BAKEK.] 



AUTHOKITIES. 23 



A full and satisfactory account of this voyao^e was published by 

 authority of the Admiralty in 1831, entitled Narrative of a Voyage 

 to the Pacific and Beering's Strait, by F. W. Beechey, 1825-1828, i\ 



London, 1831. 



Bering and Chirikof, 1741. 



The first Russian voyage to bring definite tidings as to northwest 

 America was made by Capt. Commander Ivan Ivanovich (otherwise 

 Vitus) Bering and Capt. Alexie Ilich Chirikof in 1741. It was an 

 official vovage ordered by the government to be made for exploration 

 and discovery. Bering in the St. Paul, with whom was Steller, and 

 Chirikof in the /St. Peter, with whom went Croyere, sailed from 

 Avacha bay on June 1, 1711, and together they cruised eastward. On 

 the 20th they were separated by a storm and did not meet again. The 

 courses kept were generally eastward. Bering reached the vicinity of 

 the mouth of the Copper river and landed there on July 20. The 

 next day he turned back, touched at the Shumagins, saw a number 

 of the Aleutian islands, and was finally driven ashore and died on 

 December 8, 1711, on the island which now bears his name. 



Chirikof landed two boat crews somewhere in the Alexander archi- 

 pelago, perhaps near Sitka. Neither of these was seen again, and 

 Chirikof, sailing away, arrived in Avacha on October 9. 



Concerning this voyage, which was the first of the Russian official 

 voyages to bring back any definite knowledge of America, much has 

 been written. A good account of it compiled from original sources is 

 contained in Journal of Russian Hydrographie Department, 1851, 

 Vol. IX, pp. 190-469, A detailed track chart accompanies this 

 account. See also Petrof's account in Bancroft's History, pp. 63-98. 



Billings, 1790-1792. 

 Commodore Joseph Billings commanded a Russian exploring and 

 surveying expedition in Bering sea and the North Pacific ocean in 

 1791-1792. He appears not to have made or published any account 

 of it. For the results, see Sauer and Sarichef . 



British Admiralty. 

 The British Admiralty has published various charts relating to 

 Alaska, most of them being compilations or reproductions of other 

 maps. Almost always the source of information is clearly indicated. 

 Occasionallv, however, bits of information have been found here and 

 there on the British Admiralty charts which have not been traced to 

 any other source; in such cases reference is simply made to the Brit- 

 ish Admiralty. The region about Glacier bay on British Admiralty 

 chart 2431 is an illustration. 



Brooks, 1898-1900. 

 Mr. Alfred Hulse Brooks, geologist in the party of Mr. W. J. 

 Peters in 1898, made geologic studies in Alaska in that year and again 



