130 BERING STRAIT 



July, to be sent in the following year to discover the 

 Shantar Islands, and next year, 1718, the Kuriles; thus 

 venturing into the Pacific beyond Cape Lopatka. 



The last of these expeditions was due to the direct 

 order of Peter the Great, who, knowing nothing of 

 Deschnef, and finding the sea open to the north, re- 

 solved on a voyage in that direction, his holograph in- 

 structions to Admiral Apraxin being: " One or two boats 

 with decks to be built at Kamchatka, or at any other 

 convenient place, with which inquiry should be made 

 relative to the northerly coasts, to see whether they 

 are not contiguous with America, since their termina- 

 tion is not yet known." Peter died, and the Empress 

 Catherine, carrying out these instructions in their 

 fullest meaning, began her reign with an order for the 

 expedition. 



Veit Bering, Dane by birth and sailor by trade, had 

 voyaged to the Indies, east and west, and, like many 

 other men of enterprise, had entered the Russian 

 service at Peter's invitation. He had served with 

 distinction in the Cronstadt fleet in the war against 

 the Swedes, and, being in good repute for his know- 

 ledge of ships and their handling, was appointed to the 

 command of the most remarkable Arctic enterprise on 

 record. Just as Nicholas ruled a line and ordered a 

 railway to be built there, so did Catherine in the same 

 imperial way order an exploring expedition, and it 

 was done. But it meant building the ship from the 

 trees of the forest on the coast of the Pacific and 

 carrying the materials and stores everything but the 

 timber right across the Russian empire in the days 

 when for thousands of miles there were not even roads. 



