The explorers soon preferred to reach the islands by sledge journeys on the ice, and thus at last discovered the whole of the large group of islands which is named New Siberia. The islands were often visited by hunters for the purpose of collecting mammoth tusks, of which great masses, together with the bones of the mammoth, rhinoceros, sheep, ox, horse, etc., are found imbedded in the beds of clay and sand here. Afterwards they were completely surveyed during Hedenström's expeditions, fitted out by Count Rumanzov, Chancellor of the Russian Empire, in the years 1809-1811, and during Lieutenant Anjou's in 1823. Hedenström's expeditions were carried out by travelling with dog-sledges on the ice, before it broke, to the islands, passing the summer there, and returning in autumn, when the sea was again covered with ice. As the question relates to the possibility of navigating this sea, these expeditions, carried out in a very praiseworthy way, might be expected to have great interest, especially through observations from land, concerning the state of the ice in autumn; but in the short account of Hedenström's expeditions which is inserted in Wrangel's Travels, pp. 99-119, the only source accessible to me in this respect, there is not a single word on this point.[12] Information on this subject, so important for our expedition, has, however, by Mr. Sibiriakoff's care, been received from inhabitants of North Siberia, who earn their living by collecting mammoths' tusks on the group of islands in question. By these accounts the sea between the north coast of Asia and the islands of New Siberia, is every year pretty free of ice.
A very remarkable discovery was made in 1811 by a member of Hedenström's expedition, the Yakoutsk townsman Sannikov; for he found, on the west coast of the island Katelnoj, remains of a roughly-timbered winter habitation, in the neighbourhood of the wreck of a vessel, differing completely in build from those which are common in Siberia. Partly from this, partly from a number of tools which lay scattered on the beach, Sannikov drew the conclusion, that a hunter from Spitzbergen or Novaya Zemlya had been driven thither by the wind, and had lived there for a season with his crew. Unfortunately the inscription on a monumental cross in the neighbourhood of the hut was not translated.
During the great northern expeditions,[13] several attempts were also made to force a passage eastwards from the Lena. The first was under the command of Lieutenant Lassinius in 1735. He left the most easterly mouth-arm of the Lena on the 21st of August, and sailed 120 versts eastward, and there encountered drift ice which compelled him to seek a harbour at the coast. Here the winter was passed, with the unfortunate result, that the chief himself, and most of the fifty-two men belonging to the expedition, perished of scurvy.
The following year, 1736, there was sent out, in the same direction, a new expedition under Lieutenant Dmitri Laptev. With the vessel of Lassinius he attempted, in the middle of August, to sail eastward, but he soon fell in with a great deal of drift ice. So soon as the end of the month—the time when navigation ought properly to begin—he turned towards the Lena on account of ice.
In 1739 Laptev undertook his third voyage. He penetrated to the mouth of the Indigirka, which was frozen over on the 21st September, and wintered there. The following year the voyage was continued somewhat beyond the mouth of the Kolyma to Cape Great Baranov, where further advance was prevented by drift ice on the 26th September. After having returned to the Kolyma, and wintered at Nischni Kolymsk, he attempted, the following year, again to make his way eastwards in some large boats built during winter, but, on account of fog, contrary winds, and ice, without success. In judging of the results these voyages yielded, we must take into consideration the utterly unsuitable vessels in which they were undertaken—at first in a double sloop, built at Yakoutsk, in 1735, afterwards in two large boats built at Nischni Kolymsk. If we may judge of the nature of these craft from those now used on the Siberian rivers, we ought rather to be surprised that any of them could venture out on a real sea, than consider the unsuccessful voyages just described as proofs that there is no probability of being able to force a passage here with a vessel of modern build, and provided with steam power.
It remains, finally, for me to give an account of the attempts that have been made to penetrate westward from Behring's Straits.
Deschnev's voyage, from the Lena, through Behring's Straits to the mouth of the Anadir, in 1648, became completely forgotten in the course of about a century, until Muller, by searches in the Siberian archives, recovered the details of these and various other voyages along the north coast of Siberia. That the memory of these remarkable voyages has been preserved to after-times, however, depends, as has been already stated, upon accidental circumstances, lawsuits, and such like, which led to correspondence with the authorities. Of other similar undertakings we have certainly no knowledge, although now and then we find it noted that the Polar Sea had in former times often been traversed. In accounts of the expeditions fitted out by the authorities, it, for instance, often happens that mention is made of meeting with hunters and traders, who were sailing along the coast in the prosecution of private enterprise. Little attention was, however, given to these voyages, and, eighty-one years after Deschnev's voyage, the existence of straits between the north-eastern extremity of Asia and the north-western extremity of America was quite unknown, or at least doubted. Finally, in 1729, Behring anew sailed through the Sound, and attached his name to it. He did not sail, however, very far (to 172° W. Long.) along the north coast of Asia, although he does not appear to have met with any obstacle from ice. Nearly fifty years afterwards Cook concluded in these waters the series of splendid discoveries with which he enriched geographical science. After having, in 1778, sailed a good way eastwards along the north coast of America, he turned towards the west, and reached the 180th degree of longitude on the 29th August: the fear of meeting with ice deterred him from sailing further westward, and his vessel appears to have scarcely been equipped or fitted for sailing among ice.
After Cook's time we know of only three expeditions which have sailed westwards from Behring's Straits. The first was an American expedition, under Captain Rodgers, in 1855. He reached, through what appears to have been open water, the longitude of Cape Yakan (176° E. from Greenwich). The second was that of the English steam-whaler Long, who, in 1867, in search of a new profitable whale-fishing ground, sailed further west than any before him. By the 10th August he had reached the longitude of Tschaun Bay (170° E. from Greenwich). He was engaged in whale-fishing, not in an exploring expedition, and turned here; but, in the short account he has given of his voyage, he expresses the decided conviction that a voyage from Behring's Straits to the Atlantic belongs to the region of possibilities, and adds that, even if this sea-route does not come to be of any commercial importance, that between the Lena and Behring's Straits ought to be useful for turning to account the products of Northern Siberia.[14] Finally, last year a Russian expedition was sent out to endeavour to reach Wrangel's Land from Behring's Straits. According to communications in the newspapers, it was prevented by ice from sailing thence, as well as from sailing far to the west.
Information has been obtained through Mr. Sibiriakoff, from North Siberia, regarding the state of the ice in the neighbouring sea. The hunting in these regions appears to have now fallen off so seriously, that only few persons were found who could give any answers to the questions put.
Thus in Yakoutsk there was only one man (a priest) who had been at the coast of the Polar Sea. He states that when the wind blows off the land the sea becomes free of ice, but that the ice comes back when the wind blows on to the land, and thereby exposes the vessels which cannot reach a safe harbour to great danger.