Wrangell had many perilous experiences. In his fourth journey over the sea the ice broke up around him and he found himself on a floe with a labyrinth of water lanes hemming him in on every side and a storm coming on from the westward. The storm rapidly increased in fury, and the masses of ice around him were soon dashing against each other and breaking in all directions. On the floe, which was tossing to and fro on the waves, he gazed in painful inactivity on the conflict, expecting every moment to be swallowed up. For three long hours he had remained unable to move, the mass of ice beneath him holding together, when it was caught by the storm and hurled against a large field of ice. The crash was terrific, as it was shattered into little pieces. At that dreadful moment, when escape seemed impossible, he was saved by the impulse of self-preservation. Instinctively the party sprang on to the sledges and urged the dogs to full speed, and as hard as they could gallop they skimmed across the yielding fragments to the field on which they had been stranded, and safely reached a stretch of firmer ice, where the dogs ceased running among the hummocks, conscious that the danger was past. But it is not so much for adventures like this that his account of his work is of continuing interest as for the abundance of its notes and reflections on the country and its life and climate. Once, for instance, when on the Baranicha he was fortunate enough to witness a migration of reindeer. "I had hardly finished the observation," he says, "when my whole attention was called to a highly interesting, and to me a perfectly novel, spectacle. Two large migrating bodies of reindeer passed us at no great distance. They were descending the hills from the north-west and crossing the plain on their way to the forests, where they spend the winter. Both bodies of deer extended further than the eye could reach, and formed a compact mass, narrowing towards the front. They moved slowly and majestically along, their broad antlers resembling a moving wood of leafless trees. Each body was led by a deer of unusual size, which my guides assured me was always a female. One of the herds was stealthily followed by a wolf, who was apparently watching for an opportunity of seizing any one of the younger and weaker deer which might fall behind the rest, but on seeing us he made off in another direction. The other column was followed at some distance by a large black bear, who, however, appeared only intent on digging out a mouse's nest every now and then, so much so that he took no notice of us. We had great difficulty in restraining our two dogs, but happily succeeded in doing so; their barking, or any sound or motion on our part, might have alarmed the deer, and by turning them from their course, have proved a terrible misfortune to the hunters, who were awaiting their passage, on which they are entirely dependent for support. We remained for two hours