from the mouth of the Lena to that of the
Indigirka, is free from ice from July to September. The north wind
drives the ice towards the coast, but not in large masses. According
to the observations of the men who search for mammoth tusks, the sea
is open as far as the southern part of the New Siberia Islands. It
is probable that these islands form a protection against the ice in
the Werchnojan region. It is otherwise on the Kolyma coast; and if
the Kolyma can be reached from Behring's Straits, so certainly can
the Lena."

The circumstance that the ice during summer is driven from the coast
by southerly winds, yet not so far but that it returns, in larger or
smaller quantity, with northerly winds, is further confirmed by
other correspondents, and appears to me to show that the New
Siberian Islands and Wrangel's Land only form links in an extensive
group of islands, running parallel with the north coast of Siberia,
which, on the one hand, keeps the ice from the intermediate sea from
drifting away altogether, and favours the formation of ice during
winter, but, on the other hand, protects the coast from the Polar
ice proper, formed to the north of the islands. The information I
have received besides, refers principally to the summer months. As
in the Kara Sea, which formerly had a yet worse reputation, the ice
here, too, perhaps, melts away for the most part during autumn, so
that at this season we may reckon on a pretty open sea.

Most of the correspondents, who have given information about the
state of the ice in the Siberian Polar Sea, concern themselves
further with the reports current in Siberia, that American whalers
have been seen from the coast far to the westward. The correctness
of these reports was always denied in the most decided way: yet they
rest, at least to some extent, on a basis of fact. For I have myself
met with a whaler, who for three years in a steamer carried on trade
with the inhabitants of the coast from Cape Yakan to Behring's
Straits. He was quite convinced that some years at least it would be
possible to sail from Behring's Straits to the Atlantic. On one
occasion he had returned through Behring's Straits as late as the
17th October.

From what I have thus stated, it follows,--

That the ocean lying north of the north coast of Siberia, between
the mouth of the Yenisej and Tschaun Bay, has never been ploughed by
the keel of any proper sea-going vessel, still less been traversed
by any ste