The Voyage Of The Vega Round Asia And Europe Part 12

The Origin of the names Yugor Schar and Kara Sea--Rules for Sailing through Yugor Schar--The "Highest Mountain"

on Earth--Anchorages--Entering the Kara Sea-- Its Surroundings--The Inland-ice of Novaya Zemlya--True Icebergs rare in certain parts of the Polar Sea--The Natural Conditions of the Kara Sea--Animals, Plants, Bog Ore-- Pa.s.sage across the Kara Sea--The Influence of the Ice on the Sea-bottom--Fresh-water Diatoms on Sea-ice--Arrival at Port d.i.c.kson--Animal Life there--Settlers and Settlements at the Mouth of the Yenisej--The Flora at Port d.i.c.kson-- Evertebrates--Excursion to White Island--Yalmal--Previous Visits--Nmmnelin's Wintering on the Briochov Islands.

In crossing to Vaygats Island I met the _Lena_, which then first steamed to the rendezvous that had been fixed upon. I gave the captain orders to anchor without delay, to coal from the _Express_, and to be prepared immediately after my return from the excursion to weigh anchor and start along with the other vessels. I came on board the _Vega_ on the evening of the 31st July, much pleased and gratified with what I had seen and collected in the course of my excursion on Vaygats Island. The _Lena_, however, was not quite ready, and so the start was put off till the morning of the 1st August. All the vessels then weighed anchor, and sailed or steamed through Vaygats Sound or Yugor Schar into the Kara Sea.

We do not meet with the name Yugor Schar in the oldest narratives of travel or on the oldest maps. But it is found in an account dating from 1611, of a Russian commercial route between "Pechorskoie Zauorot and Mongozei," which is annexed to the letter of Richard Finch to Sir Thomas Smith, already quoted (Purchas, iii. p. 539). The name is clearly derived from the old name, Jugaria, for the land lying south of the sound, and it is said, for instance, in the map to Herberstein's work, to have its name from the Hungarians, who are supposed to derive their origin from these regions. The first Dutch north-east explorers called it Vaygats Sound or Fretum Na.s.sovic.u.m.

More recent geographers call it also Pet's Strait, which is incorrect, as Pet did not sail through it.

There was at first no special name for the gulf between the Taimur peninsula and Novaya Zemlya. The name "Carska Bay" however is to be found already in the information about sailing to the north-east, communicated to the Muscovie Companie by its princ.i.p.al factor, Antonie Marsh (Purchas, iii. p. 805). At first this name was applied only to the estuary of the Kara river, but it was gradually transferred to the whole of the neighbouring sea, whose oldest Samoyed name, also derived from a river, was in a somewhat Russianised form, "Neremskoe" (compare Purchas, iii. p. 805, Witsen, p. 917). I shall in the following part of this work comprehend under the name "Kara Sea" the whole of that gulf which from 77 N.L.

between Cape Chelyuskin and the northern extremity of Novaya Zemlya extends towards the south to the north coast of Europe and Asia.

Captain Palander gives the following directions for sailing through the sound between Vaygats Island and the mainland:--

"As Yugor Straits are difficult to discover far out at sea, good solar observations ought to be taken on approaching them, where such can be had, and after these the course is to be shaped in the middle of the strait, preferably about N.E. by the compa.s.s. On coming nearer land (three to four English miles) one distinguishes the straits with ease. Afterwards there is nothing else to observe than on entering to keep right in the middle of the fairway.

"If one wishes to anchor at the Samoyed village one ought to keep about an English mile from the land on the starboard, and steer N.E. by the compa.s.s, until the Samoyed huts are seen, when one bends off from starboard, keeping the church a little to starboard. For larger vessels it is not advisable to go in shallower water than eight to nine fathoms, because the depth then diminishes rather suddenly to from three to four fathoms.

"From the Samoyed village the course is shaped right to the south-east headland of Vaygats Island (Suchoi Nos), which ought to be pa.s.sed at the distance of half an English mile. Immediately south-west of this headland lies a very long shoal, which one ought to take care of.

"From this headland the vessel is to be steered N.-1/2E.

out into the Kara Sea. With this course there are two shoals on starboard and two on port at the distance of half an English mile.

"The depth is in general ten fathoms; at no place in the fairway is it less than nine fathoms.

"Vessels of the greatest draught may thus sail through Yugor Schar. In pa.s.sing the straits it is recommended to keep a good outlook from the top, whence in clear weather the shoals may easily be seen."

In the oldest narratives very high mountains, covered with ice and snow, are spoken of as occurring in the neighbourhood of the sound between Vaygats Island and the mainland. It is even said that here were to be found the highest mountains on earth, whose tops were said to raise themselves to a height of a hundred German miles.[87]

The honour of having the highest mountains on earth has since been ascribed by the dwellers on the plains of Northern Russia to the neighbourhood of Matotschkin Schar, "where the mountains are even much higher than Bolschoj Kamen," a rocky eminence some hundreds of feet high at the mouth of the Petchora--an orographic idea which forms a new proof of the correctness of the old saying:--"In the kingdom of the blind the one-eyed is king." Matotschkin Schar indeed is surrounded by a wild Alpine tract with peaks that rise to a height of 1,000 to 1,200 metres. On the other hand there are to be seen around Yugor Straits only low level plains, terminating towards the sea with a steep escarpment. These plains are early free of snow, and are covered with a rich turf, which yields good pasture to the Samoyed reindeer herds.

Most of the vessels that wish to sail into the Kara Sea through Yugor Schar require to anchor here some days to wait for favourable winds and state of the ice. There are no good harbours in the neighbourhood of the sound, but available anchorages occur, some in the bay at Chabarova, at the western entrance of the sound; some, according to the old Dutch maps, on the eastern side of the sound, between Mestni Island (Staten Eiland) and the mainland. I have, however, no experience of my own of the latter anchorages, nor have I heard that the Norwegian walrus-hunters have anch.o.r.ed there.

Perhaps by this time they are become too shallow.

When we sailed through Yugor Schar in 1878, the sound was completely free of ice. The weather was glorious, but the wind was so light that the sails did little service. In consequence of this we did not go very rapidly forward, especially as I wished to keep the three vessels together, and the sailing ship _Express_, not to be left behind, had to be towed by the _Fraser_. Time was lost besides in dredging and taking specimens of water. The dredgings gave at some places, for instance off Chabarova, a rich yield, especially of isopods and sponges. The samples of water showed that already at a limited depth from the surface it had a considerable salinity, and that therefore no notable portion of the ma.s.s of fresh water, which the rivers Kara, Obi, Tas, and Yenisej and others pour into the Kara Sea, flows through this sound into the Atlantic Ocean.

In the afternoon of the 1st August we pa.s.sed through the sound and steamed into the sea lying to the east of it, which had been the object of so many speculations, expectations, and conclusions of so many cautious governments, merchants eager for gain, and learned cosmographers, from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and which even to the geographer and man of science of the present has been a _mare incognitum_ down to the most recent date. It is just this sea that formed the turning-point of all the foregoing north-east voyages, from Burrough's to Wood's and Vlamingh's, and it may therefore not be out of place here, before I proceed further with the sketch of our journey, to give some account of its surroundings and hydrography.

If attention be not fixed on the little new-discovered island, "Ensamheten," the Kara Sea is open to the north-east. It is bounded on the west by Novaya Zemlya and Vaygats Island; on the east by the Taimur peninsula, the land between the Pjaesina and the Yenisej and Yalmal; and on the south by the northernmost portion of European Russia, Beli Ostrov, and the large estuaries of the Obi and the Yenisej. The coast between Cape Chelyuskin and the Yenisej consists of low rocky heights, formed of crystalline schists, gneiss, and eruptive rocks, from the Yenisej to beyond the most southerly part of the Kara Sea, of the Gyda and Yalmal _tundras_ beds of sand of equal fineness, and at Vaygats Island and the southern part of Novaya Zemlya (to 73 N.L.) of limestone and beds of schist[88] which slope towards the sea with a steep escarpment three to fifteen metres high, but form, besides, the substratum of a level plain, full of small collections of water which is quite free of snow in summer. North of 73 again the west coast of the Kara Sea is occupied by mountains, which near Matotschkin are very high, and distributed in a confused ma.s.s of isolated peaks, but farther north become lower and take the form of a plateau.

Where the mountains begin, some few or only very inconsiderable collections of ice are to be seen, and the very mountain tops are in summer free of snow. Farther north glaciers commence, which increase towards the north in number and size, till they finally form a continuous inland-ice which, like those of Greenland and Spitzbergen, with its enormous ice-sheet, levels mountains and valleys, and converts the interior of the land into a wilderness of ice, and forms one of the fields for the formation of icebergs or glacier-iceblocks, which play so great a _role_ in sketches of voyages in the Polar seas. I have not myself visited the inland-ice on the northern part of Novaya Zemlya, but doubtless the experience I have previously gained during an excursion with Dr. Berggren on the inland-ice of Greenland in the month of July 1870, _after all the snow on it had melted_, and with Captain Palander on the inland-ice of North-East Land in the beginning of June 1873, _before any melting of snow had commenced_, is also applicable to the ice-wilderness of north Novaya Zemlya.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SECTION OF INLAND-ICE.

A. Open glacier-ca.n.a.l.

B. Snow-filled ca.n.a.l.

C. Ca.n.a.l concealed by a snow-vault.

D. Glacier-clefts. ]

As on Spitzbergen the ice-field here is doubtless interrupted by deep bottomless clefts, over which the snowstorms of winter throw fragile snow-bridges, which conceal the openings of the abysses so completely that one may stand close to their edge without having any suspicion that a step further is certain death to the man, who, without observing the usual precaution of being bound by a rope to his companions, seeks his way over the blinding-white, almost velvet-like, surface of this snow-field, hard packed indeed, but bound together by no firm crust. If a man, after taking necessary precautions against the danger of tumbling down into these creva.s.ses, betakes himself farther into the country in the hope that the apparently even surface of the snow will allow of long day's marches, he is soon disappointed in his expectations; for he comes to regions where the ice is everywhere crossed by narrow depressions, _ca.n.a.ls_, bounded by dangerous clefts, with perpendicular walls up to fifteen metres in height. One can cross these depressions only alter endless zigzag wanderings, at places where they have become filled with snow and thereby pa.s.sable. In summer again, when the snow has melted, the surface of the ice-wilderness has quite a different appearance. The snow has disappeared and the ground is now formed of a blue ice, which however is not clean, but everywhere rendered dirty by a grey argillaceous dust, carried to the surface of the glacier by wind and rain, probably from distant mountain heights. Among this clay, and even directly on the ice itself, there is a scanty covering of low vegetable organisms. The ice-deserts of the Polar lands are thus the habitat of a peculiar flora, which, insignificant as it appears to be, forms however an important condition for the issue of the conflict which goes on here, year after year, century after century, between the sun and the ice. For the dark clay and the dark parts of plants absorb the warm rays of the sun better than the ice, and therefore powerfully promote its melting. They eat themselves down in perpendicular cylindrical holes thirty to sixty centimetres in depth, and from a few millimetres to a whole metre in diameter. The surface of the ice is thus destroyed and broken up.

[Ill.u.s.tration: VIEW FROM THE INLAND-ICE OF GREENLAND. After a drawing by S. Berggren, 23rd July, 1870. ]

[Ill.u.s.tration: GREENLAND ICE FJORD. After a design drawn and lithographed by a Greenland Eskimo. ]

[Ill.u.s.tration: SLOWLY-ADVANCING GLACIER. At Foul Bay, on the west coast of Spitzbergen, after a photograph taken by A. Envall, 30th August, 1872. ]

[Ill.u.s.tration: GLACIER WITH STATIONARY FRONT. Udde Bay, on Novaya Zemlya, after a drawing by Hj. Theel (1875). ]

After the melting of the snow there appears besides a number of inequalities, and the clefts previously covered with a fragile snow-bridge now gape before the wanderer where he goes forward, with their bluish-black abysses, bottomless as far as we can depend on ocular evidence. At some places there are also to be found in the ice extensive shallow depressions, down whose sides innumerable rapid streams flow in beds of azure-blue ice, often of such a volume of water as to form actual rivers. They generally debouch in a lake situated in the middle of the depression. The lake has generally an underground outlet through a grotto-vault of ice several thousands of feet high. At other places a river is to be seen, which has bored itself a hole through the ice-sheet, down which it suddenly disappears with a roar and din which are heard far and wide, and at a little distance from it there is projected from the ice a column of water, which, like a geyser with a large intermittent jet in which the water is mixed with air, rises to a great height.

Now and then a report is heard, resembling that of a cannon shot fired in the interior of the icy ma.s.s. It is a new creva.s.se that has been formed, or if one is near the border of the ice-desert, an ice-block that has fallen down into the sea. For, like, ordinary collections of water, an ice-lake also has its outlet into the sea.

These outlets are of three kinds, viz., _ice-rapids_, in which the thick ice-sheet, split up and broken in pieces, is pressed forward at a comparatively high speed down a narrow steeply-sloping valley, where ice-blocks tumble on each other with a crashing noise and din, and from which true icebergs of giant-like dimensions are projected in hundreds and thousands; _broad; slowly-advancing glaciers_, which terminate towards the sea with an even perpendicular face, from which now and then considerable ice-blocks, but no true icebergs, fall down; and _smaller stationary glaciers_, which advance so slowly that the ice in the brim melts away about as fast as the whole ma.s.s of ice glides forward, and which thus terminate at the beach not with a perpendicular face but with a long ice-slope covered with clay, sand, and gravel.

The inland-ice on Novaya Zemlya is of too inconsiderable extent to allow of any large icebergs being formed. There are none such accordingly in the Kara Sea[89], and it is seldom that even a large glacier ice-block is to be met with drifting about.

The name ice-house, conferred on the Kara Sea by a famous Russian man of science, did not originate from the large number of icebergs[90], but from the fact that the covering of ice, which during winter, on account of the severity of the cold and the slight salinity of the surface-water, is immensely thick, cannot, though early broken up, be carried away by the marine currents and be scattered over a sea that is open even during winter[91]. Most of the ice formed during winter in the Kara Sea, and perhaps some of that which is drifted down from the Polar basin, is on the contrary heaped by the marine currents against the east coast of Novaya Zemlya, where during early summer it blocks the three sounds which unite the Kara Sea with the Atlantic. It was these ice-conditions which caused the failure of all the older north-east voyages and gave to the Kara Sea its bad report and name of ice-house. Now we know that it is not so dangerous in this respect as it was formerly believed to be--that the ice of the Kara Sea melts away for the most part, and that during autumn this sea is quite available for navigation.

In general our knowledge of the Kara Sea some decades back was not only incomplete, but also erroneous. It was believed that its animal life was exceedingly scanty, and that algae were absolutely wanting; no soundings had been taken elsewhere than close to the coast; and much doubt was thrown, not without reason, on the correctness of the maps. Now all this is changed to a great extent. The coast line, bordering on the sea, is settled on the maps; the ice-conditions, currents and depth of water in different parts of the sea are ascertained, and we know that the old ideas of its poverty in animals and plants are quite erroneous.

[Ill.u.s.tration: UMBELLULA FROM THE KARA SEA.

A. Polype stem entire, one-half the natural size.

B. Polype stem, upper part, one-and-a-half times the natural size. ]

In respect to depth the Kara Sea is distinguished by a special regularity, and by the absence of sudden changes. Along the east coast of Novaya Zemlya and Vaygats Island there runs a channel, up to 500 metres in depth, filled with cold salt-water, which forms the haunt of a fauna rich not only in individuals, but also in a large number of remarkable and rare types, as Umbellula, Elpidia, Alecto, asterids of many kinds, &c. Towards the east the sea-bottom rises gradually and then forms a plain lying 30 to 90 metres below the surface of the sea, nearly as level as the surface of the superinc.u.mbent water. The bottom of the sea in the south and west parts of it consists of clay, in the regions of Beli Ostrov of sand, farther north of gravel. Sh.e.l.ls of crustacea and pebbles are here often surrounded by bog-ore formations, resembling the figures on page 186. These also occur over an extensive area north-east of Port d.i.c.kson in such quant.i.ty that they might be used for the manufacture of iron, if the region were less inaccessible.

Even in the shallower parts of the Kara Sea the water at the bottom is nearly as salt as in the Atlantic Ocean, and all the year round cooled to a temperature of -2 to -2.7. The surface-water, on the contrary, is very variable in its composition, sometimes at certain places almost drinkable, and in summer often strongly heated. The remarkable circ.u.mstance takes place here that the surface water in consequence of its limited salinity freezes to ice if it be exposed to the temperature which prevails in the salt stratum of water next the bottom, and that it forms a deadly poison for many of the decapoda, worms, mussels, crustacea and asterids which crawl in myriads among the beds of clay or sand at the bottom.

At many places the loose nature of the bottom does not permit the existence of any algae, but in the neighbourhood of Beli Ostrov, Johannesen discovered extensive banks covered with "sea-gra.s.s"

(algae), and from the east coast of Novaya Zemlya Dr. Kjellman in 1875 collected no small number of algae[92], being thereby enabled to take exception to the old erroneous statements as to the nature of the marine flora. He has drawn up for this work a full account of the marine vegetation in the Kara Sea, which will be found further on.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ELPIDIA GLACIALIS (THeEL) FROM THE KARA SEA.

Magnified three times. A. Belly. B. Back.

MANGANIFEROUS IRON-ORE FORMATIONS FROM THE KARA SEA.

Half the natural size. ]

I shall now return to the account of our pa.s.sage across this sea. On this subject my journal contains the following notes:

_August 2nd._ Still glorious weather--no ice. The _Lena_ appears to wish to get away from the other vessels, and does not observe the flag which was hoisted as the signal agreed upon beforehand that her Captain should come on board, or at least bring his little vessel within hail. The _Fraser_ was therefore sent in pursuit, and succeeded in overtaking her towards night.

_August 3rd._ In the morning Captain Johannesen came on board the _Vega_. I gave him orders to take on board Dr. Almquist and Lieutenants Hovgaard and Nordquist, and go with them to Beli Ostrov, where they should have freedom for thirty-six hours to study the people, animals, and plants, as they pleased; the _Lena_ was then, if possible, to pa.s.s through the Sound between the island and Yalmal to Port d.i.c.kson, where the three other vessels should be found.

Almquist, Nordquist, and Hovgaard were already quite in order for the excursion; they went immediately on board the _Lena_, and were soon, thanks to the great power of the engine in proportion to the size of the vessel, far on their way.

In the course of the day we met with very open and rotten ice, which would only have been of use to us by its moderating effect on the sea, if it had not been accompanied by the usual attendant of the border of the ice, a thick fog, which however sometimes lightened.

Towards evening we came in sight of Beli Ostrov. This island, as seen from the sea, forms a quite level plain, which rises little above the surface of the water. The sea off the island is of an even depth, but so shallow, that at a distance of twenty to thirty kilometres from the sh.o.r.e there is only from seven to nine metres of water. According to a communication from Captain Schwanenberg, there is, however, a depth of three to four metres close to the north sh.o.r.e. Such a state of things, that is, a uniform depth, amounting near the sh.o.r.e to from four to ten metres, but afterwards increasing only gradually and remaining unchanged over very extensive areas, is very common in the Arctic regions, and is caused by the ice-mud-work which goes on there nearly all the year round. Another remarkable effect of the action of the ice is that all the blocks of stone to be found in the sea next the beach are forced up on land. The beach itself is formed accordingly at many places, for instance at several points in Matotschkin Sound, of a nearly continuous stone rampart going to the sea level, while in front of it there is a quite even sea bottom without a fragment of stone.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SECTION FROM THE SOUTH COAST OF MATOTSCHKIN SOUND.

Showing the origin of Stone-ramparts at the beach. ]

_August 4th._ In the morning a gentle heaving indicated that the sea was again free of ice, at least over a considerable s.p.a.ce to windward. Yesterday the salinity in the water was already diminished and the amount of clay increased; now the water after being filtered is almost drinkable. It has a.s.sumed a yellowish-grey colour and is nearly opaque, so that the vessel appears to sail in clay mud. We are evidently in the area of the Ob-Yenisej current. The ice we sailed through yesterday probably came from the Gulf of Obi, Yenisej or Pjasina. Its surface was dirty, not clean and white like the surface of glacier-ice or the sea-ice that has never come in contact with land or with muddy river-water. Off the large rivers the ice, when the snow has melted, is generally covered with a yellow layer of clay. This clay evidently consists of mud, which has been washed down by the river-water and been afterwards thrown up by the swell on the snow-covered ice. The layer of snow acts as a filter and separates the mud from the water. The former, therefore, after the melting of the snow may form upon true sea-ice a layer of dirt, containing a large number of minute organisms which live only in fresh water.