1?79« THE PACIFIC OCEAN. 245 



latitude and longitude, were accurately determined, 

 it would perhaps not be very difficult to form a pro- 

 bable conjecture upon this point. Captain Cook was 

 always strongly of opinion that the northern coast of 

 Asia from the Indigirka eastward, has hitherto been 

 generally laid down more than two degrees to the 

 northward of its true position ; and he has therefore, 

 on the authority of a map that was in his possession, 

 and on the information he received at Oonalashka, 

 placed the mouth of the river Kovyma, in his chart 

 of the north-west coast of America and the north-east 

 coast of Asia, in the latitude of 68°. Should he be 

 right in this conjecture, it is probable, for the reasons 

 that have been already stated, that the Asiatic coast 

 does not any where exceed 70° before it trends to the 

 westward ; and consequently that we were within 1° 

 of its north-eastern extremity. For if the continent 

 be supposed to stretch any where to the northward 

 of Shelatskoi Noss, it is scarcely possible that so ex- 

 traordinary a circumstance should not have been 

 mentioned by the Russian navigators ; and we have 

 already shown that they make mention of no remark- 

 able promontory between the Kovyma and the Anadir, 

 except the East Cape. Another circumstance related 

 by DeshnerT, may perhaps be thought a further con- 

 firmation of this opinion, namely, that he met with 

 no impediment from ice in navigating round the 

 north-east extremity of Asia ; though he adds that 

 this sea is not always so free from it ; as indeed is 

 manifest from the failure of his first expedition, and 

 since that, from the unsuccessful attempts of Shalau- 

 rorT, and the obstacles we met with, in two different 

 years, in our present voyage. 



The continent left undetermined in our chart, be- 

 tween Cape North and the mouth of the Kovyma, is 

 in longitudinal extent one hundred and twenty-five 

 leagues. One third or about forty leagues of this 

 distance, from the Kovyma eastward, was explored 

 in the year 1723 by a Sinbojarskoi of Jakutz, whose 



r3 



