Soon after Christmas scurvy began to show itself. Nummelin's companions were condemned and punished criminals, in whom there was to be expected neither physical nor moral power of resistance to this disease. They all died, three of scurvy, and one in the attempt to cross from the Briochov Islands to a _simovie_ at Tolstoinos. In their stead Nummelin succeeded in procuring two men from Tolstoinos, and later on one from Goltschicha. On the 11th May a relief party arrived from the south. It consisted of three men under the mate Meyenwaldt, whom Sidoroff had sent to help to save the vessel. They had first to shovel away the snow which weighed it down. The snow lay nearly six metres deep on the river ice, which was three metres thick. When they at last had got the vessel nearly dug out, it was buried again by a new snowstorm. In the middle of June the ice began to move, and the river water rose so high that Nummelin, Meyenwaldt, and four men, along with two dogs, were compelled to betake themselves to the roof of the hut, where they had laid in a small stock of provisions and fuel. Here they passed six days in constant peril of their lives. The river had now risen five metres; the roof of the hut rose but a quarter of a metre above the surface of the swollen river, and was every instant in danger of being carried away by a floating piece of ice. In such a case a small boat tied to the roof was their only means of escape. The whole landscape was overflowed. The other houses and huts were carried away by the water and the drifting ice, which also constantly threatened the only remaining building. The men on its roof were compelled to work night and day to keep the pieces of ice at a distance with poles. The great inundation had even taken the migrating birds at unawares. For long stretches there was not a dry spot for them to rest upon, and thus it happened that exhausted ptarmigan alighted among the men on the roof; once a ptarmigan settled on Meyenwaldt's head, and a pair on the dogs. On the 23rd June the water began to fall, and by the 25th it had sunk so low that Nummelin and his companions could leave the roof and remove to the deserted interior of the house. The narrative of Nummelin's return to Europe by sea, in company with Schwanenberg, belongs to a following chapter. [Footnote 87: _Les moeurs et usages des Ostiackes_, par Jean Bernard Muller, Capitaine de dragon au service de la Suede, pendant sa captivite en Siberie (_Recueil de Voiages au Nord._ T. VIII., Amsterdam, 1727, p. 389). ] [Footnote 88: I come to this conclusion from the appearance of the strata as seen from the sea, and from their nature on Vaygats Island and the west coast of Novaya Zemlya. So far as I know, no geologist has landed on this part of the east coast. ]