4 PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL MUSEUM vol S) 



Surrounded by angry seas, closed to navigation for a good part 

 of the year, St. Lawrence Island has been visited but rarely, in 

 contrast to some of the other islands, such as the Pribilofs, and 

 most of the few parties that touched its bleak shores remained for 

 only very short periods of time. In fact, so little work has been 

 done there in natural history that it is possible to outline every such 

 attempt in a short paper such as this. 



The first mention of the island is to be found in Vitus Bering's 

 journal.^ On August 8, 1728, when in latitude 64° 30' N., Bering 

 met with eight Chukchi men who asked him who he was and whv 

 he came. " On being invited on board, they put one man over, 

 who * * * swam over to have a talk with us. A little later 

 the boat moved up to us and the men in it told us * * * that 

 a short distance from here the coast turns to the west, and that not 

 far ahead of us is an island. We located this island, which we 

 named St. Lawrence, in honor of the day, and found on it a few 

 huts but no people, although I twice sent the midshipmen to look 

 for them." It may be noted that while the date in the journal reads 

 August 8, the map shows that St. Lawrence Island was visited on 

 August 10. There is nothing in Bering's account to indicate that 

 he or any of his men actually landed on the island, and, as a matter 

 of fact, Da 11 ^ writes definitely that Bering did not land there but 

 merely cruised off its shores. 



In 17G7 Lieutenant Sind saw several clusters of small islands, 

 which were probably the peaks of the old volcanoes on St. Lawrence 

 and which seemed like separate little islands in the fog. He did not 

 land there, and his journey leaves us no richer in information about 

 St. Lawrence. 



In 1777 Capt. James Cook saw the western highlands of the island 

 and named the land Clerke's Island. In the account of his cele- 

 brated voyage '' we find that " * * * Clerke's Island * * * 

 stands in the latitude of 63° 15', and in the longitude of 190° 30'. 

 It seemed to be an island of considerable extent, in which are several 

 hills, all connected by low ground, so that it looks, at a distance, 

 like a group of islands." In another entry * is the first note on 

 record of the bird life of this island : "About midnight, the Isle of 

 St. Lawrence was five or six miles distant * * *. We were ac- 



* Bering's voyages. An account of the efforts of the Russians to determine the rela- 

 tion of Asia and America, vol. 1, p. 18, 1922. Edited by F. A. Golder; published by the 

 American Geographical Society. 



' Ball, W. H., A critical review of Bering's first expedition, 1725-1730, together with 

 a translation of his original report upon it, with a map. Nat. Geogr. Mag., vol. 2, no. 2, 

 p. 31, 1890. 



« Cook, Capt. James, and King, Capt. .Tames, A voyage to the Pacific Ocean, under- 

 taken by command of His Majesty, for making discoveries in the Northern Hemisphere : 

 Performed under the direction of Captains Cook, Clerke, and Goie in the year 1TT6, 

 1777, 1778, 1779, and 1780, vol. 3, pp. 83, 84, 1784. 



«Idera, vol. 4, pp. 19. 20. 



