Bering's great kortherit expedition^. 67 



eously the coast from Okhotsk to Uda, to Tugur, to the 

 mouth of the Amoor, and the coasts of the Shantar 

 Islands and Saghalin were to be charted. 



Even these tasks exceeded all reasonable demands, and 

 not until several generations later did Cook, La Perouse, 

 and Vancouver succeed in accomplishing what the Eus- 

 sian Senate in a few pen-strokes directed Bering to do. 

 And yet, not until the government touched the Arctic 

 side of this task, did it entirely lose sight of all reason. 

 Its instructions to Bering were, not only to chart the 

 coast of the Old World from the Dwina to the Pacific, to 

 explore harbors and estuaries along this coast, to describe 

 the country and study its natural resources, especially its 

 mineral wealth, but also to dispatch an expedition to the 

 Bear Islands, off the mouth of the Kolyma, and to see to 

 it that his earlier trip to the Chukchee peninsula was 

 repeated, besides sailing from there to America, as the 

 results of his former voyage '' were unsatisfactory, '^ reli- 

 able information concerning that country having been 

 received from the Cossack Melnikoff. 



All these expeditions were to start out from the great 

 Siberian rivers, — from the Dwina to the Obi with two 

 vessels under the charge of the Admiralty ; from the Obi 

 and Lena with three twenty-four-oared boats, two of 

 which were to meet between these two rivers, and the 

 third was to sail around Bering's Peninsula (thus Reclus 

 calls the Chukchee peninsula), or, if America proved to 

 be connected with that country, it was to attempt to find 

 European colonies. The orders of the Senate were, fur- 

 thermore, to the effect that surveyors should be sent out 

 in advance for the preliminary charting of these river- 



