L >16 cook's voyage to july, 



name was Fedot Amossoff, by whom Mr. Muller was 

 informed that its direction was to the eastward. It 

 is said to have been since accurately surveyed by 

 ShalaurofF, whose chart makes it trend to the north- 

 east by east as far as the Shelatskoi Noss, which he 

 places about forty-three leagues to the eastward of 

 the Kovyma. The space between this Noss and Cape 

 North, about eighty-two leagues, is therefore the 

 only part of the Russian empire that now remains 

 unascertained. 



But if the river Kovyma be erroneously situated 

 with respect to its longitude as well as in its latitude, 

 a supposition for which probable grounds are not 

 wanting, the extent of the unexplored coast will be- 

 come proportionably diminished. The reasons which 

 incline me to believe that the mouth of this river is 

 placed in the Russian charts much too far to the 

 westward, are as follow : First, because the accounts 

 that are given of the navigation of the Frozen Sea 

 from that river round the north-east point of Asia to 

 the gulf of Anadir, do not accord with the supposed 

 distance between those places. Secondly, because 

 the distance over land from the Kovyma to the Ana- 

 dir, is represented by the early Russian travellers as 

 a journey easily performed, and of no very extraor- 

 dinary length. Thirdly, because the coast from the 

 Shelatskoi Noss of ShalaurofF* seems to trend directly 

 south-east to the East Cape. W this be so, it will 

 follow, that as we were probably not more than 1° to 

 the southward of Shelatskoi Noss, only sixty miles 

 of the Asiatic coast remained unascertained. 



Had Captain Cook lived to this period of our 

 voyage, and experienced, in a second attempt, the 

 impracticability of a north-east or north-west passage 

 from the Pacific to the Atlantic Ocean, he would 

 doubtless have laid before the public, in one con- 

 nected view, an account of the obstacles which de- 



* Sec Chart in Co\c ? s Account of Russian Discoveries. 



