THE VARIOUS EXPEDITIONS. Ill 



seas, where this had not already been done by Deshneff, 

 and for this same reason the Admiralty sought carefully 

 to link their explorations to the West European termini, 

 on the coast of Novaia Zemlia as well as Japan. More- 

 over, the discovery of a Northeast passage was the raison 

 (Uetre of these expeditions. 



This alone promised the empire such commercial 

 and political advantages that the enormous expendi- 

 tures and the frightful hardships which these expe- 

 ditions caused Siberia, might be justified. For this 

 reason the government, summer after summer, drove 

 its sailors on along the Taimyr and Bering penin- 

 sulas; for this reason, in 1740, it enjoined upon 

 D. Laptjef to make a last attempt to double north- 

 east Asia from Kamchatka, and this would undoubt- 

 edly have been accomplished if the unfortunate death 

 of Bering had not occurred shortly after;* and for this 

 reason, also, the government caused the charting of the 

 coast by land after all nautical attempts had miscarried. 



Any extended documentary proof of the correctness of 

 this view must be considered unnecessary. The instruc- 

 tions expressly state the object of the expedition: to 

 ascertain with certainty whether vessels could find a 

 passage or not. Miiller says the same. Scholars like 

 Middendorff, Von Baer, and Dr. Petermann look upon 

 these expeditions from the same standpoint, and have 

 seen fit to give them the place of honor among all the 

 geographical efforts in the Northeast passage, f Some 

 Swedish scholars alone have found it necessary to main- 

 tain a different view. Dr. A. Stuxberg and Prof. Th. 



* Note 47. t Note 48. 



