36 STELLER'S JOURNAL 



that an attempt could have been made to enter this channel, ^^ 

 where it would have been just as safe to anchor as, if not safer 

 than, in the place under the lee of the island selected on the 20th. 

 It might even have been possible to find a harbor for our ship, 

 with its nine feet draught, in the mouth of the river, which was 

 large enough and therefore probably also deep enough. But the 

 retort I got was. Whether I had been there before and made 

 certain of it? Yet in uncertain things it is better to act on even 

 the slightest indication than for no reason at all and only trusting 

 to good luck. 



The day was spent in tacking in order to get close to the island, 

 to enter the large bay seen from the distance, and at the same 

 time to come under the lee of the land. This was also accom- 

 plished, with the greatest apprehension, when on Monday the 

 20th we came to anchor among numerous islands. The outer- 

 most of these had to be named Cape St. Elias, because we dropped 

 our anchor under the lee of it on St. Elias' day. For the officers 

 were determined to have a cape on their chart notwithstanding 

 the fact that it was plainly represented to them that an island 

 cannot be called a cape,^^ but that only a noticeable projection 

 of land into the sea in a certain direction can be so designated, 

 the same meaning being conveyed by the Russian word nos 

 (nose), while in the present case the island would represent noth- 

 ing but a detached head or a detached nose. 



Orderly management as well as the importance of the matter 



65 As mostly, Steller's observation of physical phenomena was excel- 

 lent, in thus deducing the presence of the river now called the Bering 

 River and other glacial streams descending from Bering Glacier; the 

 naval ofiEicers, however, were correct in their decision to sail around the 

 southern end of Kayak Island, as the channel between it and the main- 

 land, according to the modern chart of the region (U. S. Coast and Geo- 

 detic Survey Chart No. 8513; a section reproduced in Fig. 4), shoals 

 to four feet before reaching the mouth of Bering River channel (Okalee 

 Channel). (J) 



66 The officers called the island St, Elias and its southern cape Cape 

 St. Elias (see Vol. i, p. 96, footnote 36, and map mentioned in ibid., p. 

 99, footnote 42, i.e. our Fig. 3). The cape is still so called (see Fig. 4). (G) 



