107 
NORTH POL E. 
extent to tlie eaftward was not determined; but the Ru- 
rlck proceeded as far in that direction as the meridian of 
i6o°, which correfponds with that of the bottom of Norton 
Sound. The (bores of this great inlet, and more particu¬ 
larly the northern one, were well peopled with Indians of 
a large fize ; the men were well armed with bows, arrow's, 
and fpears. They wore (kin-clothing, and leather-boots, 
neatly made and ornamented ; their huts were comfort¬ 
able, and funk deep into the earth ; their furniture and 
implements neatly made ; they had (ledges drawn appa¬ 
rently by dogs, though the (kulls and (kins of rein-deer 
indicated the prefence of that animal in the country. 
The defcription given by Kotzebue of thefe people cor- 
refponds almoft exaCily with that of the Tfchuttki by 
Cook on the oppofite continent, with whom they fome- 
times trade, and are fometimes at war. They are the 
fame race of people as thofe on the continent of America 
lower down and about the Ruffian fettlement of Kodiack, 
as appeared from a native of that place being able to un- 
tlerftand their language. From thefe Indians lieutenant 
Kotzebue learned, that at the bottom of the inlet was 
a (trait through which there was a paffage into the Great 
Sea, and that it required nine days rowing with one of 
their boats to reach this lea. This, Kotzebue thinks, 
muft be the Great Northern Ocean, and that the whole of 
the land to the northward of the inlet muft either be an 
illand or an archipelago of illands. 
At the bottom of a cove on the northern lliore of the 
inlet was an extenftve perpendicular cliff, apparently of 
chalk, of the height of lix or (even hundred feet, the 
fummit of which was entirely covered with vegetation. 
Between the foot of this cliff and the (hore was a (lip of 
land, in width about five or fix hundred yards, covered 
alfo with plants, which were afterwards found to be of 
the fame kind as thole on the fummit. But the aitonifit¬ 
ment of the travellers may readily be conceived, when 
they difcovered, on their approach to this extenfive cliff, 
that it w r as a&ually a mountain of (olid ice, down the 
fides of which the water was trickling by the beat of the 
Fun. At the foot of the cliff feveral elephants’ teeth were 
picked up, fimilar to thofe which have been found in fuch 
immenfe quantities in Siberia and the iflands of the Tar¬ 
tarian Sea. Lieutenant Kotzebue called them mammoths’ 
teeth {maftodontes) ; but, from a drawing made by the 
natural ill, they were evidently the teeth of elephants ; 
which is the more extraordinary, as being the firft remains 
of thisquadruped found in the New World. Thefe teeth 
they concluded to have fallen out of themafs of ice as its 
furface melted, though no other part of the animal was 
•difcovered by them. There was, however, a moft op- 
preffive and offenfive fmcll of animal matter, not unlike 
that of burnt bones, fo that it was almoft impoffible to 
remain near thole parts of the face of the mountain 
where the water was trickling down. By the gradual 
Hope of the fide of this enormous ice-berg which faced 
the interior, they were able to afeend to its fummit, and 
to make a colle&ion of the plants that were growing upon 
■it. The ftratum of foil which covered it was not deep, 
and the lieutenant deferibes it as being of a calcareous 
nature. The (lipof land at the foot of the mountain was 
probably formed of the foil and plants which had fallen 
down from the fummit as the ice melted, and which, in 
fa6f, while there, they had the opportunity of obferving 
to fall. Befides this mountain of ice, there was no ap¬ 
pearance of ice or fnow on the land or the water in this 
■part of America; and the weather was exceedingly clear 
-and mild, and even warm ; but on the oppofite coaft of 
Afia the weather at the fame time was cold, and the atmo- 
fphere almoft conftantly loaded with fogs. There was in 
faft fuch a great difference between the temperature of the 
two continents, on the two fides of the (trait, that, in 
Handing acrofs, it was like paffing inftantaneoully from 
Cummer to winter, and the contrary. This happened 
about the end of Auguft, at which time a fair and open 
paffage appeared to lie on the American fide,-as far to the 
Vol. XVII. No. i i 7 i. 
northward as the eye could reach; whereas, on the Afiatic 
fide, the ice feerned to be fixed to the fhore, and its outer 
edge to extend in the direction of north-eaft, which was 
precifely that of the current. 
The feafon being too far advanced either to attempt to 
carry the Rurick round Icy Cape, which, however, lieu¬ 
tenant Kotzebue thinks he could have done without any 
obftruftion, or to profeeute the land-journey to the eaft- 
ward ; and fearing if he remained longer in the great 
inlet the entrance might be clofed up with ice; lie thought 
the moft prudent ilep he could take would be that of pro¬ 
ceeding to winter and refit in California, and early in the 
following fpring to renew the attempt to penetrate into 
the interior of America. He accordingly let out again 
early in March, called at the Sandwich Illands, and reached 
the Aleutian Illands in June, where the Rurick differed 
much from a violent gale of wind, in which lieutenant 
Kotzebue unfortunately had his breaft-bone broken ; thi? 
accident threw liim into fuch a (late of ill-health, that, 
after perfevering till they reached Eivoog-iena, or Clerke’s 
Hland, at the mouth of Behring’s Strait, the furgeon de¬ 
clared that nothing but a warmer climate would fave his 
life. The ice had but juft left the fouthern (bores of this 
illand, and was gradually moving to the northward, which 
it appears is its ufual courfe every year, but is haftened 
or delayed in its progrefs more or lefs, according to the 
prevailing wind's, and the ftrength with which they blow. 
Being thus nearly a month too foon to afford any prof- 
peft of immediate accefs to the inlet on the northern-fide 
of Cape Prince of Wales, and his health daily getting 
worfe, he was relu&antly compelled to return with his 
little bark, and to make the belt of his way home round 
the Cape of Good Hope. 
In the courfe of his circumnavigation, lieutenant Kot¬ 
zebue has made feveral interefting difeoveries of new 
groups of iflands in the Pacific; and he has done that 
which for the firft time has been effected, namely, taking 
the temperature of the fea at the furface, and at a certain 
depth, at a particular hour every day, both on the out¬ 
ward and homeward voyage. It is greatly to the credit of 
this gentleman, that, after a voyage of three years, in 
every variety of climate, he brought back again every 
man of his little crew, with the exception of one who em¬ 
barked in a fickly ftate. 
The difeoveries we have mentioned as made by lieute¬ 
nant Kotzebue, added to the reports made by our own 
Greenlandmen of the ftate of the north feas in the year 
1817, 18, were circumftances which gave a renewed feel¬ 
ing and intereft, in this country, to thefubjeff of .1 north- 
weft and polar paffage; and, in the whole leries of expe¬ 
ditions for the difeovery of a northern communication 
between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, none had been 
fitted out on fo extenfive a fcale, or fo completely equipped 
in every refpeft, as the two which left England in the year 
1818. From the numerous attempts that have been made 
from the earlieft periods of Britifh navigation to the end 
of the eighteenth century, it is fufficiently evident that 
the difeovery of a north-weft paffage to India and China 
has always been confidered as an objeCt peculiarly Britifii. 
It engaged the attention, and procured the encourage¬ 
ment, of the firft literary characters of the age, and the 
moft refpeftable of the mercantile clafs ; and never failed 
to excite a moft lively intereft among all conditions of 
men. 
The opinion of the learned, and the experience of the 
whale-fidiers, have long been in favour of an open polar 
fea, and of the practicability of reaching this northern 
extremity of the earth’s axis. It was relolved, therefore, 
to fit out t wo diftinft expeditions: the one to proceed up 
the middle of Davis’s Strait to a high northern latitude, 
and then toftretch acrofs to the weft ward, in the hope of 
being able to pafs the northern extremity of America, 
and reach Behring’s Strait by that route; the other to 
proceed diredfly north, between Greenland and Spitz- 
bergen, and, in the event of meeting with an open polaf 
