POSITION AND SIZE 191 



they were met with on our voyage, seemed to have the greatest 

 similarity with Bering Island.'* I shall divide this discussion into 

 two parts, of which one is to deal with the nature of the land and 

 the other with all the organisms present on it.^ 



[Position and Size]^^ 



This island, which received the name Bering Island from the 



late Captain Commander, chief of the Kamchatkan expedition, 



his death and burial, ^ [trends] northwest-southeast [and] lies off 



the coast of Kamchatka in latitude 55° to 56°.^ Its northwestern 



Kamchatka have been related, it remains to give a short account of 

 Bering Island itself, the objects of Nature that are to be found on it, 

 and her wonderful creatures that were disclosed to us in surprising 

 numbers." In spite of the implication of these words, of the title page, 

 of the last sentence of the present paragraph as worded in footnote 5, 

 and of the paragraph introducing the discussion of the streams of the 

 island (below, p. 208), the description in the MS does not include — 

 to use the phraseology of that time — the objects of the vegetable or 

 animal kingdoms (see, below, footnote 73). The title of "Topographical 

 and Physical Description" that Pallas supplied also seems, it will be 

 noted, to reflect this condition. 



3 Instead of "as thereby in the main" the MS has "as from a com- 

 plete description of this island." 



* By Canal de Pico Steller means the sea between Kamchatka and 

 the western coast of America, which he thought is much narrower than 

 it really is, because a part of the island[s] seemed to him still to belong 

 to the mainland of America. — P. [See, above, p. 73, footnote 149.] 



4 This relative clause is not in the MS. Its place is there taken by the 

 following: "all the more so as this account may serve the general interest." 



5 Instead of "with all the organisms present on it" the MS has "with 

 everything that is present on it." 



sa The headings are neither in the MS nor Pallas' version but have 

 been inserted by the present translator. 



6 Instead of ascribing the naming of Bering Island also to his death 

 and burial, as does Pallas' version, the MS reads: "of whose death and 

 burial we have told." 



7 For the general relationships and the dimensions of Bering Island, 

 as compared with those given in this section, see PI. I in Vol. i and 

 PI. II in the present volume. In all that follows it should be borne in 

 mind that Steller calls the northeast- and east-facing coast of the island 

 the northern coast, and the southwest-facing, the southern (on this 

 point see also Bull. U. S. Fish Comtn., Vol. 16, 1896, p. 39, footnote i). 



