undertaken. A Cossack,
JAKOB PERMAKOV, stated that during a voyage between the Lena and the
Kolyma, he had seen off Svjatoinos an island, of which he knew not
whether it was inhabited or not, and likewise, that off the mouth of
the Kolyma there was an island which could be seen from land. In
order to make sure of the correctness of this statement, a Cossack,
MERCUREJ WAGIN, was sent out. He travelled along with Permakov, in
the month of May, in dog-sledges over the ice from Svjatoinos to the
island lying off it, that Permakov had seen. They landed there,
found it uninhabited and treeless, and fixed its circumference at
nine to twelve days' journey. Beyond this island Wagin saw another,
which, however, he could not reach for want of provisions. He
therefore determined to turn, in order to undertake the journey the
following year in a better state of preparation. During the return
journey the party suffered severely from hunger, and in order to
avoid a renewal of the dangerous and difficult journey of
exploration, the men at last murdered Permakov, Wagin, and his son.
The crime was discovered, and the knowledge we possess of this
expedition is founded on the confused information obtained during
the examination of the murderers. Mueller even throws doubts on the
truth of the whole narrative.

The attempts which were afterwards made to reach those islands,
partly by sea in 1712, by WASILEJ STADUCHIN, partly by dog-sledges
in 1714 by ALEXEJ MARKOV and GRIGOREJ KUSAKOV, yielded no result.
Ten years afterwards, "the old saga" of the islands in the Polar
Sea, induced one SIN BAJORSKI FEODOT AMOSSOV to undertake an
expedition with a view to impose tribute on their inhabitants, but
he was prevented by ice from reaching his goal. On the way he met
with a hunter, IVAN WILLEGIN, who said, that along with another
hunter, GRIGOREJ SANKIN, he had travelled over the ice to these
islands from the mouth of the river Chukotskaja. He had seen neither
men nor trees, but some abandoned huts "Probably this land extends
all the way from the mouth of the Yana, past the Indigirka and
Kolyma to the region which is inhabited by the Schelags, a Chukch
tribe." He had learned this from a Schelag named Kopai, at whose
home he had been the preceding year. In order to reach this land by
sea it was necessary to start from the coast which the Schelags
inhabited, because the sea was less covered by ice there.

As Amossov could not reach his goal by sea