162 National Geographie Magazine. 
REsuME OF THE RESULTS. 
Bering had brought a party, together with supplies and ma- 
terial, over the rough and difficult but long-traveled routes to 
Okhotsk. Wherever he went he found settlements and roads 
such as they were. He transported his material to Bolsheretsk 
and from there across the peninsula to Lower Kamchatka settle- 
ment. It would have been much easier and shorter to have 
doubled the peninsula and taken his stores by sea; one of his 
party had already explored the straits near Cape Lopatka, but 
there was the chance of disaster in this plan and, with his stores 
on terra firma, Bering cannot be blamed for taking the land 
route ; especially as the difficulties would not inconvenience him 
personally. He succeeded in getting his stores and shipwrights to 
the place designated and there prepared himself for the voyage. 
In all this there was difficulty and trouble enough of a certain 
kind. That it all was surmounted with success is very creditable 
to Bering and his officers. But to call it exceptionally heroic or 
extraordinary, is to forget the hundreds of others who preceded 
Bering, without the strong arm of the government at their backs, 
who made the trails he followed, who founded the settlements at 
which he rested, who raised the dogs, the horses.and the cattle 
which were used or consumed by his party. 
Whatever praise we may feel due to Bering and his companions, 
and it is certainly no stinted allowance, the appreciation of their 
struggles cannot fail to include with justice, the still more re- 
markable and nearly forgotten pioneer labors of the undaunted 
Siberiaks, who paved the way, not only for Bering’s weary jour- 
ney, but for the slow yet never ceasing march of civilization. 
After leaving port Bering traced the shores of Kamchatka and 
eastern Siberia as far as Hast Cape. Thence he sailed in a north- 
easterly direction. At 3p. M., Aug. 14th, land was seen astern ; 
the vessel continued in the same direction until 3 p. m. the next 
afternoon, having, at most, sailed about twenty-four hours out of 
sight of land but in shallow water. Bering then concluded he 
had gone far enough to show the separation of Asia from Amer- 
ica, or any land to the eastward. No doubt he was influenced by 
the testimony of the residents of Kamchatka who knew the work 
which had been performed in this region by Deshneff and others, 
and also by the fact that the native testimony all pointed the 
same way. If he was convinced of the truth of this testimony 
