CONJECTURES AS TO POSITION 127 



we were near land;^^^ (3) the observed latitude,* which corre- 

 sponded to that of the first Kurile Islands; 290 (4) the heavy fog 

 which in the west seemed to hide the land, while on the contrary 

 it was clear in the east. Likewise, if the position of Lopatka and 

 the first Kurile Islands be compared with the five days' course 

 kept from there directly north and the distance run then west 

 by south until we came to Bering Island — the position of which, 

 as we learned later, is twenty miles straight east of the mouth of 

 the Kamchatka River — it will be seen that without any doubt 

 we have been at the first two Kurile Islands, -^^ though the of^cers, 



289 See, above, footnote 144, last paragraph. 



* If this single reason had not been against it, I would much rather 

 regard it as certain that the two islands in question were the westernmost 

 of the nearer, properly so-called Aleutian Islands; at least, this conjec- 

 ture is a very probable one. — P. 



290 The latitude of "50° and some minutes" does correspond to that of 

 the "first," or northernmost, Kurile Island but not to that of the Semichi 

 Islands, as we have just seen in footnote 287, nor to that of "this western- 

 most of the nearer Aleutian Islands," as Pallas in his footnote nearly 

 correctly identifies the islands sighted on October 29. (J) 



291 This deduction does not seem permissible even on the basis of 

 Steller's own statements. For the meaning of this passage would seem to 

 be: "If our route be plotted from the point where we sighted the two 

 islands (= 'from there') as it led northwards for five days (see, below, 

 p. 129, and footnote 296) and then W by S until we came to Bering Island 

 and if this route be considered in relation to the now known position of 

 Bering Island as 20 [German] miles due east of the mouth of the Kam- 

 chatka River, then the initial point of this route at the two islands will be 

 seen to coincide with the known position in latitude of the first Kurile 

 island in 50° and some minutes." These relations can be visualized better 

 in the form of a right-angled triangle (see Vol. i, PI. I) in which the 

 southern apex is represented by the point at which the Semichi Islands 

 were sighted, the right angle by the point at which the course changed 

 from northward to westward, and the northwestern apex by the mouth of 

 the Kamchatka River, the two included sides of the right angle being 

 represented respectively by the northward course and by the westward 

 course with its extension to the mouth of the Kamchatka River. This 

 leaves the third side of the triangle, with its northwest-southeast trend, 

 to represent the eastern coast of Kamchatka. Steller's argument would 

 thus be understandable if he thought that this coast trended northwest- 

 southeast. But a few pages below (p. 134) he tells us precisely that it 



