CHAPTER I 



THE GEOGRAPHICAL KNOWLEDGE OF THE NORTH 



PACIFIC OCEAN AT THE BEGINNING OF THE 



EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 



The numerous naval expeditions of the sixteenth century in 

 search of a short passage to Asia gave the geographers a fairly 

 good idea of the waters and shores of the Atlantic and of those 

 parts of the Arctic that were nearest to Europe and European 

 settlements. Equally helpful in making the Indian and the 

 South Pacific waters familiar to the educated world were the 

 voyages via the Cape of Good Hope route to the Indies, China, 

 and Japan, the annual voyages of the Spanish naval officers 

 between Mexico and the Philippines, and the occasional raids of 

 the English freebooters along the Spanish-American coast. From 

 the early years of the seventeenth century onward more or less 

 reliable maps existed for the Pacific Ocean south of the parallel 

 which runs through Cape Mendocino and the northern part of 

 the main island of Japan, but for the vast region north of that 

 line not a single map that could in any way lay claim to accuracy 

 was to be found before the time of the Bering voyages. It was 

 not even known whether the North Pacific area was all land or 

 all water, whether Asia and America were separated or united 

 (Fig. I). 



There were many reasons for believing that islands or a conti- 

 nent were to be found in that northern region. When the Jesuits 

 came to Japan in the middle of the sixteenth century they learned 

 that north of Japan proper there was a body of land called Yezo, 

 but they could not fully inform themselves as to its shape and 

 size. A somewhat similar report reached Europe from another 

 quarter. Richard Cocks, an English merchant in Japan, in a 

 letter written in 1611, made mention of "an island called Yedzo, 

 which is thought to be rather some part of the continent Tartaria." 



