LAND VERSUS SEA EXPEDITION 27 



Land Versus Sea Expedition 



Another question that came up was how this expedition 

 should be sent — by land or by water. There seems to have been 

 a difference of opinion on that subject. Count Nikolai Golovin ^ 

 and Admiral Sanders submitted separate memoirs to Her 

 Majesty recommending that two ships with naval and other 

 supplies be chartered to go from Russia to Kamchatka by way of 

 Cape Horn and Japan. After discharging their cargoes and 

 resting the crews the ships could proceed on their voyage of dis- 

 covery in the North Pacific. Count Golovin even offered to lead 

 the expedition in person if the proper support were assured him. 



A number of reasons were given why the sea route was prefera- 

 ble to the overland route. In the first place there would be a 

 saving of time. It would take from ten months to a year for 

 the sea voyage from St. Petersburg to Kamchatka and a year or a 

 little more for the work of exploration and the return to Russia; 

 on the other hand it would require two years to transport naval 

 and other stores overland to Kamchatka, two more years to build 

 sea-going vessels, and two more years to make the voyage and 

 bring back the results to St. Petersburg. 



Why the propositions of these two prominent men were not 

 accepted is not clear. Perhaps because by 1731 and 1732 the 

 expedition had ceased to be regarded in the light of purely mari- 

 time and geographic discovery and had come to be looked upon 

 as one of scientific investigation in the larger sense, both by land 

 and sea, in the Arctic Ocean as well as the Pacific. It had been 

 decided to send along scientists of the newly founded Imperial 

 Academy of Sciences to make a study of the people and the 

 resources and to secure other scientific data about Siberia and 

 the lands to be discovered. Then, too, in order to settle beyond 

 dispute the much-debated question of the relation of Asia to 

 America, it had been determined to survey and chart the Arctic 

 coast from the White Sea to the mouth of the Kamchatka River. 

 It was assumed as a matter of course that the leader of the expe- 



3 Archives of State, XXIV, No. 8, 1732. 



