BERING'S GREAT NORTHERN EXPEDITION. 69 



of the Academy, and later, highly respected scholars. 

 Muller was a personal friend of Bering, and through him 

 got a desire to participate in the expedition. 



Kiriloff, the secretary of the Senate, himself a suc- 

 cessful student of geography, supported the efforts of the 

 Academy, and most generously gratified all the exag- 

 gerated demands that only imperious and inexperienced 

 devotees of science could present. Indeed, Bering could 

 not but finally consider himself fortunate in escaping a 

 sub-expedition to Central Asia, one of Kiriloff's pet plans, 

 which the latter afterwards took upon himself to carry 

 out. The Academic branch of the expedition, which thus 

 came to consist of the astronomer La Croyere, the physicist 

 Gmelin (the elder), and the historian Muller, was right 

 luxuriously equipped. It was accompanied by two land- 

 scape painters, one surgeon, one interpreter, one instru- 

 ment-maker, five surveyors, six scientific assistants, and 

 fourteen body-guards. Moreover, this convoy grew like an 

 avalanche, as it worked its way into Siberia. La Croyere 

 had nine wagon-loads of instruments, among them tele- 

 scopes thirteen and fifteen feet in length. These Academ- 

 ical gentlemen had at least thirty-six horses, and on the 

 large rivers, they could demand boats with cabins. They 

 carried with them a library of several hundred volumes, not 

 only of scientific and historical works in their specialties, 

 but also of the Latin classics and such light reading as 

 Robinson Crusoe and Gulliver's Travels. Besides, they 

 had seventy reams of writing paper and an enormous 

 supply of artists' colors, draughting materials and appar- 

 atus. All archives were to be open to them, all Siberian 

 government authorities were to be at their service and fur- 



