BERING'S FIRST EXPEDITION. 15 



being separated by the Strait of Anian * (Fretum Anian). 

 On a map by Joducus Hondius, who died in 1611, East 

 Siberia is drawn as a parallelogram projecting toward the 

 northeast, and directly opposite and quite near the north- 

 east corner of this figure a country is represented with the 

 same superscription. This is found again in the map by 

 Gerhard Mercator which accompanies Nicolai Witsen's 

 ^' Noord en Ost Tartarye" 1705, and in several other 

 sixteenth century atlases. It is quite impossible to deter- 

 mine how much of this apparent knowledge is due to 

 vague reports combined with happy guessing, and how 

 much to a practical desire for such a passage on the part 

 of European navigators, whose expensive polar expeditions 

 otherwise would be folly. This much is certain, however: 

 Witsen and other leading geographers based their views 

 on information received from Siberia and Russia, f 



In the history of discoveries the spirit of human enter- 

 prise has fought its way through an incalculable number 

 of mirages. These have aroused the imagination, caused 

 agitations, debates, and discussions, but have usually 

 veiled an earlier period's knowledge of the question. 

 There are many re-discovered countries on our globe. So 



* In Baron A. E. Nordeuskjold's review of the Danish edition of this 

 work on Bering in the Journal of the American Geographical Society, Vol. 

 XVII., p. 290, he says: "In Barents' map of 1598 there is not, as Mr. Laurid- 

 sen seems to suppose, anything original as to the delineation of the northern 

 coast of Asia and the relative situation of Asia and America. In this respect 

 Barents' map is only a reproduction of older maps, which, with regard to 

 the delineation of the northern coast of Asia, are based upon pre-Colum- 

 bian suppositions ; and these again rest upon the story told by Pliny the 

 Elder in the ' Ilistoria Naturalis,' L. VII., 13, 17, about the northern limit 

 of the world known to him," etc. The judicious reader can not fail to see 

 that the renowned author here shoots far beyond the mark, for Pliny the 

 Elder can hardly be supposed to have had any knowledge of "America 

 VdiT^y— Author' s Note to American Edition. 



t Note a. 



