INDICATIONS OF LAND 31 



as fish-eaters, to secure their food in all parts of the ocean, even 

 at a considerable distance from land. Nevertheless, it has been 

 observed that they seldom venture ten miles from land and 

 never more than twenty. As we frequently caught sight of seals, 

 it might easily have been surmised that land must be near. 



The constant occurrence of the Kamchatkan sea beaver,* 

 or more correctly sea otter, furnished a still stronger proof. This 

 animal lives solely and entirely on crustaceans and shellfish and 

 cannot, because of the structure of its heart, remain under water 

 more than two minutes without inhaling air, and it is therefore 

 compelled to keep close to the shore, as it is not able to look for 

 food at depths of sixty to a hundred fathoms, nor would it find 

 any even if it were able to. From all this evidence the conclu- 

 sion was inevitable that land was near. As the strongest evi- 

 dence that America was nearest to the east of and opposite the 

 coast of Kamchatka between 51° and 56°, I have always re- 

 garded the fact that in Kamchatka the sea otter is found in this 

 latitude only, in the sea which is therefore called the Beaver 

 Sea, but not farther north nor farther south.** Otherwise there 

 would seem to be no good reason why the sea otter should not 

 also be found as far north as 57° or 58°, about Olyutora, or as 

 far south as 49° or 50°, among the farther Kurile Islands, since 

 in America we met with these animals almost in latitude 60°, 

 in the neighborhood of Cape St. Elias, [and since] it is also well 

 known that they occur in latitude 10° on the American coast, 

 and even in Brazil, from which country Marggraf has described 

 them. The fact is that the sea otter is an animal peculiar to 

 America and only a newcomer and stranger in Kamchatka. 

 Owing to the wide expanse of sea and the lack of food it cannot, 

 on account of its organization, get across above 56° north lati- 

 tude or below 50° south latitude, but only through the so-called 

 Beaver Sea, where in a straight line it may not have more than 



* Lutris Lin. — P. 

 ** The now discovered chain of islands is a more probable explanation 

 of this coming over of the sea otter from the American seas to the Kam- 

 chatkan coast here specified. — P. 



