4 VITUS BERIN"G. 



tions, and it is only through a systematic development of 

 these means that western Europe has been enabled to 

 celebrate its most brilliant triumphs in the Arctic regions, 

 and to succeed in getting farther than did the navigators 

 of the seventeenth century. The history of Eussian polar 

 explorations has a series of proud names, which lack only 

 the pen of a Sherard Osborn to shine by the side of 

 Franklin and McOlure, and it redounds to the honor of 

 Denmark that one of the first and greatest of these men 

 was a Dane, — that the most brilliant chapter in the his- 

 tory of Eussian explorations is due to the initiative and 

 indefatigable energy of Vitus Bering. In the service of 

 Peter the Great he successfully doubled the northeastern 

 peninsula of Asia, and after his return he made a plan for 

 the exploration of the whole Northeast passage from the 

 White Sea to Japan. Although he succumbed in this 

 undertaking, he lived long enough to see his gigantic 

 plans approach realization. 



Bering was buried on an island in the Pacific, amid the 

 scenes of his labors, under that sand-barrow which had 

 been his death-bed. For many generations only a plain 

 wooden cross marked his resting-place, and as for his 

 fame, it has been as humble and modest as his head-board. 

 His labors belonged to a strange people who had but little 

 sympathy for the man. His own countrymen, among 

 whom he might have found this sympathetic interest, 

 knew his work but very imperfectly. Not until after the 

 lapse of a century did he find a careful biographer, and 

 even within comparatively recent years the great scientist 

 Von Baer has found it necessary to defend him against 

 misunderstandings and petty attacks. 



