HISTORICAL SKETCH. H 



reached Kamchatka. Delille and Steller formed part of the second Berend expedition, equipped 

 by the Government in 1740, which on this occasion liad for its principal object the problem 

 of exploring the north-western shore of America. Berend and Chirikov commanded the two 

 vessels of the expedition. On the 15th of June, 1741, both vessels left Petropavlovsk for Kam- 

 chatka, but on the first of July a storm separated them. Berend reached the American shore 

 between 68'' and 69", in view of the marvellous giant volcano of St. Elias. Then after a long 

 and tiring voyage along the line of the Alleutian islands, Berend, sick and tortured by his 

 voyage over the stormy sea, suffered ship^Teck on the 5th of Xovember at an island 

 called subsequently by his name, and died after having landed, on the shore of the island. 

 Lieutenant Waxel and Steller, having built a new ship from tlie fragments of the old, returned 

 to Kamchatka after fourteen months voyage. Chirikov's vessel reached America much further 

 to the south, under 56° N". L., that is, opposite the island Sitkha; but having lost two of his boats 

 with their crews, destroyed by the natives on landing, sailed along the American coast, not 

 putting to land anywhere, ami with friglitful losses from scmwy to which Delille fell a victim, 

 returned to Kamchatka. The best result of the expedition were the splendid observations of 

 Steller, who with Krasheninnikov composed the first descriptions of Kamchatka. But the 

 practical results of Berend and Chirikov's expedition were the gradual discovery and occupa- 

 tion by the Russians of the north-western part of the American Continent. Thus, in 1743 the 

 Russian trader Bassov already wintered upon Behring Island, and from 1745 to 1764 all the 

 Alleutian islands were discovered and occupied. Much greater success attended the expeditions of 

 Captain Shpanberg and Lieutenant Walton in 1738, 1739 and 1742, from Okhotsk to Japan 

 and the Kuril islands. 



In the second half of the eigliteenth century, during the reign of the Empress Catherine 11, 

 began a new and brilliant era in the history of the geographical and scientific explorations 

 oj Siberia. The Yakutsk merchant Shalaurov, one of the prominent local Siberians, having 

 equipped at his own cost a sea expediton, having for its object the passage into Behring sea 

 from the mouth of the Lena, doubled in 1761 the H(dy Xoss and discovered the neighbouring 

 island of Liakhov one of the new Siberian group. In the course, however, of the three years, 

 1761 to 1763, he was unable to penetrate to the east further than Cape Shelag, upon which he 

 met his death during his second expedition undertaken in 1766. At the same time in conse- 

 quence of the indications of the existence of lands in the Arctic Ocean, wliit'h had been 

 known from the times of Dezhniev, attempts were made to reach these lauds in winter on 

 sledges over the ice. One of such successful attempts was the journey of Sergeant Andreev, 

 who discovered in 1763 a whole group of islands upon which he found traces of former habi- 

 tation by people acquainted only with the use of stone implements and unfamiliar with the 

 metals. This group of Islands in the opinion of Nordenskjold was Wrangel laud. In 1770 the 

 discoveries of the Russians touched the group of the New Siberian islands. In ihal year 

 Liakhov not only investigated the island subsequently called by his uaiuo. hui went as far as 

 Kotel island. 



The particular altculiou of the enlightened (iovernmont o( the Empress Caiherine 

 was directed to the scientific exploration of the southern colonizational zone of Siberia. Among 

 the expediljons which marked an epoch in geographical science, equipped by the Academy of 



