THE VARIOUS EXPEDITIONS. 131 



an amiable good-for-nothing, who highly prized a good 

 table and a social glass, but cared as little as possible 

 for scientific pursuits. When, as a young man, he 

 studied theology in Paris, his father found it necessary 

 to send him to Canada, where he assumed his mother's 

 name. La Croyere, and for seventeen years lived a sol- 

 dier's wild life, until his brothers, on the death of the 

 father, recalled him from his exile. In St. Petersburg 

 his brother instructed him in the elements of astronomy, 

 sent him upon a surveying expedition to Lapland, and 

 finally secured him a position as chief astronomer of 

 Bering's second expedition. This was a great mistake. 

 Louis de Tlsle de la Croyere very unsatisfactorily filled 

 his position. His Academic associates Miiller and Gmelin 

 had no regard for him whatever, and hence under the 

 pressure of this contempt, and as a result of this irregular 

 and protracted life in a barbaric country. La Croyere, 

 having no native power of resistance, sank deeper and 

 deeper into hopeless sluggishness. His astronomical 

 determinations in Kamchatka are worthless. His Rus- 

 sian assistants, especially Krassilnikoff, did this part of 

 the work of the expedition. 



As early as 1730, Bering, as we have seen, came into 

 unfortunate relations with Joseph De Tlsle, and this state 

 of affairs afterwards grew gradually worse. In 1731, the 

 Senate requested the latter to construct a map of the 

 northern part of the Pacific in order to present 

 graphically the still unsolved problems for geographical 

 research. He submitted this map to the Senate on the 

 6th of October, 1732, that is, two years and a half after 

 Bering's proposition to undertake the Great ]S"orthern 



