DISCOVERIES ABOUT BERING SEA. 21 



Kamclmtka by the Russians in the seventeenth g^^iJ^^jf'^ ^'^^*^^' 

 centiiiy. As early as 1648 a Russian ship is re- 

 ported to have sailed from the Arctic Ocean 

 through Bering Strait to Kamchatka* ; but not 

 until the reign of Peter the Great was any 

 organized effort made to explore the unknown 

 regions of this sea. The execution of his plans, 

 owing to his death, devolved upon his successor, 

 Empress Catherine. The first expedition, under 

 Vitus Bering, sailed from Kamchatka in 1728 

 in a northeasterly direction. After discovering 

 St. Lawrence Island it passed through the strait 

 which has since been known by the name of the 

 great navigator.^ Another part of this expedition 

 reached the continent of America in about lati- 

 tude 65°, in the vicinity of the mouth of the 

 Yukon Hiver.^ 



In 1741 Bering started out on his second Bering's sccona 



. expedition, 



expedition. It consisted of two parts, both of 

 which discovered the continent of America. 

 Upon his homeward voyage Bering landed at 

 the Shumagin Islands, sighted a large number of 

 the Aleutian Islands, and was finally shipwrecked 



' See map in Miiller's Voyages ; Cook, vol. Ill, p. 361 ; Bumey's 

 History of Nortlieastern Voyages of Discovery and of tlie Early 

 Eastern Navigations of tbe Russians, London, 1819, p. 60 et seq. 



- Miiller, p. 48. The name was conferred by Cook in 1778: 

 Greenliow's Memoir on the Northwest Coast of America, Seuafco 

 Doc. No. 171, Twenty-sixtli Congress, first session, p. 82. 



2 Miiller, p. 55, and map (frontispiece) ; Bnrney, p. 130. 



