272 APPENDIX TO CASE OF GREAT BRITAIN. 



Sea." He was killed by an arrow before his enterprise was completed. 

 Little is known of the result, but it is stated that the navigator w horn he 

 had selected, by name Gwosdew, in 1730 succeeded in reaching a "strange 

 coast" between 65° and 00° of north latitude, where he saw people, 

 but could not speak with them for want of an interpreter. This must 

 have been the coast of North America, and not far from the group of 

 islands in Behring Straits, through which thei)resent boundary passes, 

 separating the United States from Russia, and America from Asia. 



The desire of the Russian Government to get behind the curtain 

 increased. Behring volunteered to undertake the discoveries that 

 remained to be made. He was created a Commodore, and his old Lieu- 

 tenants were created Captains. The Senate, the Admiralty, and the 

 Academy of Sciences at St. Petersburgh all united in the enterprise. 

 Several Academicians were appointed to report on the natural history 

 of the coasts visited, among whom was Steller the naturalist, said to be 

 ''immortal" from this association. All of these, with a numerous body 

 of officers, journeyed across Siberia, Northern Asia, and the Sea of 

 Okhotsk, to Kamtchatka, as Behring had journeyed before. Though 

 ordered in 1732, the expedition was not able to leave the western coast 

 until the 4th June, 1741, when two well-appointed ships set sail in 

 company "to discover the Continent of America." One of these, called 

 the "St. Paul," was uuder Commodore Behring; the other, called the 

 "St. Peter," was under Captain Tschirikow. For some time the two 

 kept together, but in a violent storm and fog they were separated, when 

 each continued the expedition alone. 



Behring first saw the Continent of North America on the 18th July, 

 1741, in latitude 58^' 28'. Looking at it from a distance, "the 

 45 country had terrible high mountains that were covered with 

 snow." Two days later he anchored in a sheltered bay near a 

 point which he called from the saint-day on which he saw it. Cape St. 

 Elias. He was in the shadow of Mount St. Elias. On landing he found 

 deserted huts, fireplaces, hewn wood, household furniture, an arrow, 

 edge-tools of copper, with "store of red salmon." Here also several 

 birds, unknown in Siberia, were noticed by the faithful Steller, among 

 which was the blue jay, of a peculiar species, now called by his name. 



Steering northward, Behring found himself constrained by the elbow 

 in the coast to turn westward, and then in a southerly direction. Hug- 

 ging the shore, his voyage was constantly arrested by islands without 

 number, among which he zigzagged to find his way; several times he 

 landed. On one of these occasions he saw natives, who wore "upper 

 garments of whale's guts, breeches of seal skins, caps of the skins of 

 sea-lions, adorned with various feathers, esi)ecially those of hawks." 

 These "Americans," as they are called, were fishermen, without bows 

 and arrows. They regaled the Russians with "whale's flesh," but 

 declined strong drink. One of them, on receiving a cup of brandy, 

 "s])it it out again as soon as he tasted it, and cried aloud, as if com- 

 l»laining to his countrymen how ill he had been used." This was on 

 one of the Shumagin Islands, near the southern coast of the Peninsula 

 of Alaska. 



Meanwhile, the other solitary ship proceeding on its way, had sighted 

 the same (;oast on the loth J uly, 1741, in the latitude of oOo. Anchoring 

 at some distance from the steep and rocky cliffs beibre him, Tschirikow 

 sent his mate with the long boat and ten of his best men, provided with 

 small-arms and a brass cannon, to inquire into the nature of the country 

 and to obtain fresh water. The long boat disapjieared in a small 

 wooded bay, and was never seen again. Thinking it might have been 



