angel, and the more eastern ports, into the Pacific, it cannot fail to strike the reader that every where along this low coast and shallow sea the vessels had to struggle continually with ice, and that in their endeavours to double the projecting points of land, they constantly kept close to the shore, instead of standing out into deep water, where, in all probability, they would have met with less ice.*

*Coxe's Account of the Russian Discoveries.

CHAPTER V.

VOYAGES OF NORTHERN DISCOVERY UNDERTAKEN IN THE EARLY PART OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.

Lieutenant Kotzebue-John Ross, David Buchan, William Edward Parry, and John Franklin,

LIEUTENANT KOTZEBUE. 1815 to 1818.

THE long protracted war, in which all the nations of Europe were at different times involved, suspended all attempts at northern discovery; but no sooner did the European world begin to feel the blessings of peace, than the spirit of discovery revived. Expeditions were sent forth to every quarter of the globe; and, to the honour of an individual it ought to be mentioned that, at his own cost, a ship was fitted out for the purpose of ascertaining whether the sea, on the northern coast of America, afforded a navigable passage between the Pacific and Atlantic oceans: that individual is the Russian Count Romanzoff. The vessel

prepared for this undertaking was called the Rurick, and LIEUTENANT KOTZEBUE, Son of the celebrated writer of that name, was appointed to command her. She was of small tonnage, not exceeding one hundred, and manned with twentytwo men, officers included, a surgeon and botanist. His instructions were to proceed round Cape Horn, and make the best of his way to the north-west coast of America, pass Behring's Strait, and endeavour to find some bay or inlet on the American side to lay up his vessel in safety, while, with a certain number of his crew, he should penetrate the American continent by land, first to the northward, to ascertain if Icy Cape be an island, as is supposed, and then to the eastward, keeping the hyperborean sea on their left, and carrying with them light skin boats or baidars to enable them to pass such lakes or rivers as might intervene.

At one of the Aleutian Islands he observed a vast quantity of drift-wood thrown upon the shore, and, among other species of wood, picked up a log of the camphor tree. In the midst of Behring's Strait, between East Cape and Cape Prince of Wales, he found the current setting strongly to the north-east, at the rate, as he thought, of two miles and a half an hour, which is at least twice the velocity observed by Cook. In this particular place also the depth of the water was considerably more than the soundings mentioned in Cook's voyage.

Having passed the Cape Prince of Wales early in August, without any obstruction from ice, and as it would appear without seeing any, an opening was observed in the line of the American coast, in latitude about 6710 to 68°. Into this inlet the Rurick entered. Across the mouth was a small island, the shores of which were covered with driftwood; and among it were observed trees of an enormous size. The tide regularly ebbed and flowed through the passages on each side of the island. Within the entrance, the great bay or inlet spread out to the north and south, and had several coves or sounds on each shore. Its extent to the eastward was not determined, but the Rurick proceeded as far in that direction as the meridian of 160°, which corresponds with that of the bottom of Norton Sound.

The shores of this great inlet, and more particularly the northern one, were well peopled with Indians of a large size; the men were well armed with bows, arrows, and spears. They wore skin clothing, and leather boots, neatly made and ornamented; their huts were comfortable and sunk deep into the earth; their furniture and implements neatly made; they had sledges drawn apparently by dogs, though the skulls and skins of rein-deer indicated the presence of that animal in the country. The description given by Lieutenant Kotzebue of these people corresponds almost exactly with that of the Tschutski by Cook on the

opposite continent, with whom they sometimes trade and are sometimes at war. They are the same race of people as those on the continent of America lower down and about the Russian settlement of Kodiack, as appeared from a native of that place being able to understand their language.

From these Indians Lieutenant Kotzebue learned, that, at the bottom of the inlet was a strait through which there was a passage into the great sea, and that it required nine days rowing with one of their boats to reach this sea. This, Kotzebue thinks, must be the Great Northern Ocean, and that the whole of the land to the northward of the inlet must either be an island or an archipelago of islands.

At the bottom of a cove on the northern shore of the inlet was an extensive perpendicular cliff, apparently of chalk, of the height of six or seven hundred feet, the summit of which was entirely covered with vegetation; between the foot of this cliff and the shore was a slip of land, in width about five or six hundred yards, covered also with plants, which were afterwards found to be of the same kind as those on the summit. But the astonishment of the travellers may readily be conceived, when they discovered, on their approach to this extensive cliff, that it was actually a mountain of solid ice, down the sides of which the water was trickling by the heat of the sun. At the foot of the cliff several elephants' teeth were picked up, similar to those which have been found in such immense quantities in Siberia and the islands of