conquest of siberia by the russians—their voyages of discovery along the shores of the polar sea.
ivan the terrible.—strogonoff.—yermak, the robber and conqueror.—his expeditions to siberia.—battle of tobolsk.—yermak’s death.—progress of the russians to ochotsk.—semen deshnew.—condition of the siberian natives under the russian yoke.—voyages of discovery in the reign of the empress anna.—prontschischtschew.—chariton and demetrius laptew.—an arctic heroine.—schalaurow.—discoveries in the sea of bering and in the pacific ocean.—the lächow islands.—fossil ivory.—new siberia.—the wooden mountains.—the past ages of siberia.
in the beginning of the thirteenth century, the now huge empire of russia was confined to part of her present european possessions, and divided into several independent principalities, the scene of disunion and almost perpetual warfare. thus when the country was invaded, in 1236, by the tartars, under baaty khan, a grandson of the famous gengis khan, it fell an easy prey to its conquerors. the miseries of a foreign yoke, aggravated by intestine discord, lasted about 250 years, until ivan wasiljewitsch i. (1462–1505) became the deliverer of his country, and laid the foundations of her future greatness. this able prince subdued, in 1470, the great novgorod, a city until then so powerful as to have maintained its independence, both against the russian grand princes and the tartar khans; and, ten years later, he not only threw off the yoke of the khans of khipsack, but destroyed their empire. the conquest of constantinople by the turks placed the spiritual diadem of the ancient cæsars on his192 head, and caused him, as chief of the greek orthodox church, to exchange his old title of grand prince for the more significant and imposing one of czar.
his grandson, ivan wasiljewitsch ii., a cruel but energetic monarch, conquered kasan in 1552, and thus completely and permanently overthrew the dominion of the tartars. two years later he subdued astrakhan, and planted the greek cross on the borders of the caspian sea, where until then only the crescent had been seen.
in spite of the inhuman cruelty that disgraced his character, and earned for him the name of terrible, ivan sought, like his illustrious successor, peter the great, to introduce the arts and sciences of western europe into his barbarous realm, and to improve the russian manufactures by encouraging german artists and mechanics to settle in the country. it was in his reign that chancellor discovered the passage from england to the white sea, and ivan gladly seized the opportunity thus afforded. soon after this the port of archangel was built, and thus a new seat was opened to civilization at the northern extremity of europe.
after the conquest of kasan, several russians settled in that province; among others, a merchant of the name of strogonoff, who established some salt-works on the banks of the kama, and opened a trade with the natives. among these he noticed some strangers, and having heard that they came from a country ruled by a tartar khan, who resided in a capital called sibir, he sent some of his people into their land. these agents returned with the finest sable skins, which they had purchased for a trifling sum; and strogonoff, not so covetous as to wish to keep all the advantage of his discovery to himself, immediately informed the government of the new trade he had opened. he was rewarded with the gift of considerable estates at the confluence of the kama and tschinsova, and his descendants, the counts strogonoff, are, as is well known, reckoned among the richest of the russian nobility.
soon after ivan sent some troops to siberia, whose prince, jediger, acknowledged his supremacy, and promised to pay him an annual tribute of a thousand sable skins. but this connection was not of long duration, for a few years after jediger was defeated by another tartar prince, named kutchum khan; and thus, after russian influence had taken the first step to establish itself beyond the ural, it once more became doubtful whether northern asia was to be christian or mohammedan. the question was soon after decided by a fugitive robber.
the conquests of ivan on the caspian sea had called into life a considerable trade with bokhara and persia, which, however, was greatly disturbed by the depredations of the don cossacks, who made it their practice to plunder the caravans. but ivan, not the man to be trifled with by a horde of freebooters, immediately sent out a body of troops against the don cossacks, who, not venturing to meet them, sought their safety in flight. at the head of the fugitives, whose number amounted to no less than 6000 men, was yermak timodajeff, a man who, like cortez or pizarro, was destined to lay a new empire at the feet of his master. but while the troops of the czar were following his track, yermak was not yet dreaming of future conquests; his only aim was to escape the executioner; and he considered himself extremely fortunate when, leaving his193 pursuers far behind, he at length arrived on the estates of strogonoff. here he was well received—better, no doubt, than if he had come single-handed and defenseless; and strogonoff having made him acquainted with siberian affairs, he at once resolved to try his fortunes on this new scene of action. as the tyranny of kutchum khan had rendered him odious to his subjects, he hoped it would be an easy task to overthrow his power; the prospect of a rich booty of sable skins was also extremely attractive; and, finally, there could be no doubt that the greatest dangers were in his rear, and that any choice was better than to fall into the hands of ivan the terrible. strogonoff, on his part, had excellent reasons for encouraging the adventure. if it succeeded, a considerable part of the profits was likely to fall to his share; if not, he at least was rid of his unbidden guest.
thus yermak, in the summer of 1578, advanced with his cossacks along the banks of the tschinsova into siberia. but, either from a want of knowledge of the country, or from not having taken the necessary precautions, he was overtaken by winter before he could make any progress; and when spring appeared, famine compelled him to return to his old quarters, where, as may easily be imagined, his reception was none of the most cordial. but, far from losing courage from this first disappointment, yermak was firmly resolved to persevere. he had gained experience—his self-confidence was steeled by adversity; and when strogonoff attempted to refuse him further assistance, he pointed to his cossacks with the air of a man who has the means of enforcing obedience to his orders. this time yermak took better measures for insuring success; he compelled strogonoff to furnish him with an ample supply of provisions and ammunition, and in the june of the following year we again find him, with his faithful cossacks, on the march to siberia. but such were the impediments which the pathless swamps and forests, the severity of the climate, and the hostility of the natives opposed to his progress, that towards the end of 1580 his force (now reduced to 1500 men) had reached no farther than the banks of the tara. the subsequent advance of this little band was a constant succession of hardships and skirmishes, which caused it to melt away like snow in the sunshine; so that scarcely 500 remained when, at the confluence of the tobol and the irtysch, they at length reached the camp of kutchum khan, whose overwhelming numbers seemed to mock their audacity.
but yermak felt as little fear at sight of the innumerable tents of the tartar host, as the wolf when meeting a herd of sheep. he knew that his cossacks, armed with their matchlocks, had long since disdained to count their enemies, and, fully determined to conquer or to die, he gave the order to attack. a dreadful battle ensued, for though the tartars only fought with their bows and arrows, yet they were no less brave than their adversaries, and their vast superiority of numbers made up for the inferior quality of their weapons. the struggle was long doubtful—the tartars repeating attack upon attack like the waves of a storm-tide, and the cossacks receiving their assaults as firmly and immovably as rocks; until, finally, the hordes of kutchum khan gave way to their stubborn obstinacy, and his camp and all its treasures fell into the hands of the conquerors.
194 the subsequent conduct of yermak proved that he had all the qualities of a general and a statesman, and that his talents were not unequal to his fortunes. without losing a single moment, he, immediately after this decisive battle, sent part of his small band to occupy the capital of the vanquished kutchum, for he well knew that a victory is but half gained if one delays to reap its fruits. the cossacks found the place evacuated, and soon after yermak made his triumphal entry into sibir. his weakness now became a source of strength, for, daunted by the wonderful success of this handful of strangers, the people far and wide came to render him homage. the ostiaks of the soswa freely consented to yield an annual tribute of 280 sable skins, and other tribes of the same nation, who were more backward in their submission, were compelled by his menaces to pay him a tax, or jassak, of eleven skins for every archer.
it was not without reason that yermak thus sought to collect as many of these valuable furs as he possibly could, for his aim was to obtain from ivan a pardon of his former delinquencies, by presenting him with the richest spoils of his victories, and he well knew that it would be impossible for him to maintain his conquests without further assistance from the czar. great was ivan’s astonishment when an envoy of the fugitive robber brought him the welcome gift of 2400 sable skins, and informed him that yermak had added a new province to his realm. he at once comprehended that the hero who with small means had achieved such great successes, was the fittest man to consolidate or enlarge his acquisitions; he consequently not only pardoned all his former offenses, but confirmed him in the dignity of governor and commander-in-chief in the countries which he had subdued. thus yermak’s envoy, having been received with the greatest distinction at moscow, returned to his fortunate master with a robe of honor which had been worn by the czar himself, and the still more welcome intelligence that re-enforcements were on the march to join him.
meanwhile yermak had continued to advance into the valley of the obi beyond its confluence with the irtysch; and when at length his force was augmented by the arrival of 500 russians, he pursued his expeditions with increasing audacity. on his return from one of these forays, he encamped on a small island in the irtysch. the night was dark and rainy, and the russians, fatigued by their march, relied too much upon the badness of the weather or the terror of their name. but kutchum khan, having been informed by his spies of their want of vigilance, crossed a ford in the river, and falling upon the unsuspecting russians, killed them all except one single soldier, who brought the fatal intelligence to sibir. yermak, when he saw his warriors fall around him like grass before the scythe, without losing his presence of mind for a moment, cut his way through the tartars, and endeavored to save himself in a boat. but in the medley he fell into the water and was drowned.
by the orders of kutchum, the body of the hero was exposed to every indignity which the rage of a barbarian can think of; but after this first explosion of impotent fury, his followers, feeling ashamed of the ignoble conduct of their chief, buried his remains with princely pomp, and ascribed miraculous powers to the grave in which they were deposited. the russians have also erected a195 monument to yermak in the town of tobolsk, which was built on the very spot where he gained his first decisive victory over kutchum. it is inscribed with the dates of that memorable event, and of the unfortunate day when he found his death in the floods of the irtysch. his real monument, however, is all siberia from the ural to the pacific; for as long as the russian nation continues to exist, it will remember the name of yermak timodajeff. the value of the man became at once apparent after his death, for scarcely had the news of the disaster arrived, when the russians immediately evacuated sibir, and left the country. but they well knew that this retreat was to be but temporary, and that the present ebb of their fortunes would soon be followed by a fresh tide of success. after a few years they once more returned, as the definitive masters of the country. their first settlement was tjumen, on the tara, and before the end of 1587 tobolsk was founded. they had, indeed, still many a conflict with the woguls and tartars, but every effort of the natives to shake off the yoke proved fruitless.
as gold had been the all-powerful magnet which led the spaniards from hispaniola to mexico and peru, so a small fur-bearing animal (the sable) attracted the cossacks farther and farther to the east; and although the possession of fire-arms gave them an immense advantage over the wild inhabitants of siberia, yet it is as astonishing with what trifling means they subdued whole nations, and perhaps history affords no other example of such a vast extent of territory having been conquered by so small a number of adventurers.
as they advanced, small wooden forts (or ostrogs) were built in suitable places, and became in their turn the starting-posts for new expeditions. the following dates give the best proof of the uncommon rapidity with which the tide of conquest rolled onward to the east. tomsk was founded in 1604; and the ostrog jeniseisk, where the neighboring nomads brought their sable skins to market, in 1621. the snow-shoes of the tunguse, which they sometimes saw ornamented with this costly fur, induced the cossacks to follow their hordes, of which many had come from the middle and inferior tunguska, and thus, in 1630, wassiljew reached the banks of the lena. in 1636 jelissei busa was commissioned to ascend that mighty river, and to impose jassak on all the natives of those quarters. he reached the western mouth of the lena, and after navigating the sea for twenty-four hours came to the olekma, which he ascended. in 1638 he discovered the tana, on whose banks he spent another winter; and in 1639, resuming his voyage eastward by sea, he reached the tchendoma, and wintering for two years among the jukahirs, made them also tributary to russia.
in that same year another party of cossacks crossed the altai mountains, and, traversing forests and swamps, arrived at the coasts of the inhospitable sea of ochotsk; while a third expedition discovered the amoor, and built a strong ostrog, called albasin, on its left bank. the report soon spread that the river rolled over gold-sand, and colonists came flocking to the spot, both to collect these treasures, and to enjoy the fruits of a milder climate and of a more fruitful soil. but the chinese destroyed the fort in 1680, and carried the garrison prisoners to peking.
196 albasin was soon after rebuilt; but as russia at that time had no inclination to engage in constant quarrels with the celestial empire about the possession of a remote desert, all its pretensions to the amoor were given up by the treaty of nertschinsk (1689). this agreement, however, like so many others, was doomed to last no longer than it pleased the more powerful of the contracting parties to keep it, and came to nothing as soon as the possession of the amoor territory became an object of importance, and the increasing weakness of china was no longer able to dispute its possession. thus, when count nicholas mourawieff was appointed governor-general of eastern siberia in 1847, one of his first cares was to appropriate or annex the amoor. he immediately sent a surveying expedition to the mouth of the river, where, in 1851, regardless of the remonstrances of the chinese government, he ordered the stations of nicolayevsk and mariinsk to be built; and in 1854 he himself sailed down the amoor, with a numerous flotilla of boats and rafts, for the purpose of personally opening this new channel of intercourse with the pacific. other expeditions soon followed, and the chinese, finding resistance hopeless, ceded to russia in the year 1858, by the treaty of aigun, the left bank of the amoor as far as the influx of the ussuri, and both its banks below the latter river. thus the czar found some consolation for the losses of the crimean campaign in the acquisition of a vast territory in the distant east, which, though at present a mere wilderness, may in time become a flourishing colony.
80. the beach at nicolayevsk.
in 1644, a few years after the discovery of the amoor, the cossack michael staduchin formed a winter establishment on the delta of the kolyma, which has197 expanded into the town of nishnei-kolymsk, and afterwards navigated the sea eastward to cape schelagskoi, which may be considered as the north-eastern cape of siberia.
81. on the amoor.
in 1648 semen deschnew sailed from the kolyma with the intention of reaching the anadyr by sea, and by this remarkable voyage—which no one else, either before or after him, has ever performed—discovered and passed through the strait, which properly should bear his name, instead of bering’s, who, sailing from kamchatka northward in 1728, did not go beyond east cape, being satisfied with the westerly trending of the cape beyond the promontory. some of deschnew’s companions subsequently reached kamchatka, and were put to death by the people of that peninsula, which was conquered, in 1699, by atlassoff, a cossack officer who came from jakutsk.
after having thus rapidly glanced at the progress of the russian dominion from the ural to the sea of ochotsk, it may not be uninteresting to inquire whether the natives had reason to bless the arrival of their new masters, or to curse the day when they were first made to understand the meaning of the word jassak, or tribute. unfortunately, history tells us that, while the conquerors198 of siberia were fully as bold and persevering as the companions of cortez and pizarro, they also equalled them in avarice and cruelty. under their iron yoke whole nations, such as the schelagi, aniujili, and omoki, melted away; others, as the woguls, jukahires, koriaks, and itälmenes, were reduced to a scanty remnant.
the history of the subjugation of the itälmenes, or natives of kamchatka, as described by steller, may suffice to show how the cossacks made and how they abused their conquests.
82. village on the amoor.
when atlassoff, with only sixteen men, came to the river of kamchatka, the itälmene chieftain inquired, through a koriak interpreter, what they wanted, and whence they came; and received for answer that the powerful sovereign, to whom the whole land belonged, had sent them to levy the tribute which they owed him as his subjects. the chieftain was naturally astonished at this information, and offering the strangers a present of costly furs, he requested them to leave the country, and not to repeat their visit. but the cossacks thought proper to remain, and built a small wooden fort, verchnei ostrog, whence they fell on the neighboring villages, robbing or destroying all they could lay hands upon. exasperated by these acts, the itälmenes resolved to attack the fort; but as the wary cossacks had kept up a friendly intercourse with some of them, and had moreover ingratiated themselves with the women, the plans of their enemies were always revealed to them in proper time, and led to a still greater tyranny. at length the savages appeared before the ostrog in such overwhelming numbers that the cossacks began to lose courage;199 yet by their superior tactics they finally managed to gain a complete victory, and those who escaped their bullets were either drowned or taken prisoners, and then put to death in the most cruel manner.
83. koriak yourt.
convinced that a lasting security was impossible as long as the natives retained their numbers, the cossacks lost no opportunity of goading them to revolt, and then butchering as many of them as they could. thus, in less than forty years, the kamchatkans were reduced to a twelfth part of their original numbers; and the cossacks, having made a solitude, called it peace.
in former times the nomads of the north used freely to wander with their reindeer herds over the tundra, but after the conquest they were loaded with taxes, and confined to certain districts. the consequence was that their reindeer gradually perished, and that a great number of wandering herdsmen were now compelled to adopt a fisherman’s life—a change fatal to many.
it would, however, be unjust to accuse the russian government of having willfully sought the ruin of the aboriginal tribes; on the contrary, it has constantly endeavored to protect them against the exactions of the cossacks, and in order to secure their existence, has even granted them the exclusive possession of the districts assigned to them. thus the ostiaks and samoïedes, the koriaks and the jakuts, have their own land, their own rivers, forests, and tundri. but if it is a common saying in european russia “that heaven is high, and the czar distant,” it may easily be imagined that beyond the ural the weak indigenous tribes found the law but a very inefficient barrier against the rapacity of their conquerors.
thus, in spite of the government, the jassak was not unfrequently raised, under various pretenses, to six or ten times its original amount; and the natives were, besides, obliged to bring the best of their produce, from considerable distances, to the ostrog.
200 nor could the government prevent the accumulation of usurious debts, nor the leasing of the best pasturages or fishing-stations for a trifling sum quite out of proportion to their value; so that the natives no longer had the means of feeding their herds, and sank deeper and deeper into poverty.
and if we consider, finally, of what elements yermak’s band was originally composed, we can easily conceive that, under such masters, the lot of the siberian natives was by no means to be envied.
* * * * *
the year 1734 opens a new epoch in the history of siberian discoveries. until then they had been merely undertaken for purposes of traffic; bold cossacks and promyschlenniki (or fur-hunters) had gradually extended their excursions to the sea of bering; but now, for the first time, scientific expeditions were sent out, for the more accurate investigation of the northern coasts of siberia.
prontschischtschew, who sailed westward from the lena to circumnavigate the icy capes of taimurland, was accompanied by his youthful wife, who wintered with him at the olenek, in 72° 54´ of latitude, and in the following summer took part in his fruitless endeavors to double those most northerly points of asia. he died in consequence of the fatigues he had to undergo, and a few days after she followed him to the grave. a similar example of female devotion is not to be met with in the annals of arctic discovery.
after prontschischtschew’s death, lieutenant chariton laptew was appointed to carry out the project in which the former had failed. having been repulsed by the drift-ice, he was obliged to winter on the chatanga (1739–40); but renewed the attempt in the following summer, which however exposed him to still severer trials. the vessel was wrecked in the ice; the crew reached the shore with difficulty, and many of them perished from fatigue and famine before the rivers were sufficiently frozen to enable the feeble survivors to return to their former winter-station at chatanga. notwithstanding the hardships which he and his party had endured, laptew prosecuted the survey of the promontory in the following spring.
setting out with a sledge-party across the tundra on april 24, 1741, he reached taimur lake on the 30th; and following the taimur river, as it flows from the lake, ascertained its mouth to be situated in lat. 75° 36´ n. on august 29 he safely returned to jeniseisk, after one of the most difficult voyages ever performed by man. the resolution with which he overcame difficulties, and his perseverance amid the severest distresses, entitle him to a high rank among arctic discoverers.
while chariton laptew was thus gaining distinction in the wilds of taimurland, his brother, dimitri laptew, was busy extending geographical knowledge to the east of the lena. he doubled the sviatoi-noss, wintered on the banks of the indigirka, surveyed the bear islands, passed a second winter on the borders of the kolyma, and in a fourth season extended his survey of the coast to the baranow rock, which he vainly endeavored to double during two successive summers. after having passed seven years on the coasts of the polar ocean, he returned to jakutsk in 1743.
201 fourteen years later, schalaurow, a merchant of jakutsk, who sailed from the jana in a vessel built at his own expense, at length succeeded in doubling the baranow rock, and proceeded eastward as far as cape schelagskoi, which prevented his farther progress. after twice wintering on the dreary kolyma, he resolved, with admirable perseverance, to make a third attempt, but his crew would no longer follow him. from a second sea-journey, which he undertook in 1764 to that cape, he did not return. “his unfortunate death is the more to be lamented,” says wrangell, “as he sacrificed his property and life to a disinterested aim, and united intelligence and energy in a remarkable degree.” on his map, the whole coast from the jana to cape schelagskoi is marked, with an accuracy which does him the greatest honor. in 1785 billings and sarytchew were equally unsuccessful in the endeavor to sail round the cape which had defeated all schalaurow’s endeavors; nor has the voyage been accomplished to the present day.
84. kamchatka sables
as the sable had gradually led the russian fur-hunters to kamchatka, so the still more valuable sea-otter gave the chief impulse to the discovery of the aleutic chain and the opposite continent of america. when atlassow and his band arrived at kamchatka by the end of the seventeenth century, they found the sea-otter abounding on its coasts; but the fur-hunters chased it so eagerly that, before the middle of the eighteenth century, they had entirely extirpated it in that country. on bering’s second voyage of discovery (1741–42), it was again found in considerable numbers. tschirigow is said to have brought back 900 skins, and on bering’s island 700 sea-otters—whose skins, according to present prices, would be worth about £20,000—were killed almost without trouble. these facts, of course, encouraged the merchants of jakutsk and irkutsk to undertake new expeditions.
generally, several of them formed an association, which fitted out some hardly seaworthy vessel at ochotsk, where also the captain and the crew, consisting of fur-hunters and other adventurers, were hired. the expenses of such an expedition amounted to the considerable sum of about 30,000 roubles, as pack-horses had to transport a great part of the necessary outfit all the distance from jakutsk, and the vessel generally remained four or five years on the voyage. passing through one of the kurile straits, these expeditions sailed at first along the east coast of kamchatka, bartering sables and sea-otters for reindeer skins and other articles; and as the precious furs became more rare, ventured out farther into the eastern ocean. thus michael nowodsikoff discovered the western aleuts in 1745; paikoff the fox islands in 1759; adrian tolstych almost all the islands of the central group, which still bear his name, in 1760;202 stephen glottoff the island of kadiak in 1763, and krenitzin the peninsula of aljaska in 1768. when we consider the scanty resources of these russian navigators, the bad condition of their miserable barks, their own imperfect nautical knowledge, and the inhospitable nature of the seas which they traversed, we can not but admire their intrepidity.
in the polar sea there are neither sables nor otters, and thus the islands lying to the north of siberia might have remained unknown till the present day, if the search after mammoth-teeth had not, in a similar manner, led to their discovery.
in march, 1770, while a merchant of the name of lächow was busy collecting fossil ivory about cape sviatoinoss, he saw a large herd of deer coming over the ice from the north. resolute and courageous, he at once resolved to follow their tracks, and after a sledge-journey of seventy versts, he came to an island, and twenty versts farther reached a second island, at which, owing to the roughness of the ice, his excursion terminated. he saw enough, however, of the richness of the two islands in mammoth-teeth, to show him that another visit would be a valuable speculation; and on making his report to the russian government, he obtained an exclusive privilege to dig for mammoth-bones on the islands which he had discovered, and to which his name had been given. in the summer of 1773 he consequently returned, and ascertained the existence of a third island, much larger than the others, mountainous, and having its coasts covered with drift-wood. he then went back to the first island, wintered there, and returned to ustjansk in spring with a valuable cargo of mammoth-tusks.
there hardly exists a more remarkable article of commerce than these remains of an extinct animal. in north siberia, along the obi, the jenissei, the lena, and their tributaries, from lat. 58° to 70°, or along the shores of the polar ocean as far as the american side of bering strait, the remains of a species of elephant are found imbedded in the frozen soil, or become exposed, by the annual thawing and crumbling of the river-banks. dozens of tusks are frequently found together, but the most astonishing deposit of mammoth-bones occurs in the lächow islands, where, in some localities, they are accumulated in such quantities as to form the chief substance of the soil. year after year the tusk-hunters work every summer at the cliffs, without producing any sensible diminution of the stock. the solidly-frozen matrix in which the bones lie thaws to a certain extent annually, allowing the tusks to drop out or to be quarried. in 1821, 20,000 lbs. of the fossil ivory were procured from the island of new siberia.
the ice in which the mammoth remains are imbedded sometimes preserves their entire bodies, in spite of the countless ages which must have elapsed since they walked on earth. in 1799 the carcass of a mammoth was discovered so fresh that the dogs ate the flesh for two summers. the skeleton is preserved at st. petersburg, and specimens of the woolly hair—proving that the climate of siberia, though then no doubt much milder than at present, still required the protection of a warm and shaggy coat—were presented to the chief museums of europe.
the remains of a rhinoceros, very similar to the indian species, are likewise203 found in great numbers along the shores, or on the steep and sandy river-banks of northern siberia, along with those of fossil species of the horse, the musk-ox, and the bison, which have now totally forsaken the arctic wilds.
the archipelago of new siberia, situated to the north of the lächow islands, was discovered by sirowatsky in 1806, and since then scientifically explored by hedenström in 1808, and anjou in 1823. these islands are remarkable no less for the numerous bones of horses, buffaloes, oxen, and sheep scattered over their desolate shores, than for the vast quantities of fossil-wood imbedded in their soil. the hills, which rise to a considerable altitude, consist of horizontal beds of sandstone, alternating with bituminous beams or trunks of trees. on ascending them, fossilized charcoal is everywhere met with, incrusted with an ash-colored matter, which is so hard that it can scarcely be scraped off with a knife. on the summit there is a long row of beams resembling the former, but fixed perpendicularly in the sandstone. the ends, which project from seven to ten inches, are for the most part broken, and the whole has the appearance of a ruinous dike. thus a robust forest vegetation once flourished where now only hardy lichens can be seen; and many herbivorous animals feasted on grasses where now the reindeer finds but a scanty supply of moss, and the polar bear is the sole lord of the dreary waste.
