mination of the position of
this important point I remained there until the 20th August at noon.
The _Lena_ was ordered to steam out to dredge during this time.
Eight minutes north of the bay, where we lay at anchor, heavy and
very close ice was met with. There the depth of the sea increased
rapidly. Animal life at the sea-bottom was very abundant, among
other things in large asterids and ophiurids.

According to the plan of the voyage I now wished to steam from this
point right eastwards towards the New Siberian Islands, in order to
see if we should fall in with land on the way. On the 20th and 21st
we went forward in this direction among scattered drift-ice, which
was heavier and less broken up than that which we had met with on
the other side of Taimur Land, but without meeting with any serious
obstacles. We fell in also with some very large ice-floes, but not
with any icebergs. We were besides again attended by so close a mist
that we could only see ice-fields and pieces of ice in the immediate
neighbourhood of the vessel. Besides species of Lestris and
kittiwakes we now also saw looms, birds that are almost wanting in
the Kara Sea. Johannesen was of opinion that the presence of these
birds showed that the sea is not completely frozen over in winter,
because it is not probable that the loom in autumn and spring would
fly across the frozen Kara Sea to seek in this distant region their
food and their breeding-haunts.

The night before the 22nd we steamed through pretty close ice. The
whole day so thick a fog still prevailed that we could not see the
extent of the ice-fields in the neighbourhood of the vessel. Towards
noon we were, therefore, compelled to take a more southerly course.
When we found that we could not advance in this direction, we lay-to
at a large ice-floe, waiting for clear weather, until in the
afternoon the fog again lightened somewhat, so that we could
continue our voyage. But it was not long before the fog again became
so thick that, as the sailors say, you could cut it with a knife.
There was now evidently a risk that the _Vega_, while thus
continuing to "box the compass" in the ice-labyrinth, in which we
had entangled ourselves, would meet with the same fate that befell
the _Tegetthoff_. In order to avoid this, it became necessary to
abandon our attempt to sail from Cape Chelyuskin straight to the New
Siberian Islands, and to endeavour to reach as soon as possible the
open water at the coast