350 BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 



Bering's family, after his death, that the pay due him should be 

 handed over to them makes two or more bundles of affidavits, 

 copies of certificates, comments of various bureaus, etc. The 

 good and the worthless material is all tied up together. 



In the archives of the Ministry of Marine at Paris there is a 

 collection of valuable papers as yet unpublished. These are 

 letters, copies of journals, charts, reports of conversation, 

 newspaper clippings, and other such material collected by the 

 members of the Delisle family — all of which throw interesting 

 side lights on the period and the men. The papers which are 

 of special importance for this study are those gathered by 

 Joseph Nicolas Delisle during his twenty-one years' (1726- 

 1747) residence at the Russian capital as an officer of the 

 Academy. Those of his papers which have recently come to 

 light in the Bibliotheque Nationale have been discussed by 

 Isnard. 



The principal materials for the present work are the original 

 log books and other naval papers of the navigators. They have all 

 been preserved except the journal of the St. Peter, which was lost 

 at the time of the wreck of the ship. The documents dealing with 

 Bering's second expedition have never been published, not even 

 in Russia, and have been used only once before — by Sokolov for 

 his study. But even Sokolov was ignorant of the existence 

 of some of the material. On his return from Petrograd in 1917 

 the author prided himself on having examined all the docu- 

 ments, but it seems that he was mistaken. His attention has 

 recently been called to a reference by Eugen Biichner ("Die 

 Abbildungen der Nordischen Seekuh," St. Petersburg, 1891, p. 1) 

 to "eine handsschriftliche Beschreibung der zweiten Bering'schen 

 Expedition .... die den Schiffs-Capitain Swen Waxell . . . 

 zum Verfasser hat," which is deposited in the Emperor's pri- 

 vate library in Tsarskoe Selo. Whether this is merely a copy 

 of the document here published or something different it is 

 difficult to say. It cannot be greatly different since the same 

 man wrote both; however, that is an open question for the 

 time being. 



