It was at an earlier date than this, however, that the Czar Peter, just before his death in 1725, gave his instructions to Captain Vitus Bering, a Dane in the Russian service. Bering was despatched from St Petersburg to the furthest point of Siberia, with sailors and shipwrights. Two vessels were built, one at Okhotsk the other in Kamschatka, called the Fortune and the Gabriel. Sailing in July, 1728, Bering ascertained the existence of the strait between Asia and America which now bears his name. His second voyage was abortive, but in the third and final one in 1741 he left Okhotsk in a vessel called the St Peter, with a consort—the St Paul—commanded by Lieutenant Chirikof. George Wilhelm Steller was with Bering as a naturalist. The Aleutian Islands were explored and the grand peak of Mount St Elias was discovered and named. Scurvy broke out among the crew and the commodore himself was attacked by it. In November the St Peter was wrecked on the island which afterwards received the name of the ill-fated discoverer. Bering was very ill. He was carried on shore and placed in a trench dug in the side of a sand-hill. Here he was almost buried alive, for the sand kept continually rolling down, and he requested that it might not be moved as it kept him warm. In this miserable condition Bering died on December 8th, 1741. Steller, who was the ship’s surgeon, as well as naturalist, was very anxious to procure fresh food for his patients. He attributed the cure of those who recovered from the scurvy to the flesh of the sea-otter. Nine hundred skins of these were collected, for which the Chinese at Kiakta, on the Russian frontier, would pay at the rate of £30 a piece. Thirty of the crew died on the island, and the rest made their way to Kamschatka in a boat built from the wreck of the St Peter. Steller discovered a rare and previously unknown species of manatee or sea cow, which was named Rhytina Stelleri. This animal not long after became extinct.
Next to Bering Strait the most important Russian Arctic discovery was the group of islands off the coast between the mouths of the Lena and Indigirka, now known as the Liakhov or New Siberian Islands. They consist of five large and some small islands between 73° 10′ and 76° 10′ N. Liakhov, the most southerly, is only 25 miles from the Siberian coast at Sviatoi-nos. It is 50 miles long and 30 broad. At a distance of 55 miles N.N.W. of Liakhov is Kotelnoi, 100 miles long by 60 broad. To the east Kotelnoi is connected by a sandbank with Faddiev (Thaddei) Island, which is 50 miles long by 30, with a narrow spit 35 miles long running out to the north-west. Faddiev is separated from New Siberia Island by a strait 15 miles across, and Bennett Island lies due north of the latter.
This group, which is very remarkable for several reasons, was discovered in 1770 by a fur-hunter named Liakhov. He had seen a great herd of reindeer coming south over the ice, and rightly concluded that there was land to the northward. This led to his discovery of Liakhov and Maloi Islands and in 1773 of Kotelnoi Island. Faddiev and Belkova Islands were discovered in 1805, New Siberia in 1806, and Bennett Island in 1881.
With the exception of a few granite hills, practically the whole soil of Liakhov Island was found to consist of mammoth bones. Kotelnoi is composed of strata of the Devonian period and Silurian coral. But New Siberia with its “Hills of Wood” is the most curious island of all. On its northern coast there are lofty and precipitous rocks of sandstone. The “wood hills,” 210 feet high, are formed of horizontal sandstone strata alternating with bituminous trunks of trees. On the summit there are long rows of tree-trunks fixed perpendicularly into the rock, and projecting 7 to 10 inches. The “wood hills” extend for more than three miles along the coast. The largest trunk is 10 inches in diameter, the wood is friable, black with a slight gloss, and not very hard.
The mammoth ivory from Liakhov Island soon became a source of commercial profit; indeed, the quantity that was carried off by Liakhov and his successors was enormous. In 1821 a merchant brought back 20,000 lb. of ivory, each mammoth tusk averaging a weight of 108 lb. In 1809 Sannikoff collected 10,000 lb. of ivory. The supply continued, and in 1856 and 1857 great boats are mentioned in the river Lena, laden with fossil ivory. At Yakutsk, from 1825 to 1831, the sale of ivory amounted to 54,000 lb. annually, besides 5700 lb. sold in other markets. Middendorf’s calculation was that the annual sales amounted to 110,000 lb., representing 1000 individual mammoths. A very large proportion of this ivory comes from Liakhov Island, and there appears to be no diminution in the supply. There is also believed to be a vast additional store on the sea bottom, as tusks are found in abundance when the sea recedes after a long continuance of easterly winds.
Sannikoff saw land to the north of the New Siberian Islands, but was prevented from reaching it owing to open water. This was the Bennett Island, discovered by De Long in 1881, in 76° 38′ N. and 148° E. He explored 17 miles of the south coast of the island, and found great numbers of birds breeding on the cliffs. Here also mammoth tusks were met with. A barren rocky ice-capped islet, named Jeannette Island, was also discovered by him, and another named Henrietta Island, 27 miles away.
Hedenström, a Russian officer residing at Yakutsk, was employed by the Government to survey the New Siberian Islands in 1809, accompanied by Sannikoff, and he was occupied on this service for three years.
In 1821 Lieutenant (afterwards Admiral) Anjou was sent to make a more accurate survey, and to discover the land reported by Sannikoff to the north of Kotelnoi Island. He crossed the ice with narti or dog sledges, but at a distance of 40 miles north of Kotelnoi he was stopped by unsafe ice on two occasions. On April 9th he started over the ice to the eastward of New Siberia, and again met with thin ice at a distance of 60 miles from the land. His conclusion was that all efforts to advance on sledges to any considerable distance from the land would prove unavailing owing to thin ice and open water. He completed a survey of the New Siberian group of islands.
North-eastern Siberia.