Abstract
THE last number of the Izvestia of the East-Siberian branch of the Russian Geographical Society gives further news of the Lena Arctic Meteorological Station, dated October 24, 1882. This news was brought by the American officers, Messrs. Garber and Schütze, who left the station on October 25, and reached Yakutsk on. November 29. Mr. Schütze made a sketch of the station, which appeared in the Izvestia, and which we reproduce. The house brought from Yakutsk proved to be comfortable and warm. It has been erected at the Sagastyr arm of the Lena, on Sagastyr Island (in 73° 22′ 30″ N. lat., and 144° 14′ 46″ E. long.); the name of this island is very significant: it means “it blows away.” Galleries of planks have been erected behind the house to connect it with four pavilions for instruments. Besides the coal that has been taken from Yakutsk, the station has a good supply of fuel in the driftwood scattered around the station. The Sagastyr arm of the Lena supplies the inhabitants of the station with fresh fish. The health of all the members is satisfactory. Dr. Bunge received a contusion to a rib during the journey, but he is now well, and is besieged by indigenes, who come to him for medical help. Several Tungus families stay at one and two miles' distance from the station, and they are on the best terms with the meteorologists. The temperature is very low and, as there is no snow, the prospects are not very brilliant. The soil is frozen to a great depth, and cracks; the rivers and lakes are covered with a thick sheet of ice, so that the water beneath the ice is shallow, and the fish are in want of air to breathe. The food for the reindeer is frozen. Even at Yakutsk there was but one inch of snow on December 16, and a great inundation is expected for the spring, as well as epidemics, which are said usually to follow inundations.
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The Arctic Meteorological Station on the Lena . Nature 28, 59–60 (1883). https://doi.org/10.1038/028059a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/028059a0