220 General A. W. Greely — Bering's First Voyage. 



to." Mr. Marcus Baker, in a paper appended to Ball's account, 

 makes it evident that such eclipses, if any, were those of February 

 25 (local calendar), 1728, or February 24, 1729. 



M}^ own investigations confirm the statements of Middendorf, 

 and in support of this I refer to de I'lsle and to the author of the 

 " Letter." In this connection, hoAvever, we have the clear and 

 definite statements of de I'lsle, both in his essays of 1738 at St. 

 Petersburg and his memoir of 1752 at Paris. These statements 

 are fully confirmed by the evidence of the Russian marine officer, 

 who certainly served with Bering in his later expeditions if not 

 in the first, and whose familiarity with all the records and j)apers 

 should have enabled him definitely to contradict de ITsle on the 

 main question instead of correcting him in details. In his St. 

 Petersburg memoirs of 1738 (page 10) de I'lsle writes : 



" On verra a cette occasion la situation du Kamtchatka de termlnee par 

 deux eclipses de Lune, que M. le Capltalne Bering & ses gens y sont ob- 

 servees dans leur premier voyage [the expedition 1725-30], & dont j'al 

 rendu compte a I'Academle aiissl-tot que ces observatloiffe m'ont ete com- 

 munlquees." 



In the paper of Paris, 1752 (" Nouvelles decouvertes au Nord 

 de la Mer du Sud ") de I'lsle sa3^s on this point : 



" Captain Beering and his lieutenant likewise took observations at Kam- 

 schatka of two eclipses of the moon In the years 1728 and 1729, which 

 helped me to chart the longitude of that eastern extrernltj^ of Asia with all 

 the precision which the nature of these observations, made by seamen and 

 with their own Instruments, would admit of ; but these first determina- 

 tions have been since confirmed by observations on Jupiter's satellites, 

 taken In that place with the utmost accuracy by my brother and some 

 Russians conversant In this kind of observations and who were proylded 

 with the best of Instruments." 



It appeared to me possible that the report on the eclipses of 

 the moon made by de I'lsle to the St. Petersburg Acacleni}^ of 

 Sciences might be traced up among the archives of that society. 

 In searching for information on this point it was learned from 

 Mr. 0. Fassig, librarian of the Signal Office, that among the un- 

 published manuscripts in the Pulkova library, St. Petersburg, 

 were a number by de I'lsle. A list of the manuscripts of M. de 

 I'lsle was compiled and published in 1844 by the distinguished 

 astronometer 0. Struve, and among the number is one entitled : 

 " Observations pour la longitude du Kamchat, d'ou se conclut 

 aussi de Tobolsk. 1729, MSS." 



