Smyrna times., 1879-10-15
A Strange Corner of the World.

! 1t may be some time yet before the full |
! significance of the daring voyage of the |
| Vega along the north coast of Asia, with |
reference to navigation, is fully known.
Professor Nordenskjold has not yet reported |
his views upon that point. lie has merely |
told us few facts. For instance, he says he |
has discovered that the coast of Siberia west |
of the Lena is vast plain, devoid of trees,
in the navigation to which an encounter
with impenetrable ice.floes is generally to |
| be feared. There are no great Islands out |
to sea there to prevent the wind from driv- |
! ing 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, how
ever, great rivers pour into the ocean, and
larI" islands lie of to the northward, and
there is almost no ice along shore. East
OF the Kolima toward Behring Strait, there
are no great rivers, and although the eli
mate is mlder and the woodlands creep
down almost TO the sea, the frozen foes
crowd closes 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 9th of September
they left him unclaimed in solid ice few
miles from the open water north of Behring
Strait, and only 1870 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 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 enslaved in those northern
solitudes, Professor Nordenskiold wrote a
, letter to DR.. Oscar Dickson, the main con.
contributor toward the fitting govt of the
expedition, describing the scenes along the
! coast. The letter, dispatched on the 20th
of FEBRUARY, has at last reached its destina.
ton, 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 a new place. The ground is strewn with
wonderful fossils. Whole hills are covered
:, with the bones of the mammoth, rhinocer-
= Gus, horses, uri, bison, oxen, sheep, ETC.
= The sea washes up ivory upon the shores.
In this group is possibly to he found the So
luton 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 came horses and sheep in a
= region now locked in the letters of an
" eternal Winter, uninhabited by man, and
+" not now supporting animal life in any form,
x and almost impossible of access? Professor
e Nordensjold was unable to solve the ques
u ton himself, and he suggests that it is oil
&c he to-
G a light-draught steel steamer to those is
u lands for thorough exploration.
At Cape SchelagskoN, tho Vega, passed
s. the point where the Siberian merchant
Schalawrotf ended his persistent and in
trepid attempts to reach Behring Stra
from the river Lena, by lonely death will
his whole company of men in hut on thu
~ snow-clad shore. Upon rounding this cap,
Il, Nordenskjo.d met the first natives seer
~ along that whole coast. They spoke
~ tongue utterly unknown. Not a compre
hensible sentence could they utter in an,
European language. They lived in tents
81 pitched on the sand banks separating tn
ne lagoons peculiar to this coast from the sea
er- A hardy, jovial, handsome race, keen a
q" :, barter, ignorant Of the value of money, AM
!. preferring a red flannel shirt few bras
ut buttons, and the piece Of tin.foil on q cak
KS of soap to golden roublss and silver coin
~, they live an active and healthy life, us
Ter stone and bone implements, and are will
out o trace Of religion in their custom
Their tents are double, one within tn
I'M other. The children are totally make
ice within the inner tent, and were often see
a outside, running about on the froze
ay ground, with the temperature down belo
'ur 800. The women wear nothing when will
ng in the tents, except girdle, and the heaC
r. of the men are shaved.
'ur remarkable similarity was noticed b
~ tween the implements, dresses and custom
The of these people and those of the Esquimau
lie and North American Indians. These PEI
o." pie are the Tschuktschers. Though arme
re. with stone and bone weapons, and thong
lad wild and itinerant, they evidently have
We. history. They drove off the original inhat
nd tants of the region 200 years ago, Onkilon
in whose places of sacrifice, circles of mos
ain grown bear skulls and weapons are still
lay be found almost everywhere on the coas
led Lieutenant Nordqvst devoted himself
he learning their language. These Indial
,er, are on the original highway between Il
len cradle of the human race and the home
w; the aborigines Of the northern part of Mort
s America, and it is not thought that the r
lar semblance between them and the Gree
me landers is accidental. The arrival of IL
lar Vega on the Tschuktscher coast was q
rife event like the landing of Columbus in Il
low New World. II was an unprecedented @
you currence, and made sensation througho
rra- the region. ,saSE,,.
nd East of the Lena PIaasssor Nordenskjo
md found on shore no scattered blocks of ston
be such as are distributed over q continent
glaciers, and such as are found elsewhere
Siberia. This fact was held TO point to Il
+bo absence of land out to sea north of that Goa
nor, and it exctes anticipations as to the pos
tG,I BILE discoveries which are to be made by Il
,a;r Jeannette. Not the least OF the peculiarti
me of this strange region is the fact that Il
of coast appears to be rising slowly out of Il
he. sea. The inhabitants have to shift the
NON villages at times nearer to the edge of Il
1Ilv water, which is gradually receding fro
ooi. them. Professor Nordenskiold's letter
nns full Of facts like these, and the scient
,osi. world will wait with impotence the furth
dis. publication of the results of his discoveriC
era. ~ 7. Tribune.
ally
lear Agent Meeker, who was killed by the u
Bat Indians at White River Agency, appears
Fire have been well-meaning though mistake
Ian sort of person. He did not plumber Il
;red tribes under his charge, but he neverthele
less, incurred their enmity by his fatal section
lacy fault of meddlesomeness. He wanted
hey "civiTize " them, and the only conception
With civilization which entered his brain was th
ills of converting the reservation, by some SC
lot Of hiub- int