The Russians have taken no inconspicuous part in Arctic discovery. If we look at a map of 130 years ago, such an one as is used to illustrate the book of Daines Barrington or Scoresby’s Arctic Regions, we shall see the whole continuous coast line delineated in the Siberian quadrant, while in the American quadrant there is nothing beyond Icy Cape but the mouths of the Coppermine and Mackenzie rivers. Moreover, in the achievement of their discoveries, the Russians often had to overcome even greater dangers and hardships than their fellow explorers in the other quadrants.

In the earlier period of the occupation of Siberia by the Russians, the Arctic portions were discovered by Cossack leaders engaged in the reduction of northern native tribes, the Samoyeds, Ostiaks, Tunguses, and later the Tchuktches. As early as 1610 a Cossack had reached the mouth of the Yenisei. In 1636 the Lena and the mouth of the Yana were discovered, and by 1644 the Cossack Stadukhin was on the banks of the Kolyma, and gave the first account of the Tchuktches. Two years afterwards Issai Ignatieff and some fur-hunters made the first attempt to navigate beyond the mouth of the Kolyma.

Simon Deshneff was the most enterprising of the Cossack pioneers. With another Cossack named Ankudinoff, he built two small vessels in the Kolyma and faced the icy Siberian sea. Ankudinoff was wrecked, but Deshneff fought a battle with the Tchuktches, and navigated his little craft through Bering Strait into the Gulf of Anadyr. For six years Deshneff was a prominent figure in establishing Russian ascendancy in those distant regions. He is last heard of in 1653, but his ultimate fate is unknown.

It was in 1734 that trained and educated explorers first began to take the place of pioneer Cossacks. Where English and Dutch had failed, Russian officers, after persevering attempts and the loss of more than one vessel, succeeded. They made the voyage from Archangel to the Obi. Then vessels were built at Tobolsk, and after one failure, when his vessel was wrecked, Lieutenant Owzin reached the mouth of the Yenisei in 1737. He was succeeded by Lieutenant Minin, who surveyed the course of the Yenisei from Yeniseisk to the mouth, and sent Sterlegoff on a voyage northward, who reached a latitude of 75° 26′ N.

It was the object of the Russian Admiralty to examine the whole of the Siberian coast either in sailing vessels or by the use of sledges, and for this purpose they divided the coast into sections to be undertaken by different expeditions. Vessels called kotchys were built in the Siberian rivers, but the most successful work was done by sledge travelling. The native methods were adopted, and the narti of the Tunguses and Tchuktches became the exploring sledge of Russian officers. The runner of a Siberian narti of the best construction is 5 feet 10 inches long, its width 1 foot 9 inches, height of runner 10¼ inches. The runners are of birch-wood, and the upper surface of the sledge of willow shoots, woven together. All the parts are fastened with hide thongs. Before use the sledges are turned over and water is poured on the runners to produce a thin crust of ice which glides easily over the snow. In summer these ice runners (wodiat) cannot be used and whalebone is sometimes substituted. A well-loaded sledge requires a team of 12 dogs, and they will drag 1260 lb. in spring, but 360 lb. is a heavy load in the intense cold of winter.

The earliest attempt to round the extreme northern point of Siberia from the east side was made by Lieutenant Prontchishcheff, who sailed down the Lena from Yakutsk in 1735, accompanied by his wife. Hampered by ice, they were obliged to winter at the mouth of the Olenek. In the next season Prontchishcheff forced his way nearly to the extreme point, but he found the ice quite impenetrable. He and his wife died at their winter quarters, leaving the command to the mate Chelyuskin, who returned.

The Government at St Petersburg was still bent on rounding the extreme northern point of Siberia. Lieutenant Cheriton Laptef was appointed to command a second expedition, with Chelyuskin as his mate. They sailed from Yakutsk in July, 1739, descended the river Lena, and reached Cape St Thaddei in 76° 47′ N., but they were stopped by the ice, and forced to winter at a permanent settlement of Tunguses at the mouth of the Khatanga river. Convinced of the impossibility of rounding the cape, Laptef resolved to return to the Lena, but his vessel was caught in a furious gale, she sprang a leak, and when the wind went down, the crew escaped to the land with much difficulty. The vessel drifted away and probably sank. Laptef and his people were left without resources, and underwent the most dreadful sufferings. Many died of hunger and cold. At length they reached the old wintering-place on the banks of the Khatanga. In April, 1741, Chelyuskin was sent with sledges to trace the coast line and discover its northern point, which is in 77° 30′ N. In this he succeeded, and this extreme northern point of Asia has since been known as Cape Chelyuskin. Laptef explored the Taimyr peninsula, and traced the river from its rise in the Taimyr lake to the sea. The whole party reached the Yenisei, and arrived at Yeniseisk at the end of August.

In the period from 1760 to 1766 a fur-trader named Shalaroff made two expeditions and sighted the Liakhov islands, but his vessel was ultimately destroyed by the ice, and he died, with his crew, of cold and misery. He was the first to examine the great inlet called Chaun Bay.

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.

While Anjou was surveying these islands, his friend Baron Wrangell was also occupied in exploration and research with his headquarters at Nijni Kolymsk. He made four sledge journeys over the Polar Sea from 1820 to 1823, in the narti or dog sledges already mentioned. He considered March to be the best time of the year for travelling, because it is then easier work for the dogs. The dogs were fed on frozen herrings. The men wore reindeer-skin shirts, leather boots lined with fur, a fur cap, and reindeer-skin gloves. The party had a reindeer-skin conical tent, 12 feet across on the ground and 10 feet high, with a light framework of six poles. When they camped they lighted a fire in the centre of it, and were half smothered by the smoke. Each man slept on a bear-skin, and there was a reindeer-skin coverlet for every two.

In his first journey Wrangell surveyed the coast from the mouth of the Kolyma eastward to Cape Chelagskoi, with the temperature sometimes as low as -31° Fahr. His second journey, starting on March 27th, 1821, was undertaken to see how far he could go over the ice to the northward, away from the Siberian coast. At a distance of two miles from the shore the party had to cross a chain of high and rugged hummocks five miles wide. Beyond, the ice was fairly level, but after advancing for 140 miles Wrangell found the ice to be weak and rotten owing to large patches of brine being lodged on the snow. It was therefore deemed prudent to commence their retreat on April 4th. They returned to Nijni Kolymsk on the 28th after an absence of 36 days, having travelled over 800 miles, averaging 22½ miles a day.

Wrangell was much struck by the wonderful skill displayed by the sledge drivers in finding their way by the wave-like ridges of snow formed by the wind. These, formed on the level sea ice by any wind of long continuance, are called sastrugi in Siberia. The ridges always indicate the quarter from which the prevailing winds blow. The inhabitants of the tundras often travel over several hundred miles with no other guide than these sastrugi. They know by experience at what angle they must cross the greater and lesser waves of snow in order to arrive at their destination, and they never err. It often happens that the true permanent sastrugi have been obliterated by temporary winds, but the traveller is not deceived. His practised eye detects the change, he carefully removes the recently drifted snow, and corrects his course by the lower sastrugi, and by the angle formed by the two.

On his third journey, Wrangell started northwards from the coast on March 16th, 1822, chiefly with the object of ascertaining the truth of a native rumour that there was high land in that direction. But again, after travelling for many days through ranges of hummocks, showing there must have been heavy ice pressure during the winter, he came to weak unsafe ice at a distance of 170 miles from the land. He was away 55 days and went over 900 miles, a little over 16 miles a day. May 5th saw them back at Nijni Kolymsk.

The fourth journey was begun on March 14th, 1823. At Cape Chelagskoi a Tchuktche chief told Wrangell that, on a clear summer’s day, snow-covered mountains might be descried at a great distance to the north, and that herds of reindeer sometimes came across the ice, probably from thence. The natives concurred in stating that Cape Jakan was the nearest point to this northern land. Wrangell struck off to the north when he had gone a little way beyond Cape Chelagskoi. A violent gale came on, and cracked and broke up the ice, placing the party in considerable danger. They only succeeded in crossing the cracks owing to the incredibly swift pace of the dogs. Wrangell was obliged to turn back at a distance of only 70 miles from the land. Even then the men had to ferry themselves across many cracks on pieces of ice, the dogs swimming and towing, the temperature of the sea being +28° Fahr. This was in the end of March. Lanes of water were opening in all directions and, without a boat, the little party was placed in a position of extreme danger. The gale dashed the pieces of ice together with a loud crashing noise, and broke some of the floes into fragments. The dogs alone saved them. Land was reached on the 27th March, and Wrangell continued the coast survey for some time longer, returning to Nijni Kolymsk on May 10th, after an absence of 78 days, having travelled over 1530 miles.

The unknown land sighted from Cape Jakan was seen by Captain Kellett in 1849, and by Captain Long, an American whaler. Captain Kellett landed on an islet near it in 71° 18′ N., 175° 24′ W., in 1849, which he found to be a solid mass of granite, almost inaccessible on all sides, about 4½ miles long by 2½ across. It was named Herald Isle. But it was not until 1881 that Lieutenant Berry, U.S.N., landed on and explored the land seen from Cape Jakan. It is in 70° 57′ N. and 178° 10′ W., and is 70 miles long from east to west. Its distance from the nearest point of the Siberian coast is 80 miles. Two ridges run parallel to the north and south shores, and between them is undulating country traversed by streams fed by the melting snow. Mammoth tusks and bones were found by Lieutenant Berry’s party, as well as relics of Siberian tribes. The hills rise to a height of 2500 to 3000 feet. It has been named Wrangell Island, after the Russian explorer who encountered such great dangers in seeking for it. The Russian explorers came to the conclusion that there was a great deal of open water in summer to the north of the Siberian coast.

In 1843 Middendorf was sent to explore the region which terminates in Cape Chelyuskin. He went by land, descending the river Khatanga, and reached the Taimyr lake in June. In August he got to the shores of the Polar Sea and sighted the Cape, whence he saw open water and no ice blink in any direction. The rise and fall of the tide was 36 feet. F. Schmidt was also sent by the Imperial Academy of Sciences at St Petersburg to examine the country between the Obi and Yenisei, and to amplify the work of Middendorf.

The Russians were also occupied with the exploration of Novaya Zemlya, an incentive being given to the merchants of Archangel by the belief that silver ore was to be found. As the search for the philosopher’s stone led to many discoveries in chemistry, and the quest for El Dorado had as its consequence important discoveries in South America, so this imaginary silver ore was the cause of the discoveries along the Novaya Zemlya coast.

Novaya Zemlya is a long narrow strip of land stretching away N.E. for some 500 miles with the Barentsz Sea on its western and the Kara Sea on its eastern side, and separated at its southern extremity from Waigatz Island by Burrough Strait. It is divided into two islands by the narrow Matyushin Strait.

The southern island is 160 miles long, and there are a few Samoyed settlements on its shores. The northern island is quite uninhabited. The southern part of it is called Lutke Land after the Russian Admiral who surveyed the western coast, and the northern part is Barentsz Land. The two islands form an arc or curve with the concave side towards the Kara Sea from lat. 70° 30′ to nearly 77° N. They are a continuation of the Ural system and consist of a range of mountains with peaks of black clay and slate chiefly, rising to 4000 feet, and land covered by an ice sheet, with glaciers sometimes descending to the water’s edge. The rocks are Upper Silurian or Devonian. The climate is colder than that of Spitsbergen.

Opposite to Waigatz is Cape Menschikoff, the southern point of Novaya Zemlya, the coast trending thence westward to the deep bay called Kostin Shar, with the island of Meshdusharsky at its entrance. The Kostin Shar hills have a formation of grey primitive limestone, like the northern part of the Ural mountains. North of the Kostin Shar, on the west coast, is Goose Land, a low stretch of coast extending from 71° 30′ to 72° 10′, a distance of 40 miles. It consists of grass flats and small lakes, the breeding-place of geese and swans, and in the short summer the flowering plants cover the land with as beautiful a carpet as on the Waigatz. Belusha Bay, where there is a Samoyed settlement, is on the South Goose coast, and there are submerged reefs, as well as rocks and islets, which render the navigation dangerous. Goose Land ends to the north at Moller Bay, the northern termination of which is Cape Britvin (= Razor). Here the coast line rises to 300 or 400 feet, in raised beaches, and there is a depth of only 10 to 20 fathoms four miles from the shore. Nameless Bay is bounded on all sides but the west by high hills, from 800 to 1500 feet above the sea, which slope downwards, and terminate in precipitous limestone cliffs, with a sheer face of a hundred feet, broken by narrow ledges. These cliffs form the famous “loomeries,” extending along the southern side of the bay for three miles, and here, during the breeding season, the birds congregate in countless myriads.

The entrance to the Matyushin Strait has Cape Saulen on the south side, and Silver Cape, 1885 feet high, on the north. On both sides of the strait the mountains rise in a series of lofty peaks, covered with snow, and with glaciers resting on their sides. Through this mountainous region the deep and narrow channel called the Matyushin Shar winds from the Barentsz to the Kara Sea. It is nowhere two miles across, and in some places contracts to a quarter of a mile, and the winding of the strait gives the appearance of passing through a succession of lakes surrounded by lofty mountains and overhanging precipices, while many glaciers pour down the mountain sides almost to the water’s edge. At the eastern end there is a deep inlet on the northern side. Throughout this region the raised terraces give evidence of the land having been upheaved to a height of from 500 to 600 feet. The eastern coast of Novaya Zemlya is comparatively low and barren. It has many bays and harbours and all the promontories terminate in steep cliffs. The beautiful little grass, Pleuropogon Sabinii, which is found in Franz Josef Land, but is very rare in other parts of the Arctic regions, grows in profusion in Novaya Zemlya and was found by Colonel Feilden at Belusha Bay of South Goose Land, in Nameless Bay, and in the valleys on both sides of the Matyushin Strait.

The west coast of Lutke Land forms a succession of large indentations, and there are glaciers at the head of almost every bay, winding between the mountain ranges. Beyond Admiralty Peninsula the coast trends more to the east, and at Cape Nassau, in 76° 20′ N., it turns almost due east. Here many glaciers extend along the coast, and the hills appear to be from 1000 to 2000 feet in height. Off the northern coast are the two Orange Islands, each about half a mile long, with precipitous sides and flat summits about a hundred feet above the sea. The eastern shores of Barentsz and Lutke Lands are low and barren.

The first circumnavigation of Novaya Zemlya is attributed to a pilot named Loshkin in 1760, and eight years afterwards Lieutenant Rosmyssloff wintered in the Matyushin Shar and made a survey. From 1821 to 1824 Admiral Lutke made an admirable survey of the whole west coast of Novaya Zemlya during four summers. Subsequently the pilot Zinvolka made several exploring voyages, in one of which he was accompanied by Professor Baer105, who made large botanical and zoological collections. Zinvolka’s last voyage was in 1838, when he died during the winter in Cross Bay.

The Russians also made expeditions to Spitsbergen. Their plan was to form a depôt in Bell Sound, and Lieutenant Nemtinoff built five houses there in 1764, where stores were landed. In May 1765 Captain Vassili Tchitschakoff sailed from Archangel in command of three small vessels, did battle with the ice during two months, but could never get further north than 80° 26′. He returned to Archangel, and was sent to make another attempt in the following year. He reached a latitude of 80° 30′ and then gave it up. The Russians had passed two winters in Bell Sound, in charge of the stores.

The praise which Baron Wrangell bestows on the gallant Russian officers and sailors, who faced and overcame hardships and dangers of no ordinary kind, and did such splendid exploring work during more than two centuries, is justly their due. It is satisfactory to reflect that the Arctic discoveries of the Russians led to no barren results. They were the direct causes of the establishment of a lucrative fur trade, and of an equally flourishing trade in fossil ivory. Such have been the almost inevitable results of Arctic enterprises, which enrich communities while they confer great benefits on science.