48 VITUS BERING. f 



passed into the cartography of the future. In latitude 

 67° 3' N., Cook found a projecting promontory with 

 many crags and peaks, and ^^ possibly one or another of 

 them may be heart-shaped. This peak we have, on Miil- 

 ler's authority, called Serdze Kamen.^'* 



Here then we have the third Serdze Kamen, and we 

 can now see how it has wandered about the northeast 

 corner of Asia. As a matter of fact, it is situated in a 

 latitude nearly the same as the most northerly point 

 reached by Bering, but unfortunately this does not at all 

 answer Miiller's description. It does not project east- 

 ward into the sea, but on the contrary, its main direction 

 is toward the northwest. At the base of this headland, 

 the coast does not in a striking manner extend toward 

 the west, but continues in its former direction. Nor does 

 it consist of steep rocks and a low point extending far- 

 ther than the eye can reach. In other words, the present 

 Serdze Kamen has nothing whatever to do either with 

 Bering's voyage or Miiller's description.! 



To this period of Bering's history another observation 

 must be made. In his excellent treatise entitled, *'What 

 Geography owes to Peter the Great," Von Baer tries to 

 show that Bering turned back in his course, not on the 

 15th, but on the 16th of August, and that too, notwith- 

 standing the fact that both Bering and Miiller, in print, 

 give the former date, — yes, notwithstanding the fact that 

 Von Baer himself had an autograph card from Bering 

 which likewise gives the 15th. In his criticism on this 

 point. Von Baer based his statements on those extracts of 

 the ship's journal referred to above, which as we have 



* Note 30. t Note 31 and Map I. in Appendix. 



