BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 



Manuscript Sources 



Golder's "Guide to Materials for American History in Russian 

 Archives" (Carnegie Instn. Publ. No. 23Q, Washington, D. C, 

 1917) lists all the unpublished documents on this subject that 

 are to be found in Petrograd and Moscow. 



In the Archives of the Ministry of Marine at Petrograd there 

 are classified under the heading "Captain Commander Bering" 

 in bundles of documents, some of which contain between 2,000 

 and 3,000 pages. In addition there are many other papers in the 

 archives relating to this subject catalogued under different heads, 

 such as "Admiralty College," "Count Apraksin," and various other 

 names. These are by no means all the documents. The Hydro- 

 graphic Section of the Ministry of Marine, the Academy of 

 Sciences, the Archives of the State, the Ministry of War, and 

 most of the other archives, both at Petrograd and Moscow, have 

 manuscript material in this field. 



This vast amount of material is, however, out of proportion to 

 its importance. Many of the ill bundles associated with the 

 name of Bering have nothing whatever to do with him, his work, 

 or his period, but deal nearly altogether with purely Siberian 

 affairs of a much later time. In the remaining bundles which do 

 concern the Bering expeditions, much of the material con- 

 tained is worthless because of duplication. Each undertaking 

 went through the hands of several administrative bodies and 

 bureaus, all of which made copies and comments; by the time a 

 decision was reached a large number of papers had accumulated 

 that were merely repetitions of the same subject. To give con- 

 crete illustrations: The trouble between Spanberg and one of his 

 lieutenants fills many bundles of documents — the same charge (a 

 very petty one) being repeated again and again. The petition of 



