The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1879-10-23
The Nordenskjold Expedition. Some
Remarkable Discoveries.


with reference to navigation, is fully
known. Professor Nordenskjold has
not yet reported his views upon that
point. He has merely told us few
facts. For instance, he says he has dis
covered that the coast of Siberia west
of the Lena is a vast plain, devoid of
trees, in the navigation to which an en-
counter with impenetrable ice-foes is
generally to be feared. There are no
great islands out to sea there to pre-
vent 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 a space of open water
along the shore. For several hundred
miles in the vicinity of the Lena, how
ever, great rivers pour into the ocean,
and large islands lie off to the north
ward, and there is almost no ice along
shore. East of the Kolima toward
Behring Strait there are no great riv-
ers, 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 ship
ping. They gave Nordenskjold great
trouble, and on the 9th of September
they left him unclaimed in solid ice q
few miles from the open water north of
Behring Strait, and only one hundred
and thirty miles from the strait itself.
They kept him there eight weary
months. While communicating these
facts the daring Swede has not yel pub
lished his conclusions thereupon.
If he has left us in the dark in regard
to the commercial navigation of the
Siberian coast, however, he has at least
taken the pains to reveal the interesting
nature of the region he has just passed
through. When the ice closed in upon
the Vega, and left the stout ship en-
shaved in those northern solitudes, Pro-
fessor Nordenskjold wrote a letter to
DR.. Oscar Dickson, the main contrib
utor toward the fitting-out of the expe-
dition, describing the scenes along the
coast. The letter, dispatched on the
Goth of February, has at last reached
its destination, and is now published in
the London Standard. The letter calls
attention, in the first place, to a group
of islands which are very remarkable
from a scientific point of view. These
islands, the new Siberian, open the book
of the history of the world at new
place. The ground there is strewn
with wonderful fossils. Whole hills
arc covered with the bones of the
mammoth, rhinoccros, horses, ursi,
bison, oxen, sheep, etc. The sea
washes up ivory upon the shores. In
this group is possibly to be found the
solution of the question of the an
ccstry of the Indian elephant, and i'm
portant facts with regard to the vcrtc-
brates which existed at the time of
mans first appearance upon earth.
How came horses and sheep in a
region now locked in the fctters of an
eternal winter, uninhabited by man,
not now supporting animal life in any
form, and almost impossible of access?
Professor Nordenskjold was unable to
solve the question himself, and he sug-
gests that it is of the utmost inn
portance to science to send light
draft steel steamer to those islands for
thorough exploration.
At Cape Schelagskoff the Vega passed
the point where the Siberian merchant
Schalawroff 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 natives seen s,long that whole
coast. They spoke tongue utterly un-
known. Not q comprehensive sentence
could they utter in any European Ian
guage. 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 preferring a red flannel shirt,
few brass buttons and the piece of
tin-foil on cake of soap to golden rou-
bles and silver coins, they live an
active and healthy life, use stone and
bone Implements, and are without q
trace of religion in their customs. Their
tents are double, one within the other.
The children are totally naked within
the inner tent, and were often seen out
side; running about on the frozen
ground, with the temperature down be-
low thirty-two degrees. The women
wear nothing when within the tents
except a girdle, and the men have
shaven heads. remarkable similarity
was noticed between the implements,
dresses and customs 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
history. They drove off the original
inhabitants of the region 200 years
ago, the Onkilons, whose houses, places
of sacrifice, circles of moss-grown bear
skulls and weapons are still to be found
everywhere on the coast. Lieutenant
Nordqvist devoted himself to learning
their language. These Indians are on
the original highway between the era
die 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 Tschuktscher
coast was an event like the landing of
Columbus in the New World. It was
an unprecedented occurrence, and made
a sensation throughout the region.
East of the Lena Professor Nodensk-
jold found on shore no scattered blocks
of stone, such as are distributed over a
continent 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 that coast, and it
cxcites anticipations as to the possible
discoveries which are to be made by the
Jeanette. Not the least of the pecu-
liarities 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 of the water, which
is gradually receding from them. Pro-
lessor Nordenskjold's letter is full of
facts like these, and the scientific world
will wait with impotence the further
publication of the results of his discov-
eries.-N. 7. Tribune.
Educational Reform.
The town of Quincy, Mass, has set
an example in the way of educational
reform which is already attracting much
attention in New England, where inn