CHAPTER IV 



BERING'S SECOND EXPEDITION, FROM ITS INCEP- 

 TION TO THE BEGINNING OF THE SEA VOYAGE 



When Bering returned to Russia he made his report to the 

 Empress and to the officers of the Admiralty and the Senate and 

 tried to persuade them that "the instructions of His Imperial 

 Majesty . . . had been carried out." Some clapped their 

 hands while others shrugged their shoulders. The doubters 

 maintained that as long as the coast and waters between the 

 Kolyma River and East Cape were unexamined the problem of 

 the relation of Asia to America was unsolved. They were not 

 without arguments. They called attention to the numerous Si- 

 berian rumors that a large body of land (bolshaya zemlya) existed 

 north of the Kolyma River and another east of East Cape. Were 

 these two or more distinct continents or islands or were they one? 

 Were they part of Asia or part of America? These and such like 

 questions were asked. They were fair questions. Bering was 

 expected to answer them but could not answer them satisfac- 

 torily. 



Bering's Proposal of a Second Expedition 



He was not altogether discredited; for it was realized that he 

 had done a good piece of work, even if he had not done it as well 

 as he should. That he had ability no one doubted, and it was 

 believed that with his experience and the lesson taught him he 

 would do much better if he were given another chance. Bering, 

 no doubt, desired another chance, and he submitted to the 

 Empress the following propositions 1 which would tend to encour- 

 age her to send another expedition. 



1 According to Lauridsen's "Vitus Bering," Chicago, 1889 (note 40, p. 208), first 

 published in V. Berkh: Zhizneopisaniya Pervykh Rossiiskikh Admiralov, 4 vols., 

 St. Petersburg, 1831-36; later reprinted by Sokolov in Zapiski Hydrogr. Depart., 

 Vol. 9, pp. 435-436, St. Petersburg, 1851. — Edit. Note. 



