KOLY MA, or Kovi MA, a great river of Siberia, which rises in the Virchayansky chain of mountains, and falls into the Frozen Ocean after a course exceeding 1200 miles.
The Kolyma is frozen over about the 20th of Septem ber, and the ice breaks tip about the 24th of May, when it deluges all the low country ; nor do its waters retreat within their proper boundaries before the end of June. The cold is then excessive, the th..rmometer falls to from 60° to 70° below zero ; Mercury itself freezes. It becomes almost impossible to fell timber, for the hatchets break like glass. The ice on the river, and the timber of the houses, crack with a report resembling that of a musket. On the approach of thaw, the river, in little more than a week, rises 27 feet of perpendicular height. The face of the country is like au immense hike, and only the tops of some of the trees are visible above the water: The river now becomes navigable.
Near the source of the Kolyma there are three huts, and a storehouse for preserving provisions belonging to government ; and barks are constructed there for convey ing them down the stream. Several Russian stations also stand along its banks. Virchni, or the upper Ostrog, about the middle of this river, is situated on the Yasa shnoi, a mile from its discharge into the Kolyma. The most northern station is called Nischney Kolymsk, si tuated on an island in Lat. 68° 17' N. and Long. 163° 17' E. It consists of a church, 70 houses, and a fort, en closed in a square of palisades 8 feet high. Another sta
tion, called Seredni Kolyma, of 15 houses of Russians, and a church, stands in Lat. 67° 10' N., and Long. 157° 1Ci E. About 40 miles below the former, the river divides into two channels, and falls into the ocean in Lat. 69° 16' W., and Long. 166° 10' E., its course being N. E. in general from the source. Between Seredni Kolyma, and Nischney Kolyina, a distance of 306 miles, the eastern banks are uniformly mountainous, affording porphyry, agates, jasper, and crystals. The western banks are low. The most re markable fossils found here are the tusks of the mammoth, lie at a considerable depth in the high sandy shores of the river, and on the margin of the Frozen Ocean. They are exposed by the washing of the spring floods; and it does not appear singular that they are buried so deep, as the flood every spring leaves immense quantities of earth and sand, which perhaps accumulates to the depth of two or three inches among the bushes. The tusks are equal in whiteness and beauty to those of the elephant, but of a different figure.
This river contains a considerable variety of fish, few of which ascend higher than about half way to the source. Great shoals of salmon ascend in September, and depart shortly after the river closes. Some of the others are common in the European rivers. Numbers are caught with the scin in summer, and by means of other expedients in winter.