novaya Sibir, and Bjelkov, who in 1808 discovered the small 
islands named after him. In the meantime disputes arose about 
the hunting monopoly, especially after Bjelkov and others 
petitioned for permission to establish on Kotelnoj Island a 
hunting and irading station. (?) ^ This induced Bomanzoy, then 
^ Sauer, loc. cit. p. 103, according to an oral communication by LjacIiotFs 
follower Protodiakonov. 
Compare Wrangel, i. p. 98. 
