- 
17092. letter from Arcticus. 62 
which Mr Laxmann afsures me is, or was employed in 
lieu of iron, by all the inhabitants ofthe Pacificocean, 
before supplied with that useful metal by the circumna~ 
vigators. He said the Tchutfke likewise had their 
arms and utensils made of it,before they were supplied 
bythe Rufsians, and that stillevery msancarries apiece, 
of it about him as a whetstone or hone. This must 
be what was erroneously termed green talc in the vey- 
ages of our navigators, a stone much too soft for 
such purposes, although of the same gents *. 
As to the Kamtchatka expedition, conducted by ouz 
countryman Billings, little can be said till the result 
.of the whole be given to Europe by the command of 
her imperial majesty. 
In the mean time the public are acquainted with 
the failure of the first object proposed, vzz. to make 
a tour by landor water from the mouth ofthe Kuluma 
round the Tchutfkoi Nofs to Kamtchatka. By sea, the 
same icy barrier which prevented the further advance- 
ment of the great and intrepid navigator Cook, in one 
direction, equally prevented that of his pupil Billings 
in another ; nor was the practicability of surveying the 
coast by landfoundlefs difficult than by sea; so that, af- 
ter ascertaining thelongitude and latitude of afew pla- 
ces, he proceeded to execute the second part of his in- 
structions, vzz. to proceed by sea on a voyage of dis- 
covery, by the old beaten track, with two vefsels built 
at Ohotfk, one of which he had the misfortune to lose 
on setting out, on the Kamtchatka coast, and was obli- 
* I have seen several specimens of the same stone instruments brought 
from the soath seas, and agree with my correspondent ia thinking it can- 
not with any degree of propriety be cated tale, _ Edit, 
