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606 ELE ROY’S NARRATIVE OF FOUR ‘RUSSIAN SAILORS.
order to be able to fpeak with certainty of it, to avail myfelf of the chart which was
laid before them, after their return to their native ‘country: they found out of them-
felves their place of exile, pointed out the {pot on which their ‘hut had been ereéted, and
marked it with a ftroke of a pen upon the map, which wasreturned tome at Archangel.
A proof that they had not deceived themfelves from a knowledge of this ifland is
evident from what Mr. Vernezobre, mentioned already in the beginning of my narrative,
writes to me. He faysin his letter of r5th of November, 1750. ‘* The captain ofa
galliot called the Nicholas and Andrew, belonging to Count Peter Twanowitch Von
Schuwaloff, pafled in the winter of 1749 on. Maloy Broun. | He landed fhortly after
the departure of our failors, and difcovered the hut which had ferved them for a dwell-
ing, and noticed on a wooden crofs, erected before the door by the pilot Alexis
Himkof; an in{cription giving the name to the Ifland of Alexeyiewfkoi Oftrow, that is
to fay, Alexis Ifland.” I muft now remark a circumftance contained in this letter which
thews that the ifland muft be of tolerable extent: ‘* Certain Samoiedes hearing of the
adventures of our failors, and this country being fuitable to them above all others,
requefted to fpeak with Mr. Vernezobre ; they withed to be permitted to inhabit it, and
to be tranfported thither without reward, themfelves with their wives, their children,
and their rein-deer.”
Before I enter into a detail on the nature of thisifland, it may perhaps not be out of
place to make the following remark. Some authors have advanced that the country
known by the name of Nova Zemla, is not properly {peaking an ifland, or, as others main-
tain, a part of our continent, but only aheap of ice, held up and collected together in
the lapfe of time, which travellers have reprefented as anifland. The ground on which
they build their aflumption is this among others: when (they fay,) men dig to the
depth of one or two feet through the ftratum of earth, which the wind has blown
over here from the coaft of Afia, nothing but ice is found below.
I can not undertake to decide in this matter: this has no relation to my fubject: IT
have not read the authors who have publifhed their fentiments in fupport of, or in oppo-
fition to, this hypothefis. I am content with obferving fimply that the ifland Eaft Spitz-
bergen, of which I am treating, muft be looked upon indifputably as real land, accord-
ing to the reprefentations made to me by thefe failors.
They found, as they told me, many mountains and craggy rocks of an aftonifhing
height, continually covered with ice and fnow. ‘They did not meet with the fmalleft
tree, nor even the moft diminutive bufh, the Cochlearia excepted, which was very
{paringly found. No grafs grew, on the other hand mois was feen in abundance every
where. Inthe middle of the ifland they difcovered fome fat earth or clay, whence it
is probable that fome perfons have conceived that there were ice mines in this place, or
that this itfelf was formerly nothing elfe: it is not impoflible were they to go and dig
there, that they would fhortly get to the ice. They certainly had no rivers although
they never wanted water: buta number of ftreams flowed at all times from the moun-
tains and rock, fupplied from abundant fources. Befides flint {tones which were com-
mon, the ifland furnifhed a kind of ftone proper for burning for lime. This ftone
produced here on the furface of the ground, in other countries is ufually dug from
quarries : (itis cuftomary in Ruffia to burn lime, and lay the floors of their houfes
with it,) I fhould have taken the {tone to have been hewn, were it not for the circum-
{tance of its fpliting like flate after long expofure to the air, and being feparable like flate
into fcales. This kind of {tone is called, by the Ruffians, p/it. To conclude, at the fea fide
of the ifland, the fhore is covered with fand and gravel, which continues’ fome little
diftance towards the interior.
I had
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