[269] Even pretty far south, in Scandinavia, there occur places with frozen earth which seldom thaws. Thus in Egyptinkorpi mosses in Nurmi and Pjeli parishes in Finland pinewoods are found growing over layers or "tufts" of frozen sand, but also, in other places in Eastern Finland, we find layers containing stumps, roots, &c., of different generations of trees, alternating with layers of frozen mould, according to a communication from the agronomic Axel Asplund. A contribution to the knowledge of the way, or one of the ways, in which such formations arise, we obtain from the known fact that mines with an opening to the air, so far south as the middle of Sweden, are filled in a few years with a coherent mass of ice if the opening is allowed to remain open. If it is shut the ice melts again, but for this decades are required.
[270] Middendorff already states that the bottom of the sea of Okotsk is frozen (Sibirische Reise, Bd. 4, 1, p. 502).
CHAPTER XII.
The history, physique, disposition, and manners of the Chukches
The north coast of Siberia is now, with the exception of its westernmost and easternmost parts, literally a desert. In the west there projects between the mouth of the Ob and the southern portion of the Kara Sea the peninsula of Yalmal, which by its remote position, its grassy plains, and rivers abounding in fish, appears to form the earthly paradise of the Samoyed of the present day. Some hundred families belonging to this race wander about here with their numerous reindeer herds. During winter they withdraw to the interior of the country or southwards, and the coast is said then to be uninhabited. This is the case both summer and winter, not only with Beli Ostrov and the farthest portion of the peninsula between the Ob and the Yenisej (Mattesol), but also with the long stretch of coast between the mouth of the Yenisej and Chaun Bay. During the voyage of the Vega in 1878 we did not see a single native. No trace of man could be discovered at the places where we landed, and though for a long time we sailed quite near land, we saw from the sea only a single house on the shore, viz, the before-mentioned wooden hut on the east side of Chelyuskin peninsula. Russian simovies and native encampments are indeed still found on the rivers some distance from their mouths, but the former coast population has withdrawn to the interior of the country or died out,[271] and the north coast of Asia first begins again to be inhabited at Chaun Bay, namely, by the tribe with whom we came in contact during the latter part of the coast voyage of the Vega in 1878 and during the wintering.
I have already, it is true, given an account of various traits of the Chukches' disposition and mode of life, but I believe at all events that a more exhaustive statement of what the Vega men experienced in this region will be interesting to my readers, even if in the course of it I am sometimes compelled to return to subjects of which I have already treated.
In West-European writings the race, which inhabits the north-easternmost portion of Asia, is mentioned for the first time, so far as I know, by WITSEN, who in the second edition of his work (1705, p. 671) quotes a statement by VOLODOMIR ATLASSOV, that the inhabitants of the northernmost portions of Siberia are called Tsjuktsi, without, however, giving any detailed description of the people themselves. In maps from the end of the seventeenth century names are still inscribed on this portion of land which were borrowed from the history of High Asia, as "Tenduc," "Quinsai," "Catacora," &c., but these are left out in VAN KEULEN'S atlas of 1709, and instead there stands here Zuczari. From about the same time we fall in with some accounts of the Chukches in the narrative of the distinguished painter CORNELIS DE BRUIN'S travels in Russia. A Russian merchant, MICHAEL OSTATIOF, who passed fourteen years in travelling in Siberia, gave de Bruin some information regarding the countries he had travelled through; among others he spoke of Korakie and Socgtsie The latter were sketched as a godless pack, who worship the devil and carry with them then fathers' bones to be used in their magical arts. The same Russian who made these statements had also come in contact with "stationary" (settled) Soegtsi, so called "because they pass the whole winter hibernating, lying or sitting in their tents."[272] I have found the first somewhat detailed accounts of the race in the note on p. 110 of the under-quoted work, Histoire généalogique des Tartares, Leyden, 1726. They are founded on the statements of Swedish prisoners of war in Siberia.