Note 18 — Chapter IV
Reading edition
The Lena is not perfectly free from ice until the end of May or early in June. By October 20 it is generally frozen over. "It is a peculiarity of these northern rivers that their waters are mainly derived from the melting snows in June and July, when the Lena, for example, overflowing its banks, spreads here and there to a width of 60 miles or more."—("In the Lena Delta," by G. W. Melville.)