1 5 I 
The distressed crew were once more ashore, hut as castaways on an 
unknown land. They finally arrived at the conclusion that it was an 
unpeopled region, for the only animals at first seen were foxes, and these 
showed a complete fearlessness of man, of such a kind as to indicate 
that they had never before came in contact with him. There was no 
wood hut driftwood on the island for such it proved to he and that 
was scanty. Thus, in order to shelter themselves from the inclemency 
of the weather, the survivors were reduced to digging holes in the sand, 
which they covered with sails. 
So the winter was spent, and more men died, among them Behring 
himself. The island which they had reached was that since known as 
Bchring Island, situated some 90 or 100 miles from the Kamtschatkan 
coast to which they had hoped to return. 
Adapting themselves as well as they could to the circumstances, 
the crew found that the sea-otter which frequented the island afforded 
a source of food. During the winter a whale was also washed ashore 
which materially assisted in their sustenance ; but before the end of their 
stay, it was discovered that the sea-cow, which frequented the shores 
in herds, afforded a much more toothsome and wholesome flesh than 
that of any of the other animals. A method of hunting the sea-cow 
was established, and it is largely to the existence of this animal that 
the ultimate salvation of a part of Behring's crew was due. 
This brings us to the main subject of my paper, the sea-cow or 
manatee of the North Pacific; but before speaking further of the sea- 
cow itself, it will be in order to state that in the following summer 
that of 1742 a new but much smaller vessel was constructed from the 
wreck of the original one, in which, setting sail in August, the survivors 
managed in ten days to return to Avacha Bay in Kamtschatka. 
With them they brought some trophies from the newly discovered 
lands ; amongst these the skins of the sea-otter, or sea-beaver as it was 
called by the Russians at the time ; the pursuit of which was the moving 
cause of the numerous Russian expeditions of following years. A new 
avenue for the enterprise of the fur-traders had been opened up and 
skvns even more valuable than those of the sable allured them to 
