8 HULLiri'lN in- THE UNITKi) STATES FISH COMMISSION. 



crew, sick to death with the scurvy, slowly approached the soutiierii extremity of 

 Copper Island from the cast, on their return voyage, after having discovered the main- 

 land of xVmerica. Owing to the universal sickness, the ship's reckoning was entirely 

 out, and the olWcers believed themselves off the coast of Kamchatka. The next day 

 the vessel, over which the exhausted crew had hardly any (control, drifted toward the 

 east shore of Bering Island, and in the night following, a beautiful, still November 

 night, of which this coast knows but few, tlie unfortunate craft canu^ i)retty near being 

 left by the receding tide and wrecked on the projecting reefs at the southern entrance 

 to the little bay called Komandor on the nnip (plate 4). V>y an excejttional piece of 

 cood luck, the breakers carried it safely over the rocks into the basin beyond, and a 

 landing was ctl'ected. 



To such extremity were the discoverers i-educed that it was decided to winter on 

 this inhospitable shore. Hollows were dug in the ground for shelter and covered with 

 skins of wild animals and sails. Many of the crew died of the scnrvy, and on the 8th of 

 December (old style) Bering liimself. He was buried near the i)lace marked on the 

 map ''Bering's grave." The others, 40 only out of 77, recovered slowly under the care 

 of G. W. Steller, who accomijanied the expedition as a naturalist. The vessel was 

 thrown up on the beach during a heavy gale in the night between November 28 and 

 29 (old style), and all attempts to float it were in vain. The next sitring, after a winter 

 full of suftoring and ])rivations, the crew broke iip the old vessel and of the materials 

 built a snnvller one, in which they landed at I'ctropaulski, Kamchatka, August 27, 1742. 



The present writer visited the i)lace of the shipwreck and the wintering August 

 30, 1SS2, and has given an account of it, with a ground-plan of the hut and a sketch 

 map of the locality, in Deutsche Geogr. Bliitter, 1885, pp. 2G.j-26(i. A partial rendering 

 of this is found in Prof. Julius Olsen's translation of Lanridseu's "Vitus Bering" 

 (Chicago, S, C. Griggs & Co., 1889), p. 184, and additional notes, pp. 214, 215. The 

 relics of the expedition found by me are deposited in the United States National 

 Museum. 



HYDROGRAPHIC NOTES. 



It is astonishing how very little is detinitely known about the hydrography of 

 the Avestern side of Bering Sea. But few vessels fitted for such work luive visited 

 that part of the world of late years, and those few have only made liHrried jjassages 

 through. In that way a small amount of nniterial has been accumulated, which has 

 been utilized by the Kussian admiral, S. G. JIakarof, in his interesting work "Vitiazi 

 Tikhi Okean" (2 volumes, St. Petersburg, 1S94), in which, so far as the investigations 

 relating to temperature and specific gi-avity of the waters of the western Bering Sea 

 are concerned, his own observations on board the corvette Vitias form the most 

 valuable part. This being the case, I have no hesitation in presenting, in a brief 

 abstract, the substance of those paragraphs in his book which refer to the matter in 

 hand, especially since a full understanding of the phenoniemx in (piestion is a necessary 

 basis for an equally full understanding of the distribution of the food animals of the 

 seals and of the seals themselves. 



On July 29, 1888, the Yitiaz left Petropaulski on a short trip to the Commander 

 Islands. The bathymetric observations in Bering Sea have shown that the bed of 

 Avarni water of a teni])erature of + 9° C. is very thin near the coasts of Kamchatka. 

 At a depth of 10 meters a temperature of + 2. 3° C. is found and at 25 meters only 



