The Voyage Of The Vega Round Asia And Europe Part 30

We went forward however, if slowly.

The land here formed a gra.s.sy plain, still clear of snow, rising inland to gently sloping hills or earthy heights. The beach was strewn with a not inconsiderable quant.i.ty of driftwood, and here and there were seen the remains of old dwelling-places. On the evening of the 23rd September we lay-to at a ground-ice in a pretty large opening of the ice-field. This opening closed in the course of the night, so that on the 24th and 25th we could make only very little progress, but on the 26th we continued our course, at first with difficulty, but afterwards in pretty open water to the headland which on the maps is called Cape Onman. The natives too, who came on board here, gave the place that name. The ice we met with on that day was heavier than before, and bluish-white, not dirty. It was accordingly formed farther out at sea.

On the 27th we continued our course in somewhat open water to Kolyutschin Bay. No large river debouches in the bottom of this great fjord, the only one on the north coast of Asia which, by its long narrow form, the configuration of the neighbouring sh.o.r.es, and its division into two at the bottom, reminds us of the Spitzbergen fjords which have been excavated by glaciers. The mouth of the bay was filled with very closely packed drift-ice that had gathered round the island situated there, which was inhabited by a large number of Chukch families. In order to avoid this ice the _Vega_ made a considerable _detour_ up the fjord. The weather was calm and fine, but new ice was formed everywhere among the old drift-ice where it was closely packed. Small seals swarmed by hundreds among the ice, following the wake of the vessel with curiosity. Birds on the contrary were seen in limited numbers. Host of them had evidently already migrated to more southerly seas. At 4.45 P.M. the vessel was anch.o.r.ed to an ice-floe near the eastern sh.o.r.e of the fjord. It could be seen from this point that the ice at the headland, which bounded the mouth of the fjord to the east, lay so near land that there was a risk that the open water next the sh.o.r.e would not be deep enough for the _Vega_.

Lieutenant Hovgaard was therefore sent with the steam launch to take soundings. He returned with the report that the water off the headland was sufficiently deep. At the same time, accompanied by several of the naturalists, I made an excursion on land. In the course of this excursion the hunter Johnsen was sent to the top of the range of heights which occupied the interior of the promontory, in order to get a view of the state of the ice farther to the east.

Johnsen too returned with the very comforting news that a very broad open channel extended beyond the headland along the coast to the south-east. I was wandering about along with my comrades on the slopes near the beach in order, so far as the falling darkness permitted, to examine its natural conditions, when Johnsen came down; he informed us that from the top of the height one could hear bustle and noise and see fires at an encampment on the other side of the headland. He supposed that the natives were celebrating some festival. I had a strong inclination to go thither in order, as I thought, "to take farewell of the Chukches," for I was quite certain that on some of the following days we should sail into the Pacific.

But it was already late in the evening and dark, and we were not yet sufficiently acquainted with the disposition of the Chukches to go by night, without any serious occasion, in small numbers and provided only with the weapons of the chase, to an encampment with which we were not acquainted. It was not until afterwards that we learned that such a visit was not attended with any danger. Instead of going to the encampment, as the vessel in any case could not weigh anchor this evening, we remained some hours longer on the beach and lighted there an immense log fire of drift-wood, round which we were soon all collected, chatting merrily about the remaining part of the voyage in seas where not cold but heat would trouble us, and where our progress at least would not be obstructed by ice, continual fog, and unknown shallows. None of us then had any idea that, instead of the heat of the tropics, we would for the next ten months be experiencing a winter at the pole of cold, frozen in on an unprotected road, under almost continual snow-storms, and with a temperature which often sank below the freezing-point of mercury.

The evening was glorious, the sky clear, and the air so calm that the flames and smoke of the log fire rose high against the sky. The dark surface of the water, covered as it was with a thin film of ice, reflected its light as a fire-way straight as a line, bounded far away at the horizon by a belt of ice, whose inequalities appeared in the darkness as the summits of a distant high mountain chain. The temperature in the quite draught-free air was felt to be mild, and the thermometer showed only 2 under the freezing-point. This slight degree of cold was however sufficient to cover the sea in the course of the night with a sheet of newly-frozen ice, which, as the following days'

experience showed, at the opener places could indeed only delay, not obstruct the advance of the _Vega_, but which however bound together the fields of drift-ice collected off the coast so firmly that a vessel, even with the help of steam, could with difficulty force her way through.

When on the following day, the 28th September, we had sailed past the headland which bounds Kolyutschin Bay on the east, the channel next the coast, clear of drift-ice, but covered with newly formed ice, became suddenly shallow. The depth was too small for the _Vega_, for which we had now to seek a course among the blocks of ground-ice and fields of drift-ice in the offing. The night's frost had bound these so firmly together that the attempt failed. We were thus compelled to lie-to at a ground-ice so much the more certain of getting off with the first s.h.i.+ft of the wind, and of being able to traverse the few miles that separated us from the open water at Behring's Straits, as whalers on several occasions had not left this region until the middle of October.

As American whalers had during the last decades extended their whale-fis.h.i.+ng to the North Behring Sea, I applied before my departure from home both directly and through the Foreign Office to several American scientific men and authorities with a request for information as to the state of the ice in that sea. In all quarters my request was received with special good-will and best wishes for the projected journey. I thus obtained both a large quant.i.ty of printed matter otherwise difficult of access, and maps of the sea between North America and North Asia, and oral and written communications from several persons: among whom may be mentioned the distinguished naturalist, Prof. W.H. DALL of Was.h.i.+ngton, who lived for a long time in the Territory of Alaska and the north part of the Pacific; Admiral JOHN RODGERS, who was commander of the American man-of-war, _Vincennes_, when cruising north of Behring's Straits in 1855; and WASHBURN MAYNOD, lieutenant in the American Navy. I had besides obtained important information from the German sea-captain E. DALLMANN, who for several years commanded a vessel in these waters for coast traffic with the natives. s.p.a.ce does not permit me to insert all these writings here. But to show that there were good grounds for not considering the season of navigation in the sea between Kolyutschin Bay and Behring's Straits closed at the end of September, I shall make some extracts from a letter sent to me, through the American Consul-General in Stockholm, N.A. ELVING, from Mr. MILLER, the president of the Alaska Commercial Company.

"The following is an epitome of the information we have received regarding the subject of your inquiry.

"The bark _Ma.s.sachusetts_, Captain O. WILLIAMS, was in 74 30' N.L. and 173 W.L. on the 21st Sept.

1807. No ice in sight in the north, but to the east saw ice. Saw high peaks bearing W.N.W. about 60'. Captain Williams is of opinion that Plover Island, so-called by Kellet, is a headland of Wrangel Land. Captain Williams says that he is of opinion from his observations, that usually after the middle of August there is no ice south of 70--west of 175, until the 1st of October. There is hardly a year but that you could go as far as Cape North (Irkaipij), which is 180, during the month of September. If the winds through July and August have prevailed from the S.W., as is usual, the north sh.o.r.e will be found clear of ice. The season of 1877 was regarded as an 'icy season,' a good deal of ice to southward. 1876 was an open season; as was 1875. Our captain, GUSTAV NIEBAUM, states that the east side of Behring's Straits is open till November; he pa.s.sed through the Straits as late as October 22nd two different seasons.

The north sh.o.r.e was clear of all danger within reasonable distance. In 1869 the bark _Navy_ anch.o.r.ed under Kolyutschin Island from the 8th to the 10th October. On the 10th October of that year there was no ice south and east of Wrangel Land."

These accounts show that I indeed might have reason to be uneasy at my ill luck in again losing some days at a place at whose bare coast, exposed to the winds of the Polar Sea, there was little of scientific interest to employ ourselves with, little at least in comparison with what one could do in a few days, for instance, at the islands in Behring's Straits or in St. Lawrence Bay, lying as it does south of the easternmost promontory of Asia and therefore sheltered from the winds of the Arctic Ocean, but that there were no grounds for fearing that it would be necessary to winter there. I also thought that I could come to the same conclusion from the experience gained in my wintering on Spitzbergen in 1872-73, when permanent ice was first formed in our haven, in the 80th degree of lat.i.tude, during the month of February. Now, however, the case was quite different. The fragile ice-sheet, which on the 28th September bound together the ground-ices and hindered our progress, increased daily in strength under the influence of severer and severer cold until it was melted by the summer heat of the following year. Long after we were beset, however, there was still open water on the coast four or five kilometres from our winter haven, and after our return home I was informed that, on the day on which we were frozen in, an American whaler was anch.o.r.ed at that place.

Whether our sailing along the north coast of Asia to Kolyutschin Bay was a fortunate accident or not, the future will show. I for my part believe that it was a fortunate accident, which will often happen.

Certain it is, in any case, that when we had come so far as to this point, our being frozen in was a quite accidental misfortune brought about by an unusual state of the ice in the autumn of 1878 in the North Behring Sea.

[Footnote 214: Further information on this point is given by A.J.

Malmgren in a paper on the occurrence and extent of mammoth-finds, and on the conditions of this animal's existence in former times (_Finska Vet.-Soc. Forhandl_ 1874-5). ]

[Footnote 215: Compare Ph. Avril, _Voyage en divers etats d'Europe et d'Asie entrepris pour decouvrir un nouveau chemin a la Chine_, etc., Paris, 1692, p. 209. Henry H. Howorth, "The Mammoth in Siberia" (_Geolog. Mag._ 1880, p. 408). ]

[Footnote 216: As will be stated in detail further on, there were found during the _Vega_ expedition very remarkable sub-fossil animal remains, not of the mammoth, however, but of various different species of the whale. ]

[Footnote 217: The word _mummies_ is used by Von Middendorff to designate carcases of ancient animals found in the frozen soil of Siberia. ]

[Footnote 218: The calculation is probably rather too low than too high. The steamer alone, in which I travelled up the Yenisej in 1875, carried over a hundred tusks, of which however the most were blackened, and many were so decayed that I cannot comprehend how the great expense of transport from the _tundra_ of the Yenisej could be covered by the value of this article. According to the statement of the ivory dealers the whole parcel, good and bad together, was paid for at a common average price. ]

[Footnote 219: Notices of yet other _finds_ of mammoth carcases occur, according to Middendorff (_Sib. Reise_, IV. i. p. 274) in the scarce and to me inaccessible first edition of Witsen's _Noord en Oost Tartarye_ (1692, Vol. II. p. 473). ]

[Footnote 220: E. Yssbrants Ides, _Dreyjarige Reise nach China_, etc., Frankfort, 1707, p. 55. The first edition was published in Amsterdam, in Dutch, in 1704. ]

[Footnote 221: Strahlenberg in _Das Nord- und Ostliche Theil von Europa und Asia_, Stockholm, 1730, p. 393, also gives a large number of statements regarding the fossil Siberian ivory, and mentions that the distinguished Siberian traveller Messerschmidt found a complete skeleton on the river Tom. ]

[Footnote 222: Tilesius, _De skeleto mammonteo Sibirico (Mem. de l'Acad. de St. Petersbourg, T.V. pour l'annee 1812_, p. 409).

Middendorff, _Sib. Reise_, IV. i. p. 274. Von Olfers, _Die uberreste vorweltlicher Riesenthiere in Beziehung zu Ostasia-tischen Sagen und Chinesischen Schriften (Abhandl. der Akad. d. Wissensch. zu Berlin aus dem Jahre 1839_, p 51). ]

[Footnote 223: P.S. Pallas, _De reliquiis animalium exoticorum per Asiam borealem repertis complementum (Novi commentarii Acad. Sc.

Petropolitanae_, XVII. pro anno 1772, p. 576), and _Reise durch verschiedene Provinzen des Russischen Reichs_, Th. III. St.

Petersburg, 1776, p. 97. ]

[Footnote 224: Hedenstrom, _Otrywki o Sibiri_, St. Petersburg, 1830, p. 125. Ermann's _Archiv_, Part 24, p. 140. ]

[Footnote 225: Compare K.E. v. Baer's paper in _Melanges Biologiques_, T.V. St. Petersbourg, 1866, p. 691; Middendorff, IV.

i. p. 277; Gavrila Sarytschev's _Achtjahrige Reise in nordostlichen Sibirien_, etc., translated by J.H. Busse, Th. 1, Leipzig, 1806, p. 106. ]

[Footnote 226: Adams' account is inserted at p. 431 in the work of Tilesius already quoted. Von Baer gives a detailed account of this and other important _finds_ of the same nature in the above-quoted paper in Tome V. of _Melanges Biologiques_; St. Petersbourg, pp. 645-740. ]

[Footnote 227: Middendorff, IV. 1, p. 272. ]

[Footnote 228: Friedrich Schmidt, _Wissenschastliche Resultate der sur Aussuchung eines Mammuthcadavers ausgesandten Expedition (Mem.

de l'Acad. de St. Petersbourg_, Ser. VII. T. XVIII. No. 1, 1872). ]

[Footnote 229: Brandt, _Berichte der preussischen Akad. der Wissenchasten_, 1846, p. 224. Von Schmalhausen, _Bull de l'Acad. de St. Petersbourg_, T. XXII. p. 291. ]

[Footnote 230: The _find_ is described by Heir Czersky in the Transactions published by the East Siberian division of the St.

Petersburg Geographical Society; and subsequently by Dr. Leopold von Schrenck in _Mem. de l'Acad. de St. Petersbourg_, Ser. VII. T.

XXVII. No. 7, 1880. ]

[Footnote 231: The mean temperature of the different months is shown in the following table:--

JAN. -48 9 FEB. -47 2 MARCH -33 9 APRIL -14 9 MAY -0 40 JUNE +13 4 JULY +15 4 AUG. +11 9 SEPT. +2 3 OCT. -13 9 NOV. -39 1 DEC. -45 7 Of the Year. -16 7 ]

[Footnote 232: Hedenstrom, _loc. cit._ p. 128. To find stranded driftwood in an upright position is nothing uncommon. ]

[Footnote 233: Martin Sauer, _An account of a Geographical and Astronomical Expedition the Northern parts of Russia by Commodore Joseph Billings_, London, 1802, p. 105. The walrus does not occur in the sea between the mouth of the Chatanga and Wrangel Land, and large whales are never seen at the New Siberian Islands, but during Hedenstrom's stay in these regions three narwhals were enclosed in the ice near the sh.o.r.e at the mouth of the Yana (_Otrywki o Sibiri_, p. 131). ]

[Footnote 234: Martin Sauer, _An account of a Geographical and Astronomical Expedition to the Northern parts of Russia by Commodore Joseph Billings_, London, 1802, p. 103. A. Ermann, _Reise um die Erde_, Berlin, 1833-48, D. 1, B. 2, p. 258. Ermann's statement, that the knowledge of the existence of these islands was concealed from the government up to the year 1806, is clearly incorrect. ]

[Footnote 235: Of course the earth here at an inconsiderable depth under the surface is constantly frozen, but I have nowhere seen such alternating layers of earth and ice, crossed by veins of ice, as Hedenstrom in his oft-quoted work (_Otrywki o Sibiri_, p. 119) says he found at the sea-coast. Probably such a peculiar formation arises only at places where the spring floods bring down thick layers of mud, which cover the beds of ice formed during the winter and protect them for thousands of years from melting. I shall have an opportunity of returning to the interesting questions relating to this point. ]

[Footnote 236: Since we discovered the Chukches also bury their dead by laying them out on the _tundra_, we have begun to entertain doubts whether the collection of bones delineated here was actually a grave. Possibly these mounds were only the remains of fireplaces, where the Chukches had used as fuel train-drenched bones, and which they bad afterwards for some reason or other endeavoured to protect from the action of the atmosphere. ]

[Footnote 237: H. Rink, _Gronland geographisk og statistisk beskrevet_, Bd. 2, Copenhagen, 1857, p. 344. ]

[Footnote 238: C. von Dittmar, _Bulletin hist.-philolog, de l'acad.

de St. Petersbourg_, XIII. 1856, p. 130. ]

[Footnote 239: Krascheninnikov, _Histoire et Description du Kamtschatka_, Amsterdam 1770, II. p. 95. A. Ennan, _Reise urn die Erde_, D.1, B.2, p. 255. ]

[Footnote 240: _Ankali_ signifies in Chukch dwellers on the coast, and is now used to denote the Chukches living on the coast. A similar word, Onkilon, was formerly used as the name of the Eskimo tribe that lived on the coast of the Polar Sea when the Chukch migration reached that point. ]

[Footnote 241: The walrus now appears to be very rare in the sea north of Behring's Straits, but formerly it must have been found there in large numbers, and made that region a veritable paradise for every hunting tribe. While we during our long stay there saw only a few walruses, Cook, in 1778, saw an enormous number, and an interesting drawing of walruses is to be found in the account of his third voyage. _A Voyage to the Pacific Ocean, etc._ Vol. III. (by James King), London, 1784, p. 259, pl. 52. ]

[Footnote 242: The greatest number of mammoth tusks is obtained from the stretches of land and the islands between the Chatanga and Chaum Bay. Here the walrus is wanting. The inhabitants of North Siberia therefore praise the wisdom of the Creator, who lets the walrus live in the regions where the mammoth is wanting, and has scattered mammoth ivory in the earthy layers of the coasts where the walrus does not occur (A. Erman, _Reise um die Erde_, Berlin, 1833--48, D.1, B.2, p. 264). ]

[Footnote 243: Among the bears' skulls brought home from this place Lieut. Nordquist found after his return home the skull of a sea-lion (_Otaria Stelleri_). It is, however, uncertain whether the animal was captured in the region, or whether the cranium was brought hither from Kamchatka. ]