Under the guidance of natives I collected in 1876 at the confluence of the river Mesenkin with, the Yenisej, in 71° 28' N.L., some fragments of bones and pieces of the hide of a mammoth. The hide was 20 to 25 millimetres thick and nearly tanned by age, which ought not to appear wonderful, when we consider that, though the mammoth lived in one of the latest periods of the history of our globe, hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of years have, however, passed since the animal died to which these pieces of skin once belonged. It was clear that they had been washed by the neighbouring river Mesenkin out of the tundra-bank, but I endeavoured, without success, to discover the original locality, which was probably already concealed by river mud. In the neighbourhood was found a very fine cranium of the musk ox.
A new and important find was made in 1877 on a tributary of the Lena, in the circle Werchojansk, in 69° N.L. For there was found there an exceedingly well preserved carcase of a rhinoceros (Rhinoceros Merckii, Jaeg.), a different species from the Wilui rhinoceros examined by Pallas. However, before the carcase was washed away by the river, there had only been removed the hair-covered head and one foot.[230] From the find Schrenck draws the conclusion that this rhinoceros belonged to a high-northern species, adapted to a cold climate, and living in, or at least occasionally wandering to, the regions where the carcase was found. There the mean temperature of the year is now very low,[231] the winter exceedingly cold (-63°.2 has been registered) and the short summer exceedingly warm. Nowhere on earth does the temperature show extremes so widely separated as here. Although the trees in winter often split with tremendous noise, and the ground is rent with the cold, the wood is luxuriant and extends to the neighbourhood of the Polar Sea, where besides, the winter is much milder than farther in the interior. With respect to the possibility of these large animals finding sufficient pasture in the regions in question, it ought not to be overlooked that in sheltered places overflowed by the spring inundations there are found, still far north of the limit of trees, luxuriant bushy thickets, whose newly-expanded juicy leaves, burned up by no tropical sun, perhaps form a special luxury for grass-eating animals, and that even the bleakest stretches of land in the high north are fertile in comparison with many regions where at least the camel can find nourishment, for instance the east coast of the Red Sea.
The nearer we come to the coast of the Polar Sea, the more common are the remains of the mammoth, especially at places where there have been great landslips at the river banks when the ice breaks up in spring. Nowhere, however, are they found in such numbers as on the New Siberian Islands. Here Hedenström in the space of a verst saw ten tusks sticking out of the ground, and from a single sandbank on the west side of Liachoff's Island the ivory collectors had, when this traveller visited the spot, for eighty years made their best tusk harvest. That new finds may be made there year by year depends on the bones and tusks being washed by the waves out of the sandbeds on the shore, so that after an east wind which has lasted some time they may be collected at low water on the banks then laid dry. The tusks which are found on the coast of the Polar Sea are said to be smaller than those that are found farther south, a circumstance which possibly may be explained by supposing that, while the mammoth wandered about on the plains of Siberia, animals of different ages pastured in company, and that the younger of them, as being more agile and perhaps more troubled by flies than the older, went farther north than these.
Along with bones of the mammoth there are found on the New Siberian Islands, in not inconsiderable numbers, portions of the skeletons of other animal forms, little known, but naturally of immense importance for ascertaining the vertebrate fauna which lived at the same time with the mammoth on the plains of Siberia, and the New Siberian group of islands is not less remarkable for the "wood-hills," highly enigmatical as to their mode of formation, which Hedenström found on the south coast of the northernmost island. These hills are sixty-four metres high, and consist of thick horizontal sandstone beds alternating with strata of fissile bituminous tree stems, heaped on each other to the top of the hill. In the lower part of the hill the tree stems lie horizontally, but in the upper strata they stand upright, though perhaps not rootfast.[232] The flora and fauna of the island group besides are still completely unknown, and the fossils, among them ammonites with exquisite pearly lustre, which Hedenström brought home from the rock strata on Kotelnoj Island, hold out inducement to further researches, which ought to yield the geologist valuable information as to the former climate and the former distribution of land and sea on the surface of the globe. The knowledge of the hydrography of this region is besides an indispensable condition for judging of the state of the ice in the sea which washes the north coast of Asia. Here lies the single available starting-point for the exploration of the yet altogether unknown sea farther to the north, and from hills on the two northernmost islands Hedenström thought that across the sea to the north-west and north-east he saw obscure outlines of new land, on which no man had yet set his foot. All these circumstances confer on this group of islands an uncommon interest in a scientific and geographical respect, and therefore no long time can elapse until a scientific expedition be sent to these regions. Just for this reason I now desired, as a preparation for a future voyage, to wander about here for a couple of days, partly on foot, partly by boat.
The air was calm, but for the most part clouded, the temperature as high as +4°, the sea clear of ice, the salinity of the water 1.8 per cent, with a temperature of +2° to +3°. At first we made rapid progress, but after having in the afternoon of the 28th August sighted the westernmost islands, Semenoffskoj and Stolbovoj, the sea became so shallow that for long stretches we were compelled to sail in six to seven metres water. Some very rotten ice, or rather ice sludge, was also met with, which compelled us to make tedious détours, and prevented the Vega from going at full speed. The animal life was among the scantiest I had seen during my many travels in the Polar Seas. A few seals were visible. Of birds we saw some terns and gulls, and even far out at sea a pretty large number of phalaropes—the most common kind of bird on the coast of the Asiatic Polar Sea, at least in autumn. Stolbovoj Island was, especially on the north side, high with precipitous shore-cliffs which afforded splendid breeding-places for looms, black guillemots and gulls. At all such cliffs there breed on Spitzbergen millions of sea fowl, which are met with out on the surrounding sea in great flocks searching for their food. Here not a single loom was seen, and even the number of the gulls was small, which indeed in some degree was to be accounted for by the late season of the year, but also by the circumstance that no colony of birds had settled on the rocky shores of the island.
The sea bottom consisted at certain places of hard packed sand, or rather, as I shall endeavour to show farther on, of frozen sand, from which the trawl net brought up no animals. At other places there was found a clay, exceedingly rich in Idothea entomon and Sabinei and an extraordinary mass of bryozoa, resembling collections of the eggs of mollusca.
It was not until the 30th of August that we were off the west side of Ljachoff's Island, on which I intended to land. The north coast, and, as it appeared the day after, the east coast was clear, of ice, but the winds recently prevailing had heaped a mass of rotten ice on the west coast. The sea besides was so shallow here, that already at a distance 15' from land we had a depth of only eight metres. The ice heaped against the west coast of the island did not indeed form any very serious obstacle to the advance of the Vega, but in case we had attempted to land there it might have been inconvenient enough, when the considerable distance between the vessel and the land was to be traversed in a boat or the steam launch, and it might even, if a sudden frost had occurred, have become a fetter, which would have confined us to that spot for the winter. Even a storm arising hastily might in this shallow water have been actually dangerous to the vessel anchored in an open road. The prospect of wandering about for some days on the island did not appear to me to outweigh the danger of the possible failure of the main object of the expedition. I therefore gave up for the time
