Traveller.

Alexandra Herald and Central Otago Gazette, Issue 440, 8 September 1904, Page 7

Traveller.

TREASURE ISLANDS Ij< THE POLAR SEA. "''

PARAGRAPHS appoar in the papers from time to time, and down to the present year of grace, about a wealth of mammoth-ivory on the desert coasts and islands of Northern Siberia; but. many people seem to regard such tales as more or less fabulous, and may be glad to have a connected account of what is really known about New Siberia and its mammoth tusks.

On June 13,1881, the Amerioaa steamer 'Jeannette' was crushed by the ice, and sank in the Arctic Ocean to the north of Siberia. This disaster occurred at a considerable distance to the north-east of the New Siberian Islands, which lie in the Polar Sea, about two hundred miles to the north of the mouth of the Lena, The crew of the ' Jeannette,' under Captain Do Long, escaped in boats, and attempted to reach the Siberian coast; but before they reached the mainland, a gale divided them into two companies. One party reached the Russian settlements ; but the other, under Oaptain De Long, wandered among the icy wastes' in the delta of the Lena, and ultimately in this dreary wilderness all perished except two seamen. Their sorrowing companions afterwards found their bodies, and reverently buried them. This melancholy disaster drew attention €o the New Siberian Islands, and interest in them has been further excited by thb projects of Dr Nansen. This gallant explorer intended to put his vessel, the 'Pram,' into winter quarters amidst the New Siberian Islands, and there to pass the coming winter, previous to commencing his great drift towards the North Pole. Altering his plans, he determined to winter in the delta of the Lena. But it is not the connection of the New Siberian' Islands with the sinking of the 'Jeannette,' or with the voyage of Nansen, that gives to them their chief interest, but the. fact that they contain, in extraordinary abundance, relics of a world which has long passed away. Here, amidst icy solitudes, and surrounded by a sea covered with floating icebergs, wrapped for months of the year in perfect darkness, illuminated only by the red glare of the Aurora, there has been found a mine of wealth which constitute these dreary , islands perfect treasure-houses in tho frozen .ocean. Few stretches of the Polar Sea are more dismal and dangerous than that' : portion of it which lies to the north of Siberia. For eight months in the year it is fast frozen, and its surface then presents great sheets of ice, which are in many places crossed by. long icy ridges, or heaped up into towering hummocks of ice. In the summer, when the ice-sheets have melted, the navigation is dangerous in the extreme. Fleets of monstrous icebergs, of the most fantastic forms, float through the water, and often when gales arise, these great icy masses are hurled against each other with; iterrific force and thundering roar. Along the low shore icebergs lie stranded in vast numbers ; and the coasts,of the islands are surroundedby sheets of ice, which extend far out into the sea,, and make landing very.difficult. During the brief summer, show-storms are of constant occurrence; and the icy winds are of such keenness that it is difficult to face, them, and the birds often fall on the ground dead through the cold. To the north-east of the New Siberian Islands vast masses, of packed ice occur,' which, are never melted, and it was amidst these fields of everlasting ice that the ' Jeannette ' was destroyed. The honour of discovering and of survey-, ing this icy sea belongs to the Russians, for, : until Nordenskiold's voyage, other European nations sailed no farther than the Kara Sea, where they were stopped, either by the cold or by the immense masses of floating ice. The Russians, however, accustomed _to jendure the severest cold, voyaged along the whole northern coast of Siberia, and descended., the Obi and Lena in vessels constructed at;; Tobolsk and Irkutsk ; and from the mouths of these great rivers theyexplored the coasts' in, all directions. The hardships encountered by the Russians : in these voyages we're very~ great; often' whole parties died from hunger and cold, and their little' vessels were frequently wrecked amidst the icy solitudes. The earliest voyages undertaken were made by traders for the discovery of valuable furs ; and on land as well as on sea the fur-hunters carried on extensive explorations all through the seventeenth century. About the year 183-1, however, more scientific expeditions were undertaken, and the reign of the Empress Anna marked the commencement of a new era in Siberian discovery. Larger vessels were built, the coasts were carefully surveyed, and scientific examinations were carried on throughout the whole extent of the voyages.

For a long time before this, the Russians had known of the vast amount of bones of the fossil elephant—the Mammoth—which abounded all over Northern Siberia, and anextensive trade in fossil ivory had been carried on for a considerable period. But up to this time no authentic account of the discovery of these great fur-clad elephants' bodies had been received. Some declared that the mighty mammoth lived underground in vast caverns, and that it came forth only at night; others affirmed that it wandered along the shores of the icy sea and fed on the dead bodies ; and others, again, said that it was to be seen on the banks, of lonely lakes in the uncertain light of early d'awn, but that as soon as it was discerned, it plunged into the water and disappeared. Whilst voyaging along. the shores o Siberia, the Russians from time to time caught glimpses of islands in the sea far to .the north ; but none landed on them or laid them.down on the map with accuracy. In. 1760 a Yakut named Eterikan saw a large island to the north-east of the mouth of the Lena, and his account .raised the interest of the fur-hunters. Amongst these zealous traders, none was more active and more successful than an adventurer Liakoff or Liachov," who for a long time had been collecting mammoths' bones and tusks on the barren plains of Northern Siberia. In 1750 Liakoff had gathered great quantities of this fossil ivory from the dreary wastes between the rivers Chotanga and Anadyr; and during his wanderings he had heard vague rumours of islands in the Arctic Ocean. In the spring of 1770 he was at Svaiatoi Noss—or the Holy Cape—a bold promontory running out into the Polar Sea, about two hundred miles east of the mouth of the Lena. This headland had long been the terror of the Russian navigators, and they had declared it was impossible to sail it, owing to the enormous masses of ice which were piled up against its cliffs, and to the sheets and hummocks of ice which stretched out from its extremity for a long distance into the sea. But in 1739, Demetrius Lapteff doubled the dreaded headland, and sailed away to the east along the icy shore as far as the mouth of the Kolyma. When Liakoff was at the Holy Cape, the ocean was fast frozen, and. presented a dreary prospect of ice, ridged here and there by gigantic icy furrows and hummocks. As he looked over the vast frozen expanse, he saw a long line of black objects approaching oyer the ice from the north,

aud»perceivipg"that they yyore reindeer,"lie concluded that they -were returning to Siberia from some^.unkriownland,. to the liorthv-;'' He at once Started in -a- 'sledge drawhJhy"dogs over tjtfe ice; and"after he had the reindeer for sixty milosy:h>came~ to'an island, where he passod the.C,nights" Kcxt day, he" followed the tradks'H'tb the north,,sand discovered another island smaller than? the first. The reindeer track still continued to the north ; but immense hummocks of ice rendered the further. progress of the bold explorer impossible. Liakoff obtained from the Russian Government permission-to call the islands by his name, and—what was far more important—he obtained the solo right to collect mammoths' bones and the skins of stone-foxes in the newly discovered islands.

> Three years afterwards he revisited the islands,. accompanied by a frieiid named Protodiakonoff, and as it was now summer, they made the voyago in a five-oared boat. They found the first island to bo simply packed full of the bones and tusks of mammoths, and Liakoff's joy at the discovery of this vast store of fossil ivory may be imagined. Then they voyaged to the next island, where they found cliffs of solid ice. Leaving this, they steered boldly to tho north, and after a voyage of one hundred miles, they reached a large island (afterwards named Kotelnoi), which was also full of the remains of fossil elephants (mammoths). For thirty years Liakoff enjoyed the complete /monopoly of carrying away those wonderful stores of ivory. Hi 3 agents and workmen went every year to the islands in sledges and boats, and on the first of the islands he had discovered they built huts and formed a great magazine. In 1775 the Russian Government, hearing of the riches of the islands, sent ChwbiriofiV a surveyor, to examine them. He found that the first of the islands—containing the huts-of the ivory.diggers—was of considerable size, and contained such amazing quantities of the tusks and teeth of' elephants, that it seemed to be composed of these remains, cemented together with sand and gravel! In the middle of the island was a lake wiih banks formed of slopes of solid ice, and in the brief summer, these ice-banks split open by the j action of tho sun; and on looking down into these great cracks, it could be seen that, they were, full ,of. the tusks of elephants and of tho horns of buffaloes I