CHAPTER X. 



DELAY OF THE EXPEDITION CAUSED BY THE DEATH 

 OF LASSENIUS AKD HIS COMMAND IN THE ARCTIC 

 REGIONS. — DISSATISFACTION OF THE SENATE AND 

 ADMIRALTY WITH BERING'S WORK. 



rrillE difficulties recounted in the preceding chapter 

 -■- are alone sufficient to justify Bering's nearly three 

 years' stay in Yakutsk ; but simultaneously many other 

 duties demanded his attention. It does not come within 

 the scope of this treatise to describe the investigations of 

 the Academical branch of this enterprise, — to portray 

 Miiller's and Gmelin's services to botany, history, and 

 geography; they are of interest here only in their relation 

 to Bering. Especially in Yakutsk did these men give 

 him much to attend to. It devolved upon him now to 

 convey these gentlemen, in a manner fitting their station, 

 up or down the Lena, now to send La Croyere to Lake 

 Baikal or to the Arctic Ocean, — all of which was to be 

 done in a country principally inhabited by nomadic 

 tribes, with only here and there a Russian population 

 where there were government officials, and with no other 

 means of transportation than those secured for the occa- 

 sion. In Yakutsk, where the Professors stayed a long 

 time, their relations with Bering were very much 

 strained, principally, it would seem, on account of their 



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