Schergin's Well

The scientific investigation of permafrost got its start, in 1828, through the efforts of an optimistic Siberian merchant.

Fedor Schergin of the Russian-American Trading Company decided that the company post in Yakutsk, USSR needed a well. He pointed to a spot in the courtyard and put the men to work. Slowly, very slowly, they dug down through the frozen ground. Finally at a depth of 382 feet (116 meters) they gave up the battle.

Though Mr. Schergin got no water, his endeavor gave him a piece in posterity. His dry well is now preserved as a national historical monument because temperature measurements within it first proved to a skeptical world that permafrost really does exist. (Schergin's employees were already convinced!)

The existence of permafrost actually had been reported 250 years earlier by Sir Martin Frobisher. Searching for the Northwest Passage in 1577, Frobisher reported ground frozen to depths of 30 feet "even in summer". The implication of Frobisher's remarks was surely lost on his contemporaries, because it was not until the early 1800's that quantitative understanding of heat energy and its transport was beginning to develop.