BERING SEA 



691 



BERKELEY 



During winter it contains floating and pack ice, 

 and most of the year its waters are covered 

 with a dense fog. Of its islands by far the most 



IN HONOR OP VITUS BERING 

 The man, and the sea and strait named for him. 



important are the Pribilof, the home of the 

 largest fur seal colony in the world. 



Bering Island, on which the explorer for 

 whom it was named died, is the most westerly 

 of the Aleutian chain and lies off the east coast 

 of Kamchatka. It is barren, rocky and unin- 

 habited. Bering Strait is the narrow channel 

 which separates North America from Asia at 

 their nearest points. At its narrowest place, 

 between East Cape and Cape Prince of Wales, 

 it is thirty-six miles wide, and were it not for 

 the fog which always shrouds the water the 

 highlands of Asia might be visible from Amer- 

 ica. Though Bering explored this strait, it was 

 Captain Cook, in 1778, who first thoroughly 

 studied it. 



Vitus Bering (1680-1741) was a famous Dutch 

 navigator who gave his name to these northern 

 waters and islands. The courage which he dis- 

 played as captain in the navy of Peter the 

 Great, during the Swedish wars, led to his being 

 chosen to command a voyage of discovery in 

 the Sea of Kamchatka. In 1728, and later, he 

 examined the coasts of Kamchatka, Okhotsk 

 and the north of Siberia, discovering the rela- 

 tion between the northeastern Asiatic and 

 northwestern American coasts. Returning from 

 America in 1741, he was wrecked upon the 

 island which bears his name, and died there. 



Related Topics. Though not intimately con- 

 nected with the geography of this section, Ber- 

 ing Sea has a close relation to the following 

 topics : 



Alaska Pribilof Islands 



Bering Sea Controversy Seal 



BERING SEA CONTROVERSY, a dispute 

 between Great Britain and the United States 

 which centered about the valuable seal fisheries 

 on the Pribilof Islands. Since 1867 the United 

 States had carefully regulated by license the 

 killing of seals on the Pribilof Islands, where 

 there is located the largest seal rookery in the 

 world (see FUR SEAL), and had received a 

 bounty of ten dollars for each skin; but after 

 1886 unlicensed fleets of Canadians and Amer- 

 icans were organized to kill the seals during 

 feeding time, when they were more than three 

 miles from shore, or beyond the jurisdiction of 

 the United States government. Many of the 

 animals killed were females, and it became 

 apparent that the herd under such treatment 

 would soon be exterminated. 



In order to restrict unlicensed killing, the 

 United States set up a claim that Bering Sea 

 was a closed sea, that is, subject to the exclu- 

 sive jurisdiction of the United States. This 

 was protested by Great Britain, and by a treaty 

 in 1892 the question was referred to arbitration. 

 The tribunal, which consisted of one English- 

 man, one Canadian, two Americans and one 

 representative each of France, Italy and Swe- 

 den and Norway, reported August 15, 1893, a 

 decision which was generally unfavorable to the 

 United States. However, it established a closed 

 season from May 1 to July 31, forbade the 

 killing of seals in the open sea within sixty 

 miles of the Pribilofs and prohibited explosive 

 weapons. These restrictions proved ineffectual, 

 and in spite of almost constant negotiations 

 since that time no satisfactory solution of the 

 problem has been found, and in consequence 

 there is danger that the valuable fur seals will 

 be exterminated. 



BERKELEY, burk' li, SIB WILLIAM (1610- 

 1677), a colonial governor of Virginia whose 

 faithlessness and obstinacy in dealing with the 

 uprisings of the Indians in 1676 caused the 

 revolt known as Bacon's Rebellion (which see). 

 He was born near London, studied at Oxford 

 and became governor of Virginia in 1641. 

 When Cromwell gained control of the British 

 government Governor Berkeley offered an asy- 

 lum in Virginia to loyalists and kept the colony 

 loyal to the king until 1652. In that year he 

 was compelled to resign, but he was again 

 chosen governor in 1660. 



His second term of office was marked 

 throughout with dissatisfaction, and his harsh- 

 ness in punishing the leaders in Bacon's rebel- 

 lion displeased even Charles II, who said, "The 

 old fool has taken more lives in that naked 



