Unfuccefsful
Attempt to
pafs from the
Yenifèi to the
Lena.
Voyage of
Prontfhiftfh-
e ff from the
Lena towards
the Yenifei.
Oby. In 1738, the lieutenants Malgyin and Skurakoff
doubled that promontory with great difficulty, and entered
the bay of Oby. During thefe expeditions the navigators
met with great dangers and impediments from
the ice. Several unfuccefsful attempts were made to pafs
from the bay o f Oby to the Yenifèi, which was at laft
effedted, in 1738, by two veffels commanded by lieutenants
Offzin and Kolkeleffi The fame year the pilot
Feodor Menin failed from the Yenifèi rewards the Lena:
he lleered North as high as lat. 73°. 15'. and when he
came to the mouth of the Piafida he was flopped by the
ice ; and finding it impoffible to force a paffage, he returned
to the Yenifèi in
July, 1735, lieutenant Prontfhiffiheff failed from
Yakutsk up the Lena to its mouth, in order to pafs
from thence by fea to the Yenifèi. The Weftern mouths
of the Lena were fo choaked up with ice, that he was
obliged to pafs through the moft Eaflerly one ; and was
prevented by contrary winds from getting out until the
13th of Auguft. Having fleered North Weft along the
iflands which lie fcattered before the mouths of the Lena
he found himfelf in lat. 70° 4'. He faw much ice to
the North and North Eaft ; and obferved ice-mountains
from twenty-four to ftxty feet in height. He fleered betwixt
the ice, which in no place, left a free channel of
* P. 145 to 149.
greater
greater breadth than an hundred or two hundred yards,'1
The veflel being much damaged, on the ift of September
he ran up the mouth of the Olenek, which, according
to his eftimatiou, lies in 720/ 30', near which place
he palled the winter *.
He got out of the Olenek the beginning of Auguft in
the following year; and arrived on the third at the mouth
o f the Anabara, which he found to lie in lat. 73° 1/.
There he continued until the 1 oth, while fome of the
crew went up the country in fearch of fome mines. On
the 1 oth he proceeded on his voyage : before he reached
the mouth of the Chatanga he was fo entirely furrounded
and hemmed in with ice, that it was not without great
difficulty and danger he was able to get loofe. He then
obferved a large field of ice ftretching into the fea, on
which account he was obliged to continue near the fhore,
and to run up the Chatanga. The mouth of this river
was in lat 740 9'. From thence he bent his courfe moftly
Northward along the fhorej until he reached the mouth
of the Taimura on the 18 th. He then proceeded further,
and followed the coaft towards the Piafida. Near
the fhore were feveral fmall iflands, between which and
the land the ice was immovably fixed. He then diredled
his courfe toward the fea, in order to pafs round the
* Gmelin Reife, II. 425 to 427.
R r a chain