182 Mr. H. Seebohm on the Ornithology of Siberia, 
and fell. Many square miles of ice were marched up for some 
hours_, and then marched back again. Sometimes the pack-ice 
and floes were jammed so tight together that it looked as if 
one might scramble across the river without difliculty. At 
other times there was a good deal of open water^ and the ice¬ 
bergs calved^'’ as they went along with much commotion and 
splashing, that could be heard half a mile ofl*. Underlayers 
of the iceberg ground; and after the velocity of the enormous 
mass has caused it to pass on, the pieces left behind rise to 
the surface, like a whale coming up to breathe. Some of 
these calves must come from a considerable depth. They 
rise up out of the water with a great splash, and rock about 
for some time before they settle down to their floating-leveL 
At last the final march past of the beaten winter-forces in 
this great fourteen days^ battle took place, and for seven days 
more the rag, tag, and bob-tail of the great arctic army came 
straggling down—worn and weather-beaten little icebergs, 
dirty ice-floes that looked like mud-banks floating down, and 
straggling pack-ice in the last stages of consumption. The 
total rise of the river was upwards of seventy feet. 
The moment that the snow disappeared vegetation sprang up 
as if by magic, and the birds made preparations for breeding. 
Although I had taken the precaution of providing myself with 
a ship, the misfortunes of Capt. Wiggins delayed me on the 
arctic circle for some weeks. As we passed through Yen-e- 
saisk' I bought a schooner of a ship-builder of the name of 
Boiling, a Heligolander. I christened it the ^ Ibis / and on 
the 29th of June we left the Koo-ray'-i-ka with this little 
craft in tow. Our progress down the river, however, was one 
catalogue of disasters, ending in our leaving the ^ Thames ^ 
on the 9th of July a hopeless wreck, lying high and dry on 
a sand-bank, in lat. 67°. As we sailed northwards in the 
^ Ibis the forests became smaller and smaller, and disappeared 
altogether about lat. 70°. The highest point we reached was 
lat, 714°, where I sold the ^ Ibis ^ to the captain of a Russian 
schooner, which had been totally wrecked during the break¬ 
up of the ice. The tundras of Northern Siberia are almost 
exactly like those of North Russia, and equally gay with 
