Russia | Page 8

the
Cossack Dejnev sailed with a flotilla of small craft from the Kolîma
round the north-east extremity of Asia, passing long before the birth of
Bering through the strait which now bears the name of that navigator.
Stadukhin also explored these eastern seas in search of the islands full
of fossil ivory, of which he had heard from the natives. In 1735,
Pronchishchev and Lasinius embarked at Yakutsk and sailed down the
Lena, exploring its delta and neighbouring coasts. Pronchishchev
reached a point east of the Taimir peninsula, but failed to double the

headlands between the Lena and the Yenisei estuaries. The expedition
begun by Laptiev in 1739, after suffering shipwreck, was continued
overland, resulting in the exploration of the Taimir peninsula and the
discovery of the North Cape of the Old World, Pliny's Tabin, and the
Cheluskin of modern maps, so named from the pilot who accompanied
Pronchishchev and Laptiev. The western seaboard between the Yenisei
and Ob estuaries had already been surveyed by Ovtzin and Minin in
1737-9.
But the problem was already being attacked from the side of the Pacific
Ocean. In 1728, the Danish navigator, Bering, in the service of Russia,
crossed Siberia overland to the Pacific, whence he sailed through the
strait now named from him, and by him first revealed to the West,
though known to the Siberian Cossacks eighty years previously. Even
Bering himself, hugging the Asiatic coast, had not descried the opposite
shores of America, and was uncertain as to the exact position of the
strait. This point was not cleared up till Cook's voyage of 1778, and
even after that the Sakhalin, Yezo and Kurile waters still remained to
be explored. The shores of the mainland and islands were first traced by
La Pérouse, who determined the insular character of Sakhalin, and
ascertained the existence of a strait connecting the Japanese Sea with
that of Okhotsk. This completed the general survey of the whole
Siberian seaboard.
The scientific exploration of the interior began in the Eighteenth
Century with Messerschmidt, followed by Gmelin, Müller, and Delisle
de la Croyère, who determined many important physical points
between the years 1733 and 1742. The region stretching beyond Lake
Baikal was explored by Pallas and his associates in 1770-3. The
expeditions, interrupted by the great wars following on the French
Revolution, were resumed in 1828 by the Norwegian Hansteen, whose
memorable expedition in company with Erman had such important
results for the study of terrestrial magnetism. While Hansteen and
Erman were still prosecuting their labours in every branch of natural
science, Alexander von Humboldt, Ehrenberg, and Gustav Rose made a
short visit to Siberia, which, however, remained one of the most
important in the history of science. Middendorff's journeys to North

and East Siberia had also some very valuable results, and were soon
followed, in 1854, by the "expedition to Siberia" undertaken by
Schwartz, Schmidt, Glehn, Usoltzev, and associates, extending over the
whole region of the Trans-baikal to the Lena and northern tributaries of
the Amur. Thus began the uninterrupted series of modern journeys,
which are now being systematically continued in every part of Siberia,
and which promise soon to leave no blanks on the chart of that region.
The work of geographical discovery, properly so called, may be said to
have been brought to a close by Nordenskjöld's recent determination of
the north-east passage, vainly attempted by Willoughby, Barents, and
so many other illustrious navigators.
Such a vast region as Siberia, affected in the west by Atlantic, in the
east by Pacific influences, and stretching north and south across 29° of
latitude, must obviously present great diversities of climate. Even this
bleak land has its temperate zones, which the Slav colonists are fond of
calling their "Italies." Nevertheless as compared with Europe, Siberia
may, on the whole, be regarded as a country of extreme
temperatures--relatively great heats, and, above all, intense colds. The
very term "Siberian" has justly become synonymous with a land of
winds, frosts, and snows. The mean annual temperature in this region
comprised between the rivers Anabara and Indigirka is 20° Fahr. below
freezing point. The pole of cold, oscillating diversely with the force of
the lateral pressure from Yakutsk to the Lena estuary, is the
meteorological centre round which the atmosphere revolves. Here are
to a large extent prepared the elements of the climate of West Europe.
Travellers speak of the Siberian winters with mingled feelings of terror
and rapture. An infinite silence broods over the land--all is buried in
deep sleep. The animals hibernate in their dens, the streams have
ceased to flow, disappearing beneath the ice and snow; the earth, of a
dazzling whiteness in the centre of the landscape, but grey in the
distance, nowhere offers a single object to arrest the gaze. The
monotony of endless space is