XI.] FOUNDATION OF PETROPAULOVSKY. 245 



his risking the hardships of exploration in Kamschatka, ^Yhich was 

 his original destination, the student Krasheninikov proceeded 

 thither in his place. It is to him that we owe the first scientific 

 account of the newly-conquered country. 



In the month of June, 1738, Spangberg set sail from Okhotsk 

 with two ships — the Hope and Arcliangd Michael — on his voyage 

 to Japan. Two years more elapsed before the departure of Bering, 

 and the St. Peter and St. Paul lea^dng Okhotsk September 4th, 

 1740, had barely time to reach Kamschatka before the onset of 

 winter. Steller and De la Croyere were left at Bolcheresk with 

 the greater part of the stores, while the tw^o ships rounded the 

 southern point of Kamschatka, and went into winter-quarters in 

 Avatcha Bay. It was thought too hazardous to attempt to bring 

 the smaller pro^^sion vessels by the same route, and the transport 

 of the goods was therefore undertaken by land- — an affair of the 

 greatest labour and difficulty, which, but for the employment of an 

 enormous number of dogs, could scarcely have been accomphshed. 

 The present port of Petropaulovsky was selected as being the most 

 suitable in which to winter ; huts and storehouses w^ere built and a 

 church erected, and the little settlement thus established w^as 

 named in honour of the two ships forming the expedition. 



On the 4th of June, 1741, the two commanders took their final 

 departure on the voyage which was destined to end in such 

 disaster and suffering as have but few parallels in the annals of 

 naval history. Bering commanded the St. Peter and was accom- 

 panied by Steller, while De la Croyere sailed in the St. Paul 

 under Tschirikov. The course was at first shaped to the south- 

 Halle, and distiugiiished himself greatly in his examinations at Berlin. In 1734 he 

 joined the Russian army as surgeon at the siege of Dantzic, and was afterwards 

 appointed to Bering's expedition. To his dauntless courage and unlimited resources 

 the survivors of that ill-starred undertaking in great measure doubtless owed their 

 lives. It was characteristic of the man that during the frightful sufferings they 

 underwent on Bering Island, in the winter of 1741, Steller patiently continued his 

 natural history investigations. "Steller cured the mind as well as the body," 

 Miiller tells us, and his early death at Tinmen in Siberia in ISTovember, 1746, robbed 

 the world of science at that time of one of its brightest ornaments. 



