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 whalebone, and covered with seal-skins; and in winter time, going swift with rein-deer, the journey may likewise be made in a 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.