and of surveying the eastern stores of Nova Zembla, in the hope of being able to establish there an extensive walrus-fishery. Three ships were fitted out to undertake distinct portions of the exploration—the first commanded by Lieutenant Krotoff; the second by the pilot Pachtussoff. The third vessel, which was to visit the western coasts of the islands, returned in due time richly laden. Krotoff and Pachtussoff were separated in a fog soon after starting, and of the former nothing was ever heard more, Pachtussoff was more fortunate. He left Archangel on the 1st of August, and, sailing eastward along the southern shores of Nova Zembla, he fell in, on the last day of the same month, with compact fields of ice, which obliged him to construct winter residences after the Russian fashion, and prepare for the rigours of the approaching season. Fearful snowstorms were endured during the winter, and battles were fought with polar bears. On the 24th of April, as they were preparing to resume their researches, so dreadful a storm of snow came on that the men were unable any longer to hold themselves erect, and lay down to allow themselves to be buried by the snow. Although they had buried some provisions not far from the place where this took place, it was impossible while the storm lasted to fetch them, and for three days they lay buried in the snow without tasting food. This snowstorm was a remarkable one for meteorologists, not so much on account of its violence as for the vast extent of country simultaneously visited by it, since it was proved that it was felt throughout the entire length of the Oural mountain chain, a distance of sixteen hundred miles. One of the most interesting episodes of
