Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - XVII. Across the Tundra to the Anabar
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by changes of weather and other minor circumstances. We
were, on the whole, fortunate with regard to the former
during our journey from Olenek to Anabar. On one night,
but on one only, we were able to pitch our tent in the
shelter afforded by a little valley, and we were nearly
losing some of our reindeer, although the natives took
turns in watching them all night long. During two days
we had clear weather, which, though the temperature was
about 22° below zero Fahr., enabled us to make a few
observations in this part of the tundra, a region which I believe
has never previously been traversed by man, at all events
not by civilised man. Most interesting of all our finds,
perhaps, was the discovery of ancient driftwood in a
stratum of soil from four to seven feet thick, resting on
pure ice of unknown thickness, here playing the part of rock,
and therefore by the Yakuts very fittingly called bostaya
or “rock-ice”. The configuration of the localities where
we found this ancient driftwood—which is not to be
confounded with the so-called “Noah’s wood” in the
neighbourhood of the Arctic Ocean, which has been washed up
by the sea when its surface was much higher than now—
clearly indicated that they were ancient river valleys or
bottoms of ancient rivers.
When we had got some 153 miles to the westward of
the valley of the Olenek, and thus far away from the
haunts of trappers and hunters, the ptarmigan became so
tame, that numbers of these beautiful birds would light
down in the midst of our caravan and sit on or among the
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