Alexander Feodorovich Middendorf: Encyclopedia Arctica 15: Biographies

Middendorf, Alexander Feodorovich (1815-1894), famous Russian naturalist, traveler, and the first investigator of permafrost, was born in St. Petersburg. He was educated at the Pedagogical Institution in St. Petersburg and at the University of Yuriev. He received his M.A. for his dissertation, Queadam de bronchorum polypis, morbi casu observata illustrata, and subsequently went abroad where he studied at universities in Berlin, Erlanger, Vienna, and Breslau. In 1839 he became the assistant in Zoology at Kiev University, and in 1840 he partici– pated in lapland expedition lead by Academician K.M. Baer, anthropologist and zoologist, who devoted a considerable amount of time to the study of Lapland, Novaya Zemlya, and the Caspian Sea. There Middendorf studied birds, mollusks, and geology, travelling to the Kola peninsula. He started from the town of Kola, crossed the peninsula on foot to reach Kandalaksha. Upon his return from this expedition he was made a full professor at the University of Kiev in 1841.

In 1842-1845, at the request of the Academy of Sciences, initiated by K. M. Berg, he was sent on a trip to Siberia. The results of this trip became one of the most important achievements of the 19th century because of the magnitude and value of Midden– dorf's observations.

This trip took him to the north of the Taimyr peninsula, then further east to the Yakutsk area, and then across the Aldan plateau and the Stanovoi mountains to the Amur river.

The purpose of the expedition was twofold: 1) The study of organic life of the inland of the Far North far from the sea shore. In this connection Baer suggested an investigation of the area between the Pi a ^ â ^ sina and Khatanga rivers on the Taimyr pen– insula, where the Siberian mainland juts far to the north and is removed from the influence of the warm Atlantic and Pacific oceans. 2) Verification of the report concerning the existence of "eternally frozen soil", (permafrost) which had been encountered in the city of Yakutsk and assumed elsewhere. Baer had prepared detailed instructions containing all the known facts about perma– frost and "fossil ice" in Siberia, to serve as a guide for Middendorf, and suggested detailed temperature observations of the soil at various depths.

Middendorf left St. Petersburg in November 1842, went first to Kransnoyarsk, and from there down the Yenisei to Turukhansk, where he began his geothermic observations by drilling three test pits 8^.^17, 13.65 and 9.9 meters deep. He did not find permafrozen soil there and encountered only seasonal freezing. Proceeding further north down the Yenisei he reached the settlement of Dudinka and then turned east going into the tundra toward the Taimyr pen– insula. On his way he made another test pit 3.96 meters deep and there he found a true permafrost layer with a temperature of minus 4.5 degrees C.

Traveling in the winter, Middendorf reached the Taimyr river and in the spring, as soon as the river was free from ice, he sailed on a crudely made boat across lake Taimyr and down the narrow part of the Taimyr river between the Byranga mountains to the river's mouth at the shores of the Arctic.

On his way back he followed the course of the river up to the lake in the boat, but then winter set in and further progress by water was impossible. He sent his companions to find help and spent twenty days ill and half starved, all alone on the shore of the lake until ^ ^ a group of Samoyeds which his companions found brought the expedition back to the settlement.

Early in 1844, after his return to Krasnoyarsk, Middendorf went to Yakutsk to study the permafrost in the Shergin well. This well had been made in 1827, when a local merchant, Shergin, in need of a water supply, had begun to dig for water. He began digging in permanently frozen ground, but when he reached a depth of 22.4 meters and failed to find water, he was ready to stop. However, some scientists suggested that he continue his work in the hopes of determining the thickness of the permanently frozen layer in Yakutsk. Ten years later, in 1837, the work was stopped, after a depth of 116.4 meters had been reached, still in the perma– frozen layer. The bottom of ^ t ^ his now famous Shergin well is located below the level of the Lena River in the Yakut region, and also several meters below sea ^ ^ level, since the altitude of Yakutsk is ^ ✓ ^ only 109 meters. However, the lower limits of the permafrozen mass had not been reached, and Shergin's work demonstrated that in the Yakutsk area there is permanently frozen ground which reaches

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a depth below sea level.

Middendorf took advantage of the existence of this deep well and organized the first detailed temperature observations of the layer of permafrozen ground. Test bores, seven feet deep ^ ,✓ ^ were drilled perpendicularly into one of the pit walls at var– ious distances from the surface. Two thermometers attached to wooden [: ] sticks were placed in each bore hole. The first thermometer was placed one foot from the wall surface, and served as the control thermometer; the second, the basic one, was placed seven feet into the wall. An enclosure containing a windlass was constructed at the surface and from there an observer lowered himself in a bucket, and at periodic intervals would stop at each bore hole, remove the stick, and record the temperature by the light of a lantern.

These observations were conducted from two to five times a month for twenty-six months, with three interruptions of six months, two months ^ , ^ and a month. From the results of these obser- ^ ✓ ^ vations, Middendorf concluded that the temperature of the perma– frozen ground rises with depth. He also prepared a table of [: ] geothermic gradients, and estimated the geothermic step at a depth of 100 feet. From this he estimated the probable thick– ness of the permafrost layer in Yakutsk to be 615 feet ^ , ^ excluding ^ ✓ ^ the active layer. He also made a series of temperature observa– tions in a number of shafts sunk into the ground in and around the city of Yakutsk.

These observations and the series of important deductions made from them were published by Middendorf in 1848 in German.

His findings were widely publicized and generally accepted, but some scientists doubted the validity of his data, because the observations had not been continuous. However, Soviet scientists later confirmed Middendorf's conclusions on the basis of their subsequent work in and near Yakutsk. Thus, the science of permafrostology owes a great debt to the work of Middendorf.

From Yakutsk Middendorf went south-east through Amginsk on the Amga river to the basin of the Uchura river, then across the Stanovoi mountain watershed, and then down the Uda river to the shores of the Okhotsk Sea ^ , ^ which he reached in June 1844. There he investigated the southern shore of the Okhotsk Sea and portions of the Shantar Islands.

Turning almost directly south along the Tugur river he reached the basin of the Bureya river. Then, following the southern slopes of the Stanovoi mountains, he proceeded to the basin of the Zeia river, to the Amur, and through Nerchinsk and Kiakhta to K ^ I ^ rkutsk and returned to St. Petersburg in April 1845, after ^ ✓ ^ having covered a distance of about 30,000 kilometers.

The full report of his expedition was published in German in four volumes (1848-1875) and parts of it in Russian (1860-1869). It contains valuable information on geology, geography, hydrography, botany, zoology, ethnography, meteorology, and climatology. One can find such diverse items as geology and geography of the Khatanga tundra, magnetic observations of the Far North, survey of old cartography and geography of Siberia, resum e ^ é ^ of the known ^ ✓ ^ facts on the finds of frozen mammoth, and numerous observations on

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the life of the Samoyeds, Yakuts, Tungus, Goldi, and Orochons.

In 1850 the Academy of Sciences conferred membership on him, and in 1855 he became its permanent secretary. He was a prominent member of the Imperial Russian Geographical Society and at one time held the position of Vice-President of that organization.

In 1870 he accompanied Prince Alexei Alexandrius to the White Sea where he studied the temperature of its waters, and to Novaya Zemlya, where he made important observations on the Gulf ^ ^ s ^ S ^ tream east of Nordcape ^ North Cape ^ and made trips to Southern Siberia, ^ ✓ ^ the Crimea, the Mediterranean Sea, the Caucasus, etc. Two capes, (in Karsk Sea on the Island of Novaya Zemlya, and on the peninsula Taimyr) as well as a mountain chain separating the northern plain of the left bank of the Kett river from the high plain ^ ^ near ^ ✓ ^ Lake Yesey, were named after him.

In 1870 he published his observations on the Barabinsk region, the character of the steppe, soil, and dunes surrounding it, and the peculiar parallel character of the river valley, which led him to conclude that the Barabinsk steppe had only recently been the bottom of a sea.

In his volume on Fergana, the result of a three month trip, Middendorf devoted a great deal of attention to problems of the origin of the loess, and gives facts and arguments in favor of its aeolian origin.

He was the author of valuable contributions on present and extinct Russian fauna, physical geography, and agriculture.

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His works include: