82 VITUS BERIIJ^G. 



Lieut. Peter Lassenius, with a surveyor, first mate, 

 and also about fifty men — had most difficult tasks to 

 accomi3lish. The former was to cruise from the mouth 

 of the Lena, along the whole coast of the Taimyr 

 peninsula, and enter the mouth of the Yenisei. The 

 latter was to follow the Arctic coast in an easterly 

 direction to the Bering peninsula, cruise along its coast, 

 and ascertain the relative positions of Asia and Amer- 

 ica, and, if it was a geographical possibility, to sail 

 down to the peninsula of Kamchatka. He also had 

 instructions to find the islands off the mouth of the 

 Kolyma (the Bear Islands). From this it is evident 

 that Lassenius^s expedition was of the greater geo- 

 graphical interest. Moreover, it had to do with one of 

 the main questions of Bering's whole activity — the dis- 

 covery and charting of the North Pacific — and hence 

 it is not a mere accident that Bering selected for this 

 expedition one of his own countrymen, or that he as- 

 signed the charting of northeastern Asia and the discov- 

 ery of America and Japan, to chiefs of Danish birth, Las- 

 senius and Spangberg. Nothing is known of the earlier 

 life of Lassenius. In service he was the oldest of 

 Bering's lieutenants. Shortly before the departure 

 of the expedition, he was taken into the Eussian fleet, 

 and Gmelin says of him, that he was an able and 

 experienced naval officer, volunteered his services to the 

 expedition, and began his work with intrepidity. All 

 attempts to trace his birth and family relations have 

 proved fruitless. 



On the 30th of June, 1735, both expeditions left 

 Yakutsk, and thus the charting of the whole of the 



