INTRODUCTION TO AMERICAN EDITION. 



A BIOGRAPHY of the great Bering is of especial interest to 

 American readers desiring an accurate history of a country 

 that has recently come into our possession, and the adjoining 

 regions where most of the geographical investigations of the 

 intrepid Danish-Russian explorer were made. The thorough, con- 

 cise, and patient work done by Mr. Lauridsen is deserving of 

 world-wide commendation, while the translation into the language 

 of our land by Professor Olson of the University of Wisconsin puts 

 students of American historical geography under a debt for this 

 labor of love rather than remuneration that cannot be easily paid, 

 and which is not common in our country. It is a matter of no 

 small national pride that the translation into the English language 

 of a work so near American geographical interests should have 

 been done by an American, rather than emanate from the Hakluyt 

 Society or other British sources, from which we usually derive 

 such valuable translations and compilations of old explorations and 

 the doings of the first explorers. 



The general American opinion regarding Bering is probably 

 somewhat di£ferent from that on the continent which gave him 

 birth and a patron government to carry out his gigantic and 

 immortal plans; or, better speaking, it was different during the 

 controversy in the past over the value and authenticity of the 

 great explorer's works, for European opinion of Bering has slowly 

 been more and more favorable to him, until it has reached the 

 maximum and complete vindication in the admirable labors of 

 Lauridsen, whose painstaking researches in the only archives 

 where authentic data of the doings of the daring Dane could be 

 found, has left no ground for those critics to stand upon, who have 



