Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1879-10-17

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
Nordenskj0ld has not yet reported his views
upon that point. He has merely told as a
| 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 encounter with i'm
| penetrable icefloes 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
hundred miles in the vicinity of the Lena,
however, great rivers pour into the ocean,
and large islands lie off to the northward,
and there is almost no ice along the shore.
East of the Kolima, toward Behring Strait,
there are no great rivers, 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 q few miles from the open wa
ter north of Behring Strait, and only 1870
miles from the strait itself. They kept him
there eight weary months. While communi-
eating 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 NordenskjOld wrote a letter to DR..
neour Iirlsop tho main trih tnu rI
the fitting out of the expedition, describing
the scenes along the coast. The letter, des-
patched on the 10Th OF February, has at last
reached its destination, and is now published
i'll the London Standard. The letter calls at
tcntion, in the first place, to a group of is
lands which are very remarkable from scen-
tifc point of view. These islands, the New
Siberia, open the book of 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 upon the
shores. In this group is possibly 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 came horses and sheep in q region now
locked in the fetters of an eternal winter, un-
inhabited by man, not now supporting animal
life in any form, and almost impossible of ac-
cess Professor NordenskjOld was unable to
solve the question himself, and he suggests
that it is of the utmost Importance to science
to send light draught steel steamer to those
islands for n thorough exploration.
At Cape Schelagskof the Vega passed the
point where the Siberian merchant Schala-
wrof ended his persistent and intrepid at
tempts to reach Behring Strait from the River
Lena by lonely death with his whole COM
pany of men in a hut on the snow-clad shore
Upon rounding this cape NordenskjOld met
the first natives seen along that whole coast.
They spoke tongue utterly unknown. Not
a comprehensive sentence could they utter
i'll any European language. They lived in
tents pitched on the sand banks separating
the lngoOns peculiar to this coast from the
sea. hardy, jovial, handsome race, fur
clad, keen at barter, ignorant of the value of
money, and preferring red flannel shirt,
few brass buttons and the piece of tin foil on
a cake of soap to golden rubles and silver
coins, they live an active and healthy life, use
stone and bone implements, and are without
a 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 outside, running
about on the frozen ground, with the temper
ature down below 32 degrees. The women
wear nothing when within the tent except
girdle, and the men have shaven heads. A
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 itin-
Grant, they evidently have a history. They
drove off the original inhabitants of the re-
gion POO years ago, the Onkilons, whose
houses, places of sacrifice, circles of moss
grown bear skulls and weapons are still to be
found almost everywhere on the coast Lieu
tenant Nordqvist devoted himself to learning
their language. These Indians are on the
original highway 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 be-
tween them and the Greenlanders is accident
al. The arrival of the Vega on the Tschult-
scher coast was an event like the landing of
Columbus in the New World. 1t was an un-
precedented occurrence, and made sensa-
ton throughout the region.
East of the Lena Professor NordenskjUld
found on shore no scattered blocks of stone
such as are distributed over q 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 excites anticipations as to the possible
discoveries which are to be made by the Jean
nette. 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 of the water, which
is gradually receding from them. Professor
NordenskjOld's letter is full of facts like these,
and the scientific world will wait with impa-
tience the further publication of the results of
his discoveries. J. Tribune, An inst.