INTRODUCTION. I^ 



lative fituation of Afia and America, and difcovering the 

 narrow bounds of the ilrait that divides them, he has throwa 

 a blaze of Hght upon this important part of the geography 

 of the globe, and folved the puzzling problem about the 

 peopling of America, by tribes deflitute of the necelTary 

 means to attempt long navigations ; and, laflly,That, though 

 the principal obje(5l of the voyage failed, the world will be 

 greatly benefited even by the failure, as it has brought us 

 to the knowledge of the exiftence of the impediments, which 

 future navigators may expei5t to meet with in attempting to 

 go to the Eafl Indies through Beering's ftrait. 



The extended review we have taken of the preceding 

 voyages, and the general outline we have fketched out, of 

 the tranfa6tions of the laft, which are recorded at full 

 length in thefe volumes, will not, it is hoped, be conlidered 

 as a prolix, or unnecefTary detail. It will ferve to give a 

 jull notion of the whole plan of difcovery executed by his 

 Majefty's commands. And it appearing that much was 

 aimed at, and much accompli(hed, in the unknown parts 

 of the globe, in both hemifpheres, there needs no other 

 confideratlon, to give full fatisfa<51:ion to thofe who pofTefs 

 an enlarged way of thinking, that a variety of ufeful pur- 

 pofes mufl have been efFecfted by thefe refearches. But 



voyages, Vol. il. p. 1021.] has preferved many valuable particulars of Beering's firft 

 voyage, of which Muller himfelf, the Hiftorian of their earlier dilcoveries, makes no 

 mention ; that it fhould be another of our countrymen, Mr. Coxe, who firft publiflied 

 a fatisfaftory account of their later difcoveries ; and that the King of Great Britain's 

 fhips fhould traverfe the globe in 1778, to confirm to the Ruffian empire, the pofieffion 

 of near thirty degrees, or above fix hundred miles of continent, which Mr. Engel, in 

 his zeal for the prafticability of aNorthEafl: pafFage, would prune away from the length 

 of Afia to the Eafl:ward. See his Memoires Geographiques, &c. Laufanne 1765 j which^ 

 however, contains much real information j ajid many parts of which are confirmed by 

 Captain Cook's American difcoveries, 



there 



