THE VARIOUS EXPEDITIONS. 125 



His charting of Yezo and Saghalin was left to a much 

 later day, — to La Perouse, to Krusenstern, Golovnin, and 

 others. But Spangberg's expedition nevertheless marks 

 great progress in our geographical knowledge, for not 

 only did he irrevocably banish the cartographical myths 

 of that region, and, on the whole, give a correct repre- 

 sentation of the Kurile islands clear to Iturup, the next 

 to the last of them, but he also determined the position 

 of North Japan, and fully accomplished his original 

 task, namely, to show the Russians the way to Japan, 

 and thus add this long disputed part of the Northeast 

 passage to the other explorations for the same purpose. 



As was the case with that of all of his colleagues, 

 BO Spangberg's reputation suffered under the violent 

 administrative chauges and that system of suppression 

 which later prevailed in Russia. His reports were never 

 made public. The Russian cartographers made use of 

 his chart, but they did not understand how to fit 

 judiciously his incomplete coast-lines to those already 

 known, or to distinguish right from wrong. They even 

 omitted the course of his vessel, thus excluding all 

 possibility of understanding his work. Hence Spang- 

 berg's chart never reached West Europe, and Cook found 

 it necessary to reinstate him as well as Bering.* After 

 that the feeling was more favorable, and Coxe,t for 

 instance, used his representation of the Kuriles; but new 

 and better outlines of this region appeared about this 

 time, and Spangberg again sank into complete oblivion. 



Spangberg's safe return was a bright spot in the 

 history of the Great Northern Expedition, and Bering 



• Note 53. t Note 54. 



