144 VITUS BERING. • 



correct, lies Kayak Island/ which is Cook's Kayes Island, 

 having a latitude of 59° 47' and a longitude of 56° 44' 

 east of Avacha, and hence the question is to prove that 

 this island really is the Guanahani of the Russians, that 

 is, St. Elias. 



Cook is the authority for the opinion which has 

 hitherto prevailed ; but surely no one can be more 

 uncertain and cautious on this point than he. He says: 

 "Miiller's report of the voyage is so abbreviated, and his 

 map is so extremely inaccurate, that it is scarcely possible 

 from the one or the other, or by comparing both, to 

 point out a single place that this navigator either saw or 

 landed on. If I were to venture an opinion on Bering's 

 voyage along this coast, I should say that he sighted land 

 in the vicinity of Mt. Fairweather. But I am in no way 

 certain that the bay which I named in his honor is the 

 place where he anchored. Nor do I know whether the 

 mountain which I called Mt. St. Elias is the same 

 conspicuous peak to which he gave this name, and I am 

 entirely unable to locate his Cape St. Elias." 



It would seem that such uncertain and reserved opin- 

 ions were scarcely liable to be repeated without comment 

 or criticism. But nevertheless, the few reminiscences of 

 this chapter of Bering's explorations which our present 

 geography has preserved are obtained principally from 

 Cook's map ; for the first successors of this great 

 navigator, Dixon, 1785, La Perouse, 1786, Malespina, 

 1791, and Vancouver, 1792, through whose efforts the 

 northwest coast was scientifically charted, maintained, 

 with a few unimportant changes. Cook's views on this 

 point. According to these views, Bering Bay was in 



