The Voyage Of The Vega Round Asia And Europe Part 43

The common idea, that all animal life ceases, when the interior animal heat sinks under the freezing-point of water, is besides not quite correct. This is proved by the abundant evertebrate life which is found at the bottom of the Polar Sea, even where the water all the year round has a temperature of -2 to -2.7 C, and by the remarkable observation made during the wintering at Mussel Bay in 1872-73, that small Crustacea can live by millions in water-drenched snow at a temperature of from -2 to -10.2 C.

On this point I say in my account of the expedition of 1872-73:--[266]

[Ill.u.s.tration: BEETLES FROM PITLEKAJ.

_a._ _Carabus truncaticollis_ ESCHSCHOLTZ.

(One and a half the natural size.) _b._ _Alophus sp._ (One find two-thirds the natural size.) ]

"If during winter one walks along the beach on the snow which at ebb is dry, but at flood tide is more or less drenched through by sea-water, there rises at every step one takes, an exceedingly intense, beautiful, bluish-white flash of light, which in the spectroscope gives a one-coloured labrador-blue spectrum. This beautiful flash of light arises from the snow, before completely dark, when it is touched. The flash lasts only a few moments after the snow is left untouched, and is so intense, that it appears as if a sea of fire would open at every step a man takes.

It produces indeed a peculiar impression on a dark and stormy winter day (the temperature of the air was sometimes in the neighbourhood of the freezing-point of mercury) to walk along in this mixture of snow and flame, which at every step one takes splashes about in all directions, shining with a light so intense that one is ready to fear that his shoes or clothes will take fire."

[Ill.u.s.tration: PHOSPh.o.r.eSCENT CRUSTACEAN FROM MUSSEL BAY.

_Metridia armata_, A. Boeck.

1. A male magnified twelve times.

2. A foot of the second pair. ]

On a closer examination it appeared that this light-phenomenon proceeded from a minute crustacean, which according to the determination of Prof W. LILLJEBORG belongs to the species _Metridia armata_, A. Boeck, and whose proper element appears to be snow-sludge drenched with salt water cooled considerably under 0 C. First when the temperature sinks below -10 does the power of this small animal to emit light appear to cease.

But as the element in which they live, the surface of the snow nearest the beach, is in the course of the winter innumerable times cooled twenty degrees more, it appears improbable that these minute animals suffer any harm by being exposed to a cold of from -20 to -30, a very remarkable circ.u.mstance, as they certainly do not possess in their organism any means of raising the internal animal heat in any noteworthy degree above the temperature of the surrounding medium.

We did not see these animals at Pitlekaj, but a similar phenomenon, though on a smaller scale, was observed by Lieut. BELLOT[267] during a sledge-journey in Polar America. He believed that the light arose from decaying organic matter.

[Ill.u.s.tration: REITINACKA. (After a photograph by L. Palander.) ]

After the Chukches had told us that an exceedingly delicious black fish was to be found in the fresh-water lagoon at Yinretlen, which is wholly shut off from the sea and in winter freezes to the bottom, we made an excursion thither on the 8th July. Our friends at the encampment were immediately ready to help us, especially the women, Artanga, and the twelve-year-old, somewhat spoiled _Vega_-favourite Reitinacka. They ran hither and thither like light-hearted and playful children, to put the net in order and procure all that was needed for the fishing. We had carried with us from the vessel a net nine metres long and one deep. Along its upper border floats were fixed, to the lower was bound a long pole, to which were fastened five sticks, by which the pole was sunk to the bottom of the lagoon, a little way from the sh.o.r.e. Some natives wading in the cold water then pushed the net towards the land with sticks and the pole, which glided easily forward over the bottom of the lake, overgrown as it was with gra.s.s. In order to keep the fish from swimming away, the women waded at the sides of the net with their _pesks_ much tucked up, screaming and making noise, and now and then standing in order to indicate by a violent shaking that the water was very cold. The catch was abundant. We caught by hundreds a sort of fish altogether new to us, of a type which we should rather have expected to find in the marshes of the Equatorial regions than up here in the north. The fish were transported in a dog sledge to the vessel, where part of them was placed in spirits for the zoologists and the rest fried, not without a protest from our old cook, who thought that the black slimy fish looked remarkably nasty and ugly. But the Chukches were right it was a veritable delicacy, in taste somewhat resembling eel, but finer and more fleshy. These fish were besides as tough to kill as eels, for after lying an hour and a half in the air they swam, if replaced in the water, about as fast as before. How this species of fish pa.s.ses the winter is still more enigmatical than the winter life of the insects. For the lagoon has no outlet and appears to freeze completely to the bottom. The ma.s.s of water which was found in autumn in the lagoon therefore still lay there as an unmelted layer of ice not yet broken up, which was covered with a stratum of flood water several feet deep, by which the neighbouring gra.s.sy plains were inundated. It was in this flood water that the fishing took place.

After our return home the Yinretlen fish was examined by Professor F.A.

SMITT in Stockholm, who stated, in an address which he gave on it before the Swedish Academy of Sciences, that it belongs to a new species to which Professor Smitt gave the name _Dallia delicatissima_. A closely allied form occurs in Alaska, and has been named _Dallia pectoralis_, Bean. These fishes are besides nearly allied to the dog-fish (_Umbra Krameri_, Fitzing), which is found in the Neusidler and Platten Lakes, and in grottos and other water-filled subterranean cavities in southern Europe. It is remarkable that the European species are considered uneatable, and even regarded with such loathing that the fishermen throw them away as soon as caught because they consider them poisonous, and fear that their other fish would be destroyed by contact with it. They also consider it an affront if one asks them for dog-fish.[268] If we had known thus we should not now have been able to certify that _Dallia delicatissima_, SMITT, truly deserves its name.

[Ill.u.s.tration: DOG FISH FROM THE CHUKCH PENINSULA. _Dallia delicatissima_, Smitt. Half the natural size. ]

In the beginning of July the ground became free of snow, and we could now form an idea of how the region looked in summer in which we had pa.s.sed the winter. It was not just attractive. Far away in the south the land rose with terrace-formed escarpments to a hill, called by us Table Mount, which indeed was pretty high, but did not by any steep or bold cliffs yield any contribution to such a picturesque landscape border as is seldom wanting on the portions of Spitzbergen, Greenland, and the north part of Novaya Zemlya which I have visited, south Novaya Zemlya has at least at most places bold picturesque sh.o.r.e-cliffs. If I except the rocky promontory at Yinretlen, where a cliff inhabited by ravens rises boldly out of the sea, and some cliffs situated farther in along the beach of Kolyutschin Bay, the sh.o.r.e in the immediate neighbourhood of our wintering station consisted everywhere only of a low beach formed of coa.r.s.e sand. Upon this sand, which was always frozen, there ran parallel with the sh.o.r.e a broad bank or dune, 50 to 100 metres broad, of fine sand, not water-drenched in summer, and accordingly not bound together by ice in winter. It is upon this dune that the Chukches erect their tents. Marks of them are therefore met with nearly everywhere, and the dune accordingly is everywhere bestrewed with broken implements or refuse from the chase. Indeed it may be said without exaggeration that the whole north-eastern coast of the Siberian Polar Sea is bordered with a belt of sweepings and refuse of various kinds.

The coa.r.s.e sand which underlies the dune is, as has been stated, continually frozen, excepting the shallow layer which is thawed in summer. It is here that the "frost formation" of Siberia begins, that is to say, the continually frozen layer of earth, which, with certain interruptions, extends from the Polar Sea far to the south, not only under the treeless _tundra_, but also under splendid forests and cultivated corn-fields.[269] To speak correctly, however, the frozen earth begins a little from the sh.o.r.e _under the sea_.[270]

For on the coast the bottom often consists of hard frozen sand--"rock-hard sand," as the dredgers were accustomed to report.

The frost formation in Siberia thus embraces not only terrestrial but also marine deposits, together with pure clear layers of ice, these last being formed in the mouths of rivers or small lakes by the ice of the river or lake frozen to the bottom being in spring covered with a layer of mud sufficiently thick to protect the ice from melting during summer. The frozen sea-bottom again appears to have been formed by the sand washed down by the rivers having carried with it when it sank some adhering water from the warm and almost fresh surface strata. At the sea-bottom the sand surrounded by _fresh_ water freezing at 0 C thus met a stratum of _salt_ water whose temperature was two or three degrees under 0, in consequence of which the grains of sand froze fast together. That it may go on thus we had a direct proof when in spring we sank from the _Vega_ the bodies of animals to be skeletonised by the crustacea that swarmed at the sea-bottom. If the sack, pierced at several places, in which the skeleton was sunk was first allowed to fill with the slightly salt water from the surface and then sink rapidly to the bottom, it was found to be so filled with ice, when it was taken up a day or two afterwards, that the crustacea were prevented from getting at the flesh. We had already determined to abandon the convenient cleansing process, when I succeeded in finding means to avoid the inconvenience, this was attained by drawing the sack, while some distance under the surface, violently hither and thither so that the surface water carried down with it was got rid of.

Frozen clay and ooze do not appear to occur at the bottom of the Polar Sea. Animal life on the frozen sand was rather scanty, but algae were met with there though in limited numbers.

From the sh.o.r.e a plain commences, which is studded with extensive lagoons and a large number of small lakes. In spring this plain is so water-drenched and so crossed by deep rapid snow-rivulets, that it is difficult, often impossible, to traverse it. Immediately after the disappearance of the snow a large number of birds at all events had settled there. The Lapp sparrow had chosen a tuft projecting from the marshy ground on which to place its beautiful roofed dwelling, the waders in the neighbourhood had laid their eggs in most cases directly on the water-drenched moss without trace of a nest, and on tufts completely surrounded by the spring floods we met with the eggs of the loom, the long-tailed duck, the eider and the goose. Already during our stay, the water ran away so rapidly, that places, which one day were covered with a watery mirror, over which a boat of light draught could be rowed forward, were changed the next day to wet marshy ground, covered with yellow gra.s.s-straws from the preceding year. At many places the gra.s.sy sward had been torn up by the ice and carried away, leaving openings sharply defined by right lines in the meadows, resembling a newly worked off place in a peat moss.

In summer there must be found here green meadows covered with pretty tall gra.s.s, but at the time of our departure vegetation had not attained any great development, and the flowers that could be discovered were few. I presume however that a beautiful Arctic flower-world grows up here, although, in consequence of the exposure of the coast-country to the north winds, poor in comparison with the vegetation in sheltered valleys in the interior of the country.

There are found there too pretty high bushes, but on the other hand trees are represented at Pitlekaj only by a low species of willow which creeps along the ground.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CRAB FROM THE SEA NORTH OF BEHRING'S STRAITS.

_Chionoecetes opilio_ Kroyer. Half the natural size. ]

[Ill.u.s.tration: TREE FROM PITLEKAJ. _Salix arctica_, PALLAS.

(Natural size.) ]

We did not, however, see even this "wood" in full leaf. For in order that full summer heat may begin it is necessary, even here, that the ice break up, and this longed-for moment appeared to be yet far distant. The ice indeed became clear of snow in the beginning of July, and thus the slush and the flood water were lessened, which during the preceding weeks had collected on its surface and made it very difficult to walk from the vessel to land. Now, again pretty dry-shod and on a hard blue ice-surface, we could make excursions in the neighbourhood of the vessel. We had however to be cautious. The former cracks had in many places been widened to greater or smaller openings by the flood water running down, and where a thin black object--a little gravel, a piece of tin from the preserved provision-cases, &c.--had lain on the ice there were formed round holes, resembling the seal-holes which I saw in spring laid bare after the melting of the snow on the ice in the fjords of Spitzbergen. The strength of the ice besides was nearly unaltered, and on the 16th July a heavily loaded double sledge could still be driven from the vessel to the sh.o.r.e.

On the 17th the "year's ice" next the land at last broke up, so that an extensive land clearing arose. But the ground-ices were still undisturbed, and between these the "year's ice" even lay so fast, that all were agreed that at least fourteen days must still pa.s.s before there was any prospect of getting free.

When on the 16th the reindeer-Chukch Yettugin came on board, and, talking of the collection of whale-bones in which we had been engaged some days before, informed us that there was a mammoth bone at his tent, and that a mammoth tusk stuck out at a place where the spring floods had cut into the bank of a river which flows from Table Mount to Riraitinop, I therefore did not hesitate to undertake an excursion to the place. Our absence from the vessel was reckoned at five or six days. It was my intention to go up the river in a skin boat belonging to Notti to the place where the mammoth tusk was, and thence to proceed on foot to Yettugin's tent. Yettugin a.s.sured us that the river was sufficiently deep for the flat-bottomed boat. But when we had travelled a little way into the country it appeared that the river had fallen considerably during the day that Yettugin pa.s.sed on the vessel. So certain was I however that the ice-barrier would not yet for a long time be broken up, that I immediately after my return from the excursion, which had thus been rendered unsuccessful, made arrangements for a new journey in order with other means of transport to reach the goal.

While we were thus employed the forenoon of the 18th pa.s.sed. We sat down to dinner at the usual time, without any suspicion that the time of our release was now at hand. During dinner it was suddenly observed that the vessel was moving slightly Palander rushed on deck, saw that the ice was in motion, ordered the boiler fires to be lighted, the engine having long ago been put in order in expectation of this moment, and in two hours, by 3:30 P.M. on the 18th July, the _Vega_, decked with flags, was under steam and sail again on the way to her destination.

We now found that a quite ice-free "lead" had arisen between the vessel and the open water next the sh.o.r.e, the ice-fields west of our ground-ices having at the same time drifted farther out to sea, so that the clearing along the sh.o.r.e had widened enough to give the _Vega_ a sufficient depth of water. The course was shaped at first for the N.W.

in order to make a _detour_ round the drift-ice fields lying nearest us, then along the coast for Behring's Straits. On the height at Yinretlen there stood as we pa.s.sed, the men, women, and children of the village all a.s.sembled, looking out to sea at the fire-horse--the Chukches would perhaps say fire-dog or fire-reindeer--which carried their friends of the long winter months for ever away from their cold, bleak sh.o.r.es.

Whether they shed tears, as they often said they would we could not see from the distance which now parted us from them. But it may readily have happened that the easily moved disposition of the savage led them to do this. Certain it is that in many of us the sadness of separation mingled with the feelings of tempestuous joy which now rushed through the breast of every _Vega_ man.

The _Vega_ met no more ice-obstacles on her course to the Pacific.

Serdze Kamen was pa.s.sed at 1:30 A.M. of the 19th, but the fog was so dense that we could not clearly distinguish the contours of the land. Above the bank of mist at the horizon we could only see that this cape, so famous in the history of the navigation of the Siberian Polar Sea, is occupied by high mountains, split up, like those east of the Bear Islands, into ruin-like gigantic walls or columns. The sea was mirror-bright and nearly clear of ice, a walrus or two stuck up his head strangely magnified by the fog in our neighbourhood, seals swam round us in large numbers, and flocks of birds, which probably breed on the steep cliffs of Serdze Kamen, swarmed round the vessel. The trawl net repeatedly brought up from the sea bottom a very abundant yield of worms, molluscs, crustacea, &c. A zoologist would here have had a rich working field.

The fog continued, so that on the other side of Serdze Kamen we lost all sight of land, until on the morning of the 20th dark heights again began to peep out. These were the mountain summits of the easternmost promontory of Asia, East Cape, an unsuitable name, for which I have subst.i.tuted on the map that of Cape Deschnev after the gallant Cossack who for the first time 230 years ago circ.u.mnavigated it.

By 11 A.M. we were in the middle of the sound which unites the North Polar Sea with the Pacific, and from this point the _Vega_ greeted the old and new worlds by a display of flags and the firing of a Swedish salute.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A.L. PALANDER. ]

Thus finally was reached the goal towards which so many nations had struggled, all along from the time when Sir Hugh Willoughby, with the firing of salutes from cannon and with hurrahs from the festive-clad seamen, in the presence of an innumerable crowd of jubilant men certain of success, ushered in the long series of North-East voyages. But, as I have before related, then hopes were grimly disappointed. Sir Hugh and all his men perished as pioneers of England's navigation and of voyages to the ice-enc.u.mbered sea which bounds Europe and Asia on the north. Innumerable other marine expeditions have since then trodden the same path, always without success, and generally with the sacrifice of the vessel and of the life and health of many brave seamen. Now for the first time, after the lapse of 336 years, and when most men experienced in sea matters had declared the undertaking impossible, was the North-East Pa.s.sage at last achieved. This has taken place, thanks to the discipline, zeal, and ability of our man-of-war's-men and their officers, without the sacrifice of a single human life, without sickness among those who took part in the undertaking, without the slightest damage to the vessel, and under circ.u.mstances which show that the same thing may be done again in most, perhaps in all years, in the course of a few weeks. It may be permitted us to say, that under such circ.u.mstances it was with pride we saw the blue-yellow flag rise to the mast-head and heard the Swedish salute in the sound where the old and the new worlds reach hands to each other. The course along which we sailed is indeed no longer required as a commercial route between Europe and China. But it has been granted to this and the preceding Swedish expeditions to open a sea to navigation, and to confer on half a continent the possibility of communicating by sea with the oceans of the world.

[Footnote 258: And h.e.l.lant, _Anmarkningar om en helt ovanlig kold i Torne (Remarks on a Quite Unusual Cold in Torne_), Vet.-akad. Handl.

1759, p. 314, and 1760, p. 312. In the latter paper h.e.l.lant himself shows that the column of mercury in a strongly cooled thermometer for a few moments _sinks farther_ when the ball is rapidly heated.

This is caused by the expansion of the gla.s.s when it is warmed before the heat has had time to communicate itself to the quicksilver in the ball, and therefore of course can happen only at a temperature above the freezing-point of mercury. ]

[Footnote 259: That mercury solidifies in cold was discovered by some academicians in St. Petersburg on the 25th December, 1759, and caused at the time a great sensation, because by this discovery various erroneous ideas were rooted out which the chemists had inherited from the alchemists, and which were based on the supposed property of mercury of being at the same time a metal and a fluid. ]

[Footnote 260: During the market the Russian priest endeavours to make proselytes, he succeeds, too, by distributing tobacco to induce one or two to subject themselves to the ceremony of baptism. No true conversion, however, can scarcely come in question on account of the difference of language. As an example of how this goes on, the following story of Wrangel's may be quoted. At the market a young Chukch had been prevailed upon, by a gift of some pounds of tobacco, to allow himself to be baptised. The ceremony began in presence of a number of spectators. The new convert stood quiet and pretty decent in his place till he should step down into the baptismal font, a large wooden tub filled with ice-cold water. In this, according to the baptismal ritual, he ought to dip three times. But to this he would consent on no condition. He shook his head constantly, and brought forward a large number of reasons against it, which none understood. After long exhortations by the interpreter, in which promises of tobacco probably again played the princ.i.p.al part, he finally gave way and sprang courageously down into the ice-cold water, but immediately jumped up again trembling with cold; crying, "My tobacco! my tobacco!" All attempts to induce him to renew the bath were fruitless, the ceremony was incomplete, and the Chukch only half baptised. ]

[Footnote 261: In Lapland, too, the melting of the snow in spring is brought about in no inconsiderable degree by similar causes, _i.e._ by dry warm winds which come from the fells. On this point the governor of Norbotten lan, H.A. Widmark, has sent me the following interesting letter--"However warm easterly and southerly winds may be in the parts of Swedish Lapland lying next the Joleen mountains, they are not able in any noteworthy degree to melt the ma.s.ses of snow which fall in those regions during the winter months. On the other hand there comes every year, if we may rely on the statements of the Lapps, in the end of April or beginning of May, from the west (_i.e._ from the fells), a wind so strong and at the same time so warm, that in quite a short time--six to ten hours--it breaks up the snow-ma.s.ses, makes them shrink together, forces the mountain sides from their snow covering, and changes the snow which lies on the ice of the great fell lakes to water. I have myself been out on the fells making measurements on two occasions when this wind came. On one occasion I was on the Great Lule water in the neighbourhood of the so-called Great Lake Fall. The night had been cold but the day became warm. Up to 1 o'clock P.M. it was calm, but immediately after the warm westerly wind began to blow, and by 6 o'clock P.M. all the snow on the ice was changed to water, in which we went wading to the knees. The Lapps in general await these warm westerly winds before they go to the fells in spring. Until these winds begin there is no pasture there for their reindeer herds." ]

[Footnote 262: I do not include _La Recherche's_ wintering in 1838-39 at Bosekop, in the northernmost part of Norway, as it took place in a region which is all the year round inhabited by hundreds of Europeans. During this expedition very splendid auroras were seen, and the studies of them by LOITIN, BRAVAIS, LILLIEHooK, and SILJESTRooM, are among the most important contributions to a knowledge of the aurora we possess, while we have to thank the draughtsmen of the expedition for exceedingly faithful and masterly representations of the phenomenon. ]

[Footnote 263: The common eider (_S. mollissima_, L.) is absent here, or at least exceedingly rare. ]

[Footnote 264: During the expedition of 1861, when we were shut up by ice in Treurenberg Bay on Spitzbergen (79 57' N.L.) the first flower (_Saxifraga oppositifolia_, L.), was pulled on the 22nd June. After the wintering in 1872-73, Palander and I during our journey round North-east Land, saw the first flower on the same species of saxifrage as early as the 15th June, in the bottom of Wahlenberg Bay (79 46' N.L.) ]

[Footnote 265: For the sake of completeness, I shall here also enumerate the plants which Dr. Kjellman found at Pitlekaj. Those marked with an * either themselves occur in Scandinavia or are represented by nearly allied forms.

Leucanthemum arctic.u.m (L.) DC.

Artemisia arctica LESS.

* ,, vulgaris L. f. Tilesii LEDEB.

Cineraria frigida RICHARDS.

* ,, pal.u.s.tris L. f. congesta HOOK.

* Antennaria alpina (L.) R. BR. f. Friesiana TRAUTV.

* Petasites frigida.

* Saussurea alpina (L.) DC. f. angustifolia (DC.) * Taraxac.u.m officinale WEB.

Valeriana capitata PALL.

Gentiana glauca PALL.