Part 12 (1/2)
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 s.h.i.+p _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. ]