20 VITUS BERING. 



In the second place, he received in Yakutsk informa- 

 tion concerning Deshneff's journey in 1648 from the 

 Kolyma to the Anadyr River. Although this journey 

 was first critically discussed by G. F. Miiller,* its main 

 features were nevertheless well known in Siberia, and are 

 referred to, among other places, in Strahlenberg^s book, 

 whence the results appear in Bellini^s map in Peter 

 Oharlesvoix^s ^^ Histoire du Japan" published in 1735. 

 Unfortunately, however, Bering seems to have had no 

 knowledge of Popoff's expedition to the Chukchees penin- 

 sula and his information concerning the adjacent Ameri- 

 can continent, or of Strahlenberg^s outline maps, which 

 were not published until after his departure from St. 

 Petersburg. 



Bering's two expeditions are unique in the history of 

 Arctic explorations. His real starting point was on the 

 extremest outskirts of the earth, where only the hunter 

 and yassak-collector had preceded him. Kamchatka 

 was at that time just as wild a region as Boothia or 

 the coasts of Smith's Sound are in our day, and, 

 practically viewed, it was far more distant from St. 

 Petersburg than any known point now is from us. 

 One hundred and thirty degrees — several thousand 

 miles — the earth's most inhospitable tracts, the coldest 

 regions on the globe, mountains, endless steppes, impen- 

 etrable forests, morasses, and fields of trackless snow 

 were still between him and the mouth of the Kam- 

 chatka Eiver, and thither he was to lead, not a small 

 expedition, but an enormous provision train and large 

 quantities of material for ship-building. On the journey, 



* Note 3. 



