w which weighed it down. The snow
lay nearly six metres deep on the river ice, which was three metres
thick. When they at last had got the vessel nearly dug out, it was
buried again by a new snowstorm.

In the middle of June the ice began to move, and the river water
rose so high that Nummelin, Meyenwaldt, and four men, along with two
dogs, were compelled to betake themselves to the roof of the hut,
where they had laid in a small stock of provisions and fuel. Here
they passed six days in constant peril of their lives.

The river had now risen five metres; the roof of the hut rose but a
quarter of a metre above the surface of the swollen river, and was
every instant in danger of being carried away by a floating piece of
ice. In such a case a small boat tied to the roof was their only
means of escape.

The whole landscape was overflowed. The other houses and huts were
carried away by the water and the drifting ice, which also
constantly threatened the only remaining building. The men on its
roof were compelled to work night and day to keep the pieces of ice
at a distance with poles.

The great inundation had even taken the migrating birds at unawares.
For long stretches there was not a dry spot for them to rest upon,
and thus it happened that exhausted ptarmigan alighted among the men
on the roof; once a ptarmigan settled on Meyenwaldt's head, and a
pair on the dogs.

On the 23rd June the water began to fall, and by the 25th it had
sunk so low that Nummelin and his companions could leave the roof
and remove to the deserted interior of the house.

The narrative of Nummelin's return to Europe by sea, in company with
Schwanenberg, belongs to a following chapter.

[Footnote 87: _Les moeurs et usages des Ostiackes_, par Jean Bernard
Muller, Capitaine de dragon au service de la Suede, pendant sa
captivite en Siberie (_Recueil de Voiages au Nord._ T. VIII.,
Amsterdam, 1727, p. 389). ]

[Footnote 88: I come to this conclusion from the appearance of the
strata as seen from the sea, and from their nature on Vaygats Island
and the west coast of Novaya Zemlya. So far as I know, no geologist
has landed on this part of the east coast. ]

[Footnote 89: Sometimes, however, icebergs are to be met with in the
most northerly part of the Kara Sea and on the north coast of Novaya
Zemlya, whither they may drive down from Franz Josef Land or from
other yet unknown Polar lands lying farther north. ]

[Footnote 90: In most of the