CHAPTER IV. 



Bering's kn'owledge of Siberian geography. — ter- 

 rors OF TRAVELING IN SIBERIA. — THE EXPEDITION 

 STARTS OUT. — THE JOURNEY FROM ST. PETERSBURG 

 TO THE PACIFIC. 



AND now the question is^ what did- Bering know of 

 these efforts which had been made during the 

 decades preceding his expedition, and which in spite of 

 their unscientific character, were nevertheless of such 

 great importance in order to be able to initiate one's self 

 in the geography of eastern Asia ? In the first place, the 

 surveyor Lushin, was a member of the Bering expedition, 

 and when Bering, in the summer of 1726, was sojourning 

 in Yakutsk, Shestakoff's nephew, who had accompanied 

 his uncle on his expedition against the Chukchees, be- 

 came an attache of Bering's expedition, while the elder 

 Shestakoff had gone to Russia to collect means for the 

 contemplated military expedition. Furthermore, Ivan 

 Kosyrefski, who in the meantime had become a monk, 

 was also staying in Yakutsk, and his valuable report pre- 

 served in the voivode's (governor's) office was now sur- 

 rendered to Bering. Thus we see that Bering was in 

 personal contact with the men, who, in the decade pre- 

 ceding, were the chief possessors of geographical knowl- 

 edge concerning those northeastern regions. 



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