THE VARIOUS EXPEDITIONS. 119 



others/^ It is possible that Miiller^s judgment is a trifle 

 one-sided, but it is nevertheless certain that Kosyrefski^s 

 description of the Kuriles is based on his own explora- 

 tions only in a very slight degree, and that he by no 

 means deserves the place that Peschel and Kuge have 

 accorded him. Nor did Lushin^s and Yevrinoff's expe- 

 dition in the summer of 1721 get very far — scarcely 

 beyond the fifth or sixth island — and with them, until 

 Spangberg appeared on the scene, Russian explorations 

 in this quarter were at a standstill. 



The expedition to Japan (1738) was undertaken with <^^ ^' 

 three ships. Spangberg and Petroff sailed the one- ' "^'/' 

 masted brig, the Archangel Michael, Lieutenant Walton 

 and first mate Kassimiroff the three-masted double sloop 

 Hope, and Second-Lieutenant Schelting had Bering's 

 old vessel, the Gabriel. The Michael had a crew of 

 sixty-three, among them a monk, a physician, and an 

 assayer, and each of the other two shi23s had a crew of 

 forty-four. The flotilla left Okhotsk on the 18th of June, 

 1738, but was detained in the Sea of Okhotsk by ice, 

 and did not reach Bolsheretsk until the early part of 

 July. From here, on the 15th of July, Spangberg 

 departed for the Kuriles to begin charting. 



The Kurile chain, the thousand islands or Chi-Shima, 

 as the Japanese call them, is 650 kilometers long. These 

 islands are simply a multitude of crater crests which 

 shoot up out of the sea, and on that account make navi- 

 gation very difficult. The heavy fog, which almost con- 

 tinually prevails here, conceals all landmarks. In the 

 great depths, sounding afforded little assistance, and, 

 furthermore, around these islands and through the 



