safety, they were entirely exhausted, and when they approached the village could hardly go a hundred yards at a time without falling. At Anadyrsk they succeeded in obtaining a small quantity of reindeer-meat, upon which they lived until the return of Lieutenant Bush from Gizhiga with provisions, some time in May. Thus ended the second winter's work in the Northern District. As far as practical results were concerned, it was an almost complete failure; but it developed in our officers and men a courage, a perseverance, and a patient endurance of hardships which deserved, and which under more favourable auspices would have achieved, the most brilliant success. In the month of February, while Mr. Norton and his men were at work on the Myan River, the thermometer indicated more than forty degrees below zero during sixteen days out of twenty-one, sank five times to -60° and once to -68°, or one hundred degrees below the freezing point of water. Cutting poles on snow-shoes, in a temperature ranging from 40° to 60° below zero is, in itself, no slight trial of men's hardihood; but when to this are added the sufferings of hunger and the peril of utter starvation in a perfect wilderness, it passes human endurance, and the only wonder is that Norton and Macrae could accomplish as much as they did. Returning from Anadyrsk, I reached Gizhiga on the 15th of December, after a hard and lonely journey of sixteen days. A special courier had just arrived there from Yakutsk, bringing letters and orders from Major Abaza.