hitherto doubled.

It is, however, contended, that there are strong reasons for believing that
the sea is more free from ice the nearer we approach to the Pole; and that
all the ice we saw in the lower latitudes was formed in the great rivers of
Siberia and America, the breaking up of which had filled the intermediate
sea. But even if that supposition be true, it is equally so, that there can
be no access to those open seas, unless this great mass of ice is so far
dissolved in the summer as to admit of a ship's getting through it. If this
be the fact, we have taken a wrong time of the year for attempting to find
this passage, which should have been explored in April and May, before the
rivers were broken up. But how many reasons may be given against such a
supposition? Our experience at Saint Peter and Saint Paul enabled us to
judge what might be expected farther north; and upon that ground we had
reason to doubt whether the continents might not in winter be even joined
by the ice; and this agreed with the stories we heard in Kamtschatka, that
on the Siberian coast they go out from the shore in winter upon the ice to
greater distances than the breadth of the sea is in some parts from one
continent to the other.

In the depositions referred to above, the following remarkable circumstance
is related. Speaking of the land seen from the Tschukotskoi Noss, it is
said, "that in summer time they sail in one day to the land in baidares, a
sort of vessel constructed of whale-bone, and covered with seal-skins; and
in winter time, going swift with rein-deer, the journey may be likewise
made in one day." A sufficient proof that the two countries were usually
joined together by the ice.

The account given by Mr Muller of one of the expeditions undertaken to
discover a supposed island in the Frozen Sea, is still more remarkable. "In
the year 1714, a new expedition was prepared from Jakutzk, for the same
place, under the command of Alexei Markoff, who was to sail from the mouth
of the Jana; and if the _Schitiki_ were not fit for sea-voyages, he was to
construct, at a proper place, vessels fit for prosecuting the discoveries
without danger.

"On his arrival at Ust-janskoe Simovie, the port at which he was to embark,
he sent an account, dated February 2, 1715, to the Chancery of Jakutzk,
mentioning that it was impossible to navigate the sea, as it was
continually frozen both in summer and winter; and that consequently the
intended e