Statements of the Russian Officer. 215 



whose duties were those of a cartographer, had finished within 

 the next year and a half his reproduction of Bering's working 

 chart. The fact that the order of inquiry about the results of 

 the voyage did not leave the privy council until April 17, 1732, 

 does not necessarily indicate that the map at least, if not the 

 memoir, Avas not alread}^ prepared, even if not in possession of 

 the Academy of Sciences. It appears probable that the map . 

 may have been drawn by de I'Isle in 1731, but it is quite certain 

 that it was not made public until 1732. 



Lauridsen speaks of a map in Moscow in 1731, and, as it is 

 evident from " Lettre cl'un " that there was no difficulty in per- 

 sons of influence procuring copies from the Senate, it is likely that 

 the Moscow chart was a copy of the map of de I'Isle, and that 

 the date of 1731 is correct ; but this theory must rest on Laurid- 

 sen producing evidence that such a map existed in Moscow in 

 1731. 



The Russian officer speaks with authority as to the map of 

 1732. Commenting on de I'lsle's account of the circumstances 

 under which he compiled the map of 1732, he continues as 

 follows : 



" The Empress Anne having directed her Senate to give instructions to 

 M. Bering for the second voyage, that body beheved that it could not act 

 with success unless it obtained from the Academy the fullest information 

 relative to the situation of the lands and seas to be traversed. Therefore 

 the Academy was so ordered by the Senate, which enjoined on M. de 

 risle the construction of the map of which I speak, and, for a clearer 

 understanding, an explanatory memoir ; which being done, both map and 

 memoir were presented to the Academy by the Senate. Consequently, 

 there is no reason to doubt that, far from exciting the Eussians to new 

 discoveries, far from being the cause of Bering's second voyage, M. de 

 risle only worked under specific orders. It is quite another question 

 whether or not the memoir contributed to the success of the expedition, 

 which I will discuss later. However that may be, the Senate gave a copy 

 of it, as well as of the map, to M. Bering. I took a second copy of the 

 memoir, which enabled me to compare it with what M. de I'Isle has now 

 said to us of it in his later memoir of Paris." 



These and other statements confirm those of de I'Isle as to the 

 date of the map, in which year d'Anville engraved it (1732, or 

 1731 at the earliest), and likewise indicate that copies of both 

 map and memoir were obtainable without great difficulty. 



An interesting note as to the authenticity and origin of the 



