126 National Geographic Magazine. 
The succeeding volumes have the running title ‘‘Sammlung Russische 
Geschichte” with the number of the parts subjoined but no other 
title-page. 
The account of the Russian Voyages is stated by Miller to have been 
prepared at the direction of the Empress and endorsed by the Academy 
of Sciences. It contains invaluable material on the early explorations, 
which, if it had not been for Miuller’s painstaking researches, would 
have been totally lost, as the archives of Yakutsk from whence the 
data were derived by Miller were subsequently destroyed by fire. The 
errors which occur in it are chiefly due to Miller’s endeavor to utilize 
the inexact geographical data of the Promyschleniks and Cossacks by 
combining them with the less detailed but more precise observations of 
later observers. In this attempt he added many valuable details to the 
charts, but at the same time introduced several errors. The exagger- 
ated distances reported by the first explorers who were unable to 
correct their estimates by observations of precision, distort those parts 
of the map due to their reports. The peninsula of Aliaska becomes 
hugely exaggerated as does the Shelagskoi promontory on the Arctic 
Sea. But no unprejudiced person can read Miller’s account without 
perceiving his great caution in accepting unreservedly these imperfect 
contributions, the really important additions which he made to car- 
tography, the preciousness of the facts which he rescued from oblivion, 
and his desire to be fair to everybody. 
The insinuations of malice and of a desire to injure Bering by means 
of this account given by Miller, which Lauridsen attributes to the 
latter, appear to be entirely the product of a suspicious temperament 
and an excited imagination. Certainly I have seen nothing anywhere 
cited which lends to such suspicions any tint of probability. The facts 
cited in support of them can easily be otherwise explained, if one de- 
sires to view the subject judicially, and for the most part are not quite 
thoroughly understood by the Danish author. 
One error upon which the latter lays great stress, is due to a manipu- 
lation of the record, originated or at least adopted by Bering himself, 
and which is incorporated in the map and report which all authors 
agree proceeded directly from Bering’s own hand. 
The next map of importance was issued by the Imperial Academy oF 
Sciences, St. Petersburg in 1754. It was made under the inspection of 
Gerhard Friedrich, Staatsrath von Miller, who revised and corrected it 
subsequently, when an edition dated 1758 was issued. This map com- 
prised the geographical results of the great Siberian expedition sent 
out by the Russian government; of Bering’s voyages; and of the 
records of the hunters (Promishleniks) and traders in northeastern 
Siberia preserved in the archives of Yakutsk. The sources of this map 
are fully explained by Miller in the ‘‘ Russian Discoveries” (Jefferys’ 
translation, p. 108 et seq.). I have not been able to examine a copy of 
the original map, and have therefore relied on the English version of 
it which is to be round in Jefferys’ translation, second edition, London, 
1764, 
