Appendix No. 19 — 1890 



NOTES ON AN ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPT CHART OF BERING'S EXPEDITION OF 1725-1730, AND ON AN 

 ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPT CHART OF HIS SECOND EXPEDITION; TOGETHER WITH A SUMMARY OF 

 A JOURNAL OF THE FIRST EXPEDITION, KEPT BY PETER CHAPLIN, AND NOW FIRST RENDERED 

 INTO ENGLISH FROM BERGH'S RUSSIAN VERSION, 



By WILLIAM HEALEY DALL. 

 [Submitted for publication June 23, 1690.] 



EARLY EXPLORATIONS IN THE REGION OF BERING SEA AND STRAIT. 



In 1648 the tide of exploration and adventure setting eastward through Siberia impelled the 

 fitting out of seven small trading boats on the Kolyma River. Three of these, in charge of Simeon 

 Deshueff, Gerasim Ankudinoff, and Eeodor Alexieff, respectively, reached Bering Strait. Anku- 

 dinoff's boat was wrecked on East Cape, but his party were accommodated by the others. There 

 were hostilities with the Chukchi, the two boats were separated, and Deshneff's alone finally reached 

 Kamchatka. Next year he constructed the trading post on the Anadyr River, subsequently known 

 as Anadyrsk. 



There is a tradition that in 1654 a trader named Taras Stadukin followed DeshnefiPs route, 

 made a portage across the neck of East Cape, circumnavigated Kamchatka, discovered the Kurile 

 Islands, and finally reached the Gulf of Penjina in safety. 



In 1711 an emissary named Peter Iliunsen Popoff was sent to East Cape by the Russians, to 

 induce the Chukchi to pay tribute. In this he failed ; but brought back an account of islands beyond 

 East Cape, and of a continent reported by the Chukchi to exist beyond these islands. Some state- 

 ments which he made in regard to the people of this continent were regarded by geographers of 

 the last century as fictitious, but, with our better knowledge, they set the seal of authenticityupon 

 Popoff's report, and show that his journey was really made.* 



The political disorders which prevailed in western Russia about this period prevented any 

 attention from being directed to the reports of these explorations, which were preserved in the 

 archives at Yakutsk. Somewhat later the attention of geographers was directed toward this 

 unknown corner of the world, and the subject was brought to the notice of Peter the Great. He 

 took great interest in it, drew up instructions for an expedition with his own hand, and delivered 

 them to Count Apraxin, with orders to see them executed. A few days later, in January, 1725, he 

 died ; but the Empress, desiring to carry out all the plans of her deceased husband as closely as 

 possible, ordered their execution. Eleet-Captain Vitus Ivanovich Bering was nominated to the 

 command of the expedition, and Lieutenants Martin Spanberg and Alexie Chirikoff to be his 

 assistants. 



* For instance, he reported that the Chukchi said that the natives on the great land opposite East Cape wore tails' 

 This was regarded by Miiller, to -whom we owe all our knowledge of Popoff 's journey, as manifestly absurd. But all 

 who are familiar with the Eskimo of the American side of Bering Strait know that, on formal occasions, at dances or 

 festivals, they do tie a wolf's or dog's tail in the middle line of the back as if it grew there ; so that the Chukchi report 

 to Popoff was quite true. 



759 



