SECOND MEETING WITH NATIVES loi 



On September 5 it rained very hard during the forenoon. In 

 the afternoon it seemed several times as if it might clear, but 



its relation to Kamchatka might have proved of incalculable value to him, 

 possibly even preventing his death on its very shores twelve years later. 

 Steller's reference to no land having been found within 30 miles of 

 of Kamchatka tallies with the above distance of 114 nautical miles inas- 

 much as he means German miles and 30 German miles are equal to 120 

 nautical miles. So does Bering's statement of the distance (Vol. i, p. 20) 

 as 200 versts. 



Steller's figure of 20 German miles for the distance from Bering Island 

 to Kamchatka is somewhat low, as even from the nearest land, Cape 

 Kamchatka, the island is 100 nautical, or 25 German miles away (see 

 Vol. I, PI. I). 



The statement, omitted by Pallas, that the mainland is in this region 

 only 40 miles from Kamchatka tallies with Steller's conception as ex- 

 pressed later in the journal (see, below, footnote 418). According to this 

 passage he considered the land alleged to have been seen to the east from 

 Bering Island to be the westward extension of the American mainland. 

 This is in conformity with the view entertained by the members of the 

 expedition in general that what we now know as the Aleutian Islands 

 was, taken as a whole, the mainland coast of America (see. below, foot- 

 notes 260 and 418). Steller's conception is illustrated by the map incor- 

 porating the results of Bering's two expeditions published by the St. 

 Petersburg Academy of Sciences, a redraft of which accompanies Jef- 

 ferys' translation, London, 1761, of Miiller's account of these expeditions 

 in Sammlung Russischer Geschichte, Vol. 3, St. Petersburg, 1758 (section 

 reproduced in our Fig. 14) and the compilation of which is discussed in 

 the same works, viz. Miiller, pp. 279-302, Jefferys, pp. 67-75. This 

 map (of which Bellin's map of 1766, reproduced in Teleki's "Atlas zur 

 Geschichte der Kartographie der Japanischen Inseln," 1909, PI. 15, is 

 essentially a copy) shows an immense projection of land extending south- 

 west from the northwestern corner of North America. The coast limiting 

 it on its southeastern side consists of the landfalls of Bering's second expe- 

 dition, with the islands which the expedition recognized as such indicated 

 as offshore islands. The southwestern end of the projection approaches to 

 within the same distance of Bering Island that Bering Island is from 

 Kamchatka — thus corresponding, relatively, to Steller's figures, although, 

 absolutely, the distances shown on the map are more than his 20 and 40 

 miles. 



Incidentally, Pallas' omission of Steller's statement that the American 

 mainland was only 40 miles from Kamchatka is in keeping with his 



