CHAPTEE XIX. 



THE STAY OK BERING ISLAKD. — EAUKA OF THE ISLAND. — 

 A RICH FIELD FOR STELLER. — HIS DESCRIPTIONS IM- 

 MORTALIZE THE EXPEDITION. — THE SEA-COW. — ITS EX- 

 TERMINATION. — NORDENSKJOLD REFUTED. — PREPARA- 

 TIONS FOR WINTERING. — SAD DEATH OF BERING. — AN 

 ESTIMATE OF HIS WORK. — CHIRIKOFF'S RETURN. — THE 

 CREW OF THE ST. PETER LEAVE THE ISLAND. — THE 

 GREAT NORTHERN EXPEDITION DISCONTINUED. — BER- 

 ING'S REPORTS BURIED IN RUSSIAN ARCHIVES. — BER- 

 ING HONORED BY COOK. 



THE island upon whose shores Bering, after a voyage 

 of four months, was cast, was a high, rocky, and 

 uninviting country. The snowless mountains of Plu- 

 tonic rock, wild and jagged, arose perpendicularly out 

 of the sea, and deep ravines with seething mountain 

 streams led into the treeless interior.* There was snow 

 on only the highest peaks, and on this cold November 

 night the coast appeared to the shipwrecked unfortu- 

 nates in all its naked and gloomy solitude, and hence 



* Dr. Stejneger, to whom the translator is indebted for various notes 

 and corrections of scientific interest, says: "The mountains which Steller 

 and his companions saw were not eruptive rocks. The whole island con- 

 sists of a more or less coarsely grained sandstone or conglomerate,— Plu- 

 tonic rock cropping out only in isolated spots. The mountain streams of 

 Bering Island are anything but ' seething ' ; on the contrary, they are as a 

 rule very quiet." 



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