nephrite are found both on the Chukch Peninsula and in old graves
from the Stone Age in the southern part of the country. They have
been discovered at Telma, sixty versts from Irkutsk, by Mr. J.N.
Wilkoffski, conservator of the East Siberian Geographical Society.
In scientific mineralogy nephrite is first mentioned under the name
of _Kascholong_ (_i.e._ a species of stone from the river Kasch). It
has been brought home under this name by Renat, a prisoner-of-war
from Charles XII.'s army, from High Asia, and was given by him to
Swedish mineralogists, who described it very correctly, though
kascholong has since been erroneously considered a species of
quarts. ]

[Footnote 350: The Eskimo however, like the Chukches, do not appear
to have any proper religion or idea of a life after this. ]

[Footnote 351: We have already found some land mollusca at Port
Clarence, but none at St. Lawrence Bay. The northernmost _find_ of
such animals now known was made by Von Middendorff, who found a
species of Physa on the Taimur Peninsula. ]

[Footnote 352: That a fire-emitting mountain was to be found in
Siberia east of the Yenisej is already mentioned in a treatise by
Isaak Massa, inserted in Hessel Gerritz, _Detectio Freti_,
Amsterdam, 1612. The rumour about the volcanos of Kamchatka thus
appears to have reached Europe at that early date. ]

[Footnote 353: Kotzebue says that he was the first seafarer who
visited the island. This however is incorrect. Billings landed there
on the 1st August (21st July), 1791. From the vessel some natives
was seen and a _baydar_ which was rowed along the coast. The
natives however were frightened by some gunshots fired as a signal
(Sarytchev's _Reise_, ii. p. 91, Sauer, p. 239). Billings says that
the place where he landed (the south-east point of the island) was
nearly covered with bones of sea-animals. It would be important to
have these thoroughly examined, as it is not impossible that
Steller's sea-cow (Rhytina) may in former times have occasionally
come to this coast. At all events important contributions to a
knowledge of the species of whales in Behring's Straits may be
gained here. ]

[Footnote 354: Otto von Kotzebue _Entdeckungs-Reise an die Sud-See
und nach der Behring-Strasse, 1815-18_ Weimar, 1821, i. p. 135, ii.
p. 104, iii. pp. 171 and 178. ]

[Footnote 355: On the days after our arrival at Pitlekaj several dogs
were killed. I then believed that this was done because the natives
were