APPENDIX A 



TOPOGRAPHICAL AND PHYSICAL 



DESCRIPTION 



OF 



BERING ISLAND 



WHICH LIES IN THE EASTERN SEA OFF THE COAST 



OF KAMCHATKA^ 



To give a description of Bering Island and the natural re- 

 sources found on it is all the more important ^ as thereby in the 



1 The sections on the sea otter and the sea cow (pp. 214-222 and 226- 

 237, below) have been translated and annotated by Dr. Stejneger. The 

 remainder of the Description of Bering Island has been translated and. 

 except where indicated otherwise, annotated by the editor, in which task 

 he has had the benefit of a reading by Dr. Stejneger. The symbols used 

 are the same as in the journal (see p. 8) . 



Pallas introduces the Description of Bering Island with this "Pre- 

 face. — A man of so thorough learning, unlimited zeal for his science, and 

 true merit as was the former adjunct of the Imperial Russian Academy 

 of Sciences, Georg Wilhelm Steller, famed for his voyage to Kamchatka 

 and America, would have deserved a less partisan and more understanding 

 biographer than it was possible for the editor of his ' Beschreibung von 

 dem Lande Kamtschatka' to be. In Volume 8 of the esteemed Physikal- 

 isch-okonomische Bibliothek of Professor Be[c]kmann I have already 

 refuted the most reprehensible of the tales with which the editor had 

 tried to darken the last events of the life of this worthy naturalist, and 

 therefore no longer need to dwell on this matter. But, because that 

 work of the late lamented on Kamchatka, printed with all its imper- 

 fections from a mere first draft, which furthermore has been loaded with 

 copying and typographical errors that are inexcusable and betray 

 gross ignorance, does not give the most favorable idea of Steller's capa- 

 bilities, I wish to try and destroy that unfavorable impression by the 

 publication of another small manuscript of his, which I caused to be 

 copied in the year 1767 from the original [Urschrift] communicated to 

 me by the late Professor Fischer, and to demonstrate what one could 

 have expected of Steller if he had not been prevented by death from 

 revising his manuscripts at leisure. 



"This manuscript is a topographical-physical description of Bering 



