he
Polar Sea.

All these attempts to force a passage in the open sea from the
Siberian coasts northwards, failed, for the single reason, that an
open sea with a fresh breeze was as destructive to the craft which
were at the disposal of the adventurous, but ill-equipped Siberian
polar explorer as an ice-filled sea; indeed, more dangerous, for in
the latter case the crew, if the vessel was nipped, generally saved
themselves on the ice, and had only to contend with hunger, snow,
cold, and other difficulties to which the most of them had been
accustomed from their childhood; but in the open sea the ill-built,
weak vessel, caulked with moss mixed with clay, and held together
with willows, leaked already with a moderate sea, and with a
heavier, was helplessly lost, if a harbour could not be reached in
time of need.

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 Hedenstroem's expeditions, fitted out by Count Rumanzov,
Chancellor of the Russian Empire, in the years 1809-1811, and during
Lieutenant Anjou's in 1823. Hedenstroem'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 Hedenstroem'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 pret