lo STELLER'S JOURNAL 



undertaken for the exploration of the shore of America situated 

 northeasterly from Kamchatka^ and after despairing more than 

 once of either surviving or serving Russia again, I deem it my 

 duty to precede my further reports with a brief, impartial, and 

 true account of my voyage, its happenings, and the fate which 

 befell the ship's company. 



The great monarch Peter I, of glorious memory, was influ- 

 enced by the discovery of Kamchatka as well as by the represen- 

 tations of the Paris Academy of Sciences^ to cause an investiga- 

 tion to be made, by sending out the then Captain Bering in 

 1725, as to how far America is distant from Kamchatka, the ex- 

 treme northeastern corner of the Empire, or whether it [America] 

 might not in the north be nearer to the extreme Chukchi head- 

 land, which the old map makers ^ called Promontorium Tabin, or 

 even be continuous with the latter. 



Island, in Vol. 2 of Neue Nordische Bey tr age, p. 255 and ff., an J here 

 publish the journal itself, from which it will appear how correct Steller 's 

 judgment was in that early period of discovery about many matters 

 relating to the position and nature of the west coast of America and 

 how much it is to be regretted that the celebrated Bering on this, his 

 last voyage no longer had the energy and health which caused him on 

 his earlier voyage toward the northern strait that is named after him to 

 merit the praise of the great Cook." 



3 June, 1741, to August, 1742. 



* The MS reads "des Nordostlichen Ufer von America," the north- 

 eastern coast of America, but what is meant is of course the coast of 

 Ajnerica lying to the northeast of Kamchatka, as literally stated in the 

 title of the MS version (cited in footnote i) and as implied by Pallas' 

 change of this phrase to "des nordostlich liegenden Ufers von Amerika." 



5 Also by the desire to find precious metais and to win for Russia 

 "glory along the lines of the arts and sciences" (see Vol. i, pp. 8-9, 

 footnote 10). (G) 



6 e. g. Mercator, 1587, Quadus, 1608 (see A. E. Nordenskiold's "Fac- 

 simile-Atlas to the Early History of Cartography," transl. by J. A. Ekelof 

 and C. R. Markham, Stockholm, 1889, Pis. 47 and 49); map B, dated 

 1610, on plate between pp. 966 and 967 in Vol. 2 of Witsen's "Noord en 

 Oost Tartaryen," 2nd edit., 1785; Witsen, 1687, in Frederik Muller and 

 Co.'s "Reproductions of Remarkable Maps," No. 4, Amsterdam, 1897; 

 and Witsen, 1692, in Teleki's "Atlas zur Geschichte der Kartographie 

 der Japanischen Inseln," 1909, PI. 13, map 2. (G) 



