112 National Geographic Magazine. 
raphers was directed toward this unknown corner of the world 
and the subject was brought to the notice of Peter the Great. 
He took great interest in it, drew up instructions for an expedition 
with his own hand and delivered them to Count Apraxin with 
orders to see them executed. A few days later, in January, — 
1725, he died ; but the Empress desiring to carry out all the plans 
of her deceased husband as closely as possible, ordered their exe- 
cution. Fleet-Captain Vitus Ivanovich Bering was nominated to 
the command of the expedition and Lieutenants Martin Spanberg* 
and Alexie Chirikoff to be his assistants. 
This expedition forms the subject of this paper. It has been 
treated of by various geographers and biographers, but so far the 
_ original report of Bering, printed in 1847 in the Russian language, 
has never been faithfully translated into any other language ; 
while his map has never, in its entirety, been published at all. 
Reduced sketches derived from the maps and more or less muti- 
lated and garbled versions of the report have appeared in sundry 
collections of voyages, and upon these the latest contributions to 
the history of the expedition have been in great part based. 
Believing that the original report is a document of sufficient 
historic and geographic interest to be made accessible to those 
who do not read Russian, and thatthe errors of existing works 
make a critical review of the subject desirable, I have translated 
the document in question and prepared a general review of the 
present state of our knowledge in regard to the expedition. 
Bering’s Report being written in archaic and badly spelled 
Russian, with a singular disregard of punctuation and other 
literary niceties, the translation presented unusual difficulties, in 
solving which I have had the kind codperation of that excellent 
Russian scholar Mr. J. Curtin. I am indebted to the Reverend 
Father Richards, president of Georgetown University, and 
Father Maas of Woodstock: College, Md., for valuable informa- 
tion in regard to the church festivals and saints, whose names 
were utilized in the nomenclature of Bering’s new discoveries. 
To Mr. Marcus Baker, Messrs. Gannett and Woodward, and Mr. 
C. C. Darwin of the Geological Survey ; Dr. 8. Hertzenstein of 
the Zoological Museum of the Academy of Sciences, St. Peters- 
burg; Baron Nordenskiédld of Stockholm, and Baron Robert 
Klinckofstrém ; Drs. Holm and Stejneger of the U. 8. National 
Museum, and Prof. Julius Olson of Madison, Wisconsin, I am 
* So spelled by Bering himself. 
