BERIKG^S FIRST EXPEDITION. 39 



Furthermore, as has ah-eady been said, Bering was 

 not aware of the fact that he was sailing in a compara- 

 tively narrow sound, — in that strait which has carried 

 his name to posterity. He saw nothing beyond the 

 nearest of the Diomede Islands, that is to say, the 

 middle of the strait ; and this island, as we have seen, 

 is mentioned in the journal and on the chart, with the 

 latitude correctly given.* His name was not immedi- 

 ately associated with these regions. The first place, so 

 far as I am able to ascertain, that the name Bering 

 Strait appears, is on a map which accompanies Rob. de 

 Vangondie^s ^^ Memoir e sur les pays de VAsie/' Paris, 

 1774. But it is especially to Captain Cook's high-mind- 

 edness that the name was retained, for it was used in 

 his great work. Later, Keinholdt Forster, who charac- 

 terizes Bering as ''a meritorious and truly great navi- 

 gator, '^ triumphantly fought his cause against Biisching 

 and others, f 



But even at the present time, an interesting misunder- 

 standing attaches to this part of Bering's history and the 

 cartography of these regions. In our Arctic literature 

 and on all our polar maps, it is asserted that Vitus Bering, 

 on his first voyage, turned back at Cape Serdze Kamen. 

 That such a supposition has been able to maintain itself, 

 only shows how little the original sources of his history 

 are known in West Europe, and how unheeded they have 

 been in Russia. About a hundred years ago the Danish 

 Admiral De Lowenorn and the English hydrographer A. 

 Dalrymple showed that Frobisher Strait had by some 

 ignorant hand been located on the east coast of Greenland, 



* Note 16. t Note 17. 



