The Progress of Arctic Discovery (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: /-- M St." v ' f-f- i ''/;. ." / .7 ' --M..;, -,, l .; iW--" / -i /s . /. . -.. '/-., /v ' '' / /- -v., ): '- Arctic geography, or of what was really attempted when men sought to pass the northern capes of Asia and America, and find there the strait which was to lead to wealth and fortune. Prior to the time of Behring, however, geographers had some vague knowledge of parts of the north coast of Asia. Here the audacious Cossacks, fighting their way through hostile tribes from the Ural to the Yenissei, to lay tribute on the refractory Samoiedes, finally came upon the ocean and disclosed the wealth of mammoth ivory in the " ice cliffs" of the Siberian coast. This was about the year 1610. Merchants and hunters following after them, the Lena was at length discovered, and finally the entire coast of northern Asia was explored, chiefly in the interests of commerce and trade, either by means of dog sledges over the ice in the early spring, or in boats during the summer along the land lead caused by the melting of the ice in the floods of warm water which pour down into the Polar Sea from the watersheds of northern Asia. In this direction it was that Baron Wrangell and Lieut. Anjou performed the most remarkable sledge journeys on record. The first named, by his published narrative, gave the first clear insight to the nature of northern Siberia, and to the Polar Sea beyond, and from this quarter were gathered, by this Arctic Hercules, golden fruits for science. On the American side Hearne was the first to reach the sea. Following the Coppermine River he looked out upon the great Polar water in 1770, and opened the way for Mackenzie, Franklin, Richardson, Back, Rae, and others, whose explorations finally delineated the shore line from Behring ...