16 VITUS BERING. 



in this case. The northwestern part of America wholly 

 disappeared from the cartography of the seventeenth cen- 

 tury, and through the influence of Witsen's and Homann's 

 later maps it became customary to represent the eastern 

 coast of Asia by a meridian passing a little east of Yakutsk, 

 without any suggestions whatever in regard to its strongly 

 marked peninsulas or to an adjacent western continent. 

 But even these representations were originally Kussian, 

 and are undoubtedly due to the first original Russian 

 atlas, published by Remesoff. They finally gave way to 

 the geographical explorations of the eighteenth century, 

 which began shortly after the accession of Peter the 

 Great, having been provoked by political events and 

 conditions. 



By the treaty of Nertchinsk in 1689 the Yablonoi 

 Mountains were established as the boundary line between 

 Russia and China. By this means the way to the fertile 

 lands of Amoor was barred to that indurate caste of 

 Russian hussars and Cossacks who had conquered for the 

 White Czar the vast tracts of Siberia. A second time 

 they fell upon northeastern Siberia, pressing their way, as 

 before, across uninhabited tundras along the northern 

 ocean, and thence conquered the inhabited districts 

 toward the south. They discovered the island of Liak- 

 hov, penetrated the country of the Chukchees, Koriaks, 

 and Kamshadales, and at the Anadyr River, in Deshneff's 

 old palisaded fort, they found that point of support from 

 which they maintained Russians power in the extreme 

 northeast. In this way the Russians learned the enormous 

 extent of the country; but as they had no exact locations, 

 they formed a very incorrect opinion of its outlines, and 



