The Russellville Democrat., 1879-11-06
4 STRANGE COUNTRY.
Islands Heaped with Fossil Remains Na-
 lives Naked in the Ice.
New York Tribune

significance of the daring voyage of the Vega along the north coast of Asia, with reference to navigation, IS fully known. Prof Nordenskjold has not yet reported his views upon that fact. For instance he says he has discovered that the coast of Siberia, west of Lena, is barren plain, devoid of trees, in the navigation to which an encounter with impenetrable ice-hows is generally to be feared. There are no great islands out to sea there to prevent the wind from driving the ice down toward the land; and there are vast distances where few rivers empty into the Polar Ocean, and, by their warm current, preserve space of open water along the shore. For several hun dred miles in the vicinity of the Lena, however great rivers pour into the ocean and large islands lie of to thenorthward, and there is almost no ice along the shore. East of the Kolima, toward Behr- ing Strait, there are no great riyers and although the climate is milder and the woodlands creep down almost to the sea, the frozen foes crowd closer to the shore and in the fall and winter they are liable to bar the way to shipping. They gave Nordenskjold great trouble, and on the 27th of September they left him enchain- ed in solid ice few miles from the open water north of Behring Strait, and only l30 miles from the strait itself They kept him there eight weary months. While communicating these facts, the daring Swede has not yet published his conclusions thereupon
 If he has left ns in the dark in regard to the commercial navigation of the Siber- ian coast, however, he has at least taken the pains to reveal the interesting na- ture of the region he has just passed through. When the ice closed in upon the Vega and left the stout ship enslaved in the northern solitudes Prof Norden- skiold wrote letter to Dr. Oscar Dickson the main contributor toward the fitting out of the expedition, describing the scenes alonfi the coast The letter, dis patched on the 20th of February, has at last reached it's destination, and is now published in the London Tdaddrd The letter calls attention, in the first place, to a group of islands which are very re- markable from scientific point of view These islands, the new Siberian, open the book of the history of the world at a new place. The ground there is strewn with wonderful fossils. Whole hills are covered with the bones of the mammoth rhinoceros, horses, uri, bison, oxen, sheep, etc. The sea washes up ivory up on the shores. In this group is possible to be found the solution of the question of the ancestry of the Indian elephant, and important facts with regard to the vertebrates which existed at the time of mans first appearance upon earth, How 1 came horses and sheep in region now located in the fetters of an eternal win ter, uninhabited by man, not now sup porting animal life in any form, and al
 most impossible of access? Prof Nord- enskiold was unable to solve the question himself, and he suggests that it is of the utmost importance to science to send a l light draught steamer to these islands for a thorough exploration.
 At Cape SenelagskoH the Vega passed the point where the Siberian merchant Schalawrof ended his persistent and in- trepid attempts to reach Behring Strait from the river Lena, by lonely death, with his whole company of men in hut on the snow-clad shore. Upon rounding this cape Nordenskiold met the first na- | tives seen along that whole coast. They spoke tongue utterly unknown. Not comprehensible sentence could they ut | ter in any European language. They lived in tents pitched on the sand-banks separating the lagoons peculiar to this | coast from the sea. A hardy, jovial, | handsome race, fur-clad, keen at barter, | ignorant of the value of money, and pre- ferring red flannel shirt. few brass buttons and the piece of tin foil on cake of soap to golden rubles and silver | coins; they live an active and healthy ! life; use stone and bone implements, and are without trace of religion in their 1 customs Their tents are double, one within the other. The children are to- l tally naked within the inner tent, and were often seen outside, running about ! on the frozen ground, with the temporal 1 ture down to thirtytwo degrees. The women wear nothing when within the tents except q girdle and the men have ] shaven heads. A remarkable similarity
 was noticed between the implements, 1 dresses and costumes of these people and those of the Esquimaux and North American Indians. These people are the Tschuktschers. Though armed with stone and bone weapons, and though
 wild and itinerant. they evidently have a history. They drove off the original inhabitants of the region 200 years ago, Opkilons, whose houses, places of sacri- flee, circles of moss-grown bear-skulls are still to be found almost everywhere on t lllt NbtSi. i4ltuts ttNOltN
 his attention to learning their language. These Indians arc on the original high
 way between the cradle of the human
 race and the home of the aborigines of the northern part of North America and
 it is not thought that the resemblance between them and the Greenlanders is accidental. The arrival of the Vega on the Tschultscher coast was an event like
 the landing of Columbus in the new 4 world. 1t was an unprecedented occur
 renee, and made sensation throughout
 the region.
 'ia East of the Lena Prof Nordenskjold
 found on the shore no scattered blocks of
 stone, such as are distributed over con
 tinent by glaciers, and such as are found
 elsewhere in Siberia. This fact was held
 to point to the absence of land out to sea,
 north of the coast, and it excites anti
 cipations as 10 the possible discoveries
 which are to be made by the. Jeanette
 Not the least of the peculiarities of this
 strange region is the fact that the coast
 appears to be rising slowly out of the
 sea The inhabitants have to shift their
 villages at times nearer to the edge ofthe
 water, which is gradually reeeding from
 them. Prof, Nordenskjold's letter Is full
 of facts like these, and the scientific
 world will wait with impatienee the
 further publication of the. results of his discoveries. N