760 UNITED STATES COAST AND GEODETIC SURVEY. 



Bering and Span berg were Danes who had taken service with Russia, Chirikoff was a Russian 

 and so was Peter Chaplin, one of the most promising cadets of the Naval College at St. Petersburg, 

 who was detailed for service on the expedition. 



The literature resulting from this expedition, our sources of information about it, and the 

 practical results obtained for geographical research have beeu detaded and discussed by the 

 writer in a recent publication,* from which the introductory paragraphs of this paper have been 

 taken. To that the reader is referred for most of the details. It contains a complete translation of 

 Bering's official report, which previously was accessible only in the Russian tongue and in a rare 

 and little-known periodical. This report had been nsed by various writers, abstracted or para- 

 phrased in some of its parts, but not completely rendered into any of the languages of western 

 Europe. Another source, which may be regarded as nearly original, is the abstract by Vasili 

 Bergh of the journal of Peter Chaplin, one of the members of the party. Bergh found this in the 

 archives of the Imperial Naval College, of which Chaplin was a cadet. He also had access to the 

 journal of Alexie Chirikoff, one of Bering's lieutenants. From these sources hecompiled a history 

 of the voyage t, which was printed at St. Petersburg, in 1823, in the Russian language. This book 

 has been used, through the medium of a manuscript translation, by Peter Lauridsen, the latest 

 biographer of Bering. A somewhat condensed translation of Lauridsen's book has recently 

 appeared in this country. The original appeared iu Danish. Lauridsen did not quote exactly 

 from Bergh or indicate precisely what part of his book was derived from that source, and, having 

 filtered through three translations and been twice abridged, it is evident that whatever originality 

 appertains to Bergh's material in the first place can in no wise have been preserved. Beside the 

 difficulties referred to, a number of serious errors, typographical or of the translators, make the 

 value of Lauridsen's book aud its English abridgment, for historical purposes, very slight indeed. 

 I have, therefore, while quite aware of the slenderness of my own equipment as a Russian scholar, 

 thought that a straight-forward rendering of the facts preserved by Bergh would be an acceptable 

 document to those who are interested in the history of the exploration of our northwestern coasts 

 and the region of Bering Sea, The book is now exceedingly rare. I am indebted to the kind 

 offices of Baron Nordenskiold and to the extraordinary liberality of the University of Upsala 

 for an opportunity of examining it.f There are two or three copies in St. Petersburg and one in 

 the library of the British Museum. I have been unable to trace any others. 



Bergh does not always state his facts in Chaplin's own language, though he has done it in 

 what seemed to him important matters. It is quite evident, however, that all his facts not derived 

 from Miiller are from the journals of Chaplin and Chirikoff, except where he states otherwise. I 

 have therefore extracted from Bergh, in the notes hereto appended, all the facts he gives about the 

 expedition, omitting nearly all his reflections upou them, and all that he derived from Miiller and 

 other accessible authorities. The Russian language in 1823 was less fully formed than it is to day, 

 and many of the words used in Chaplin's journal are archaic, obsolete, or peculiar. The transla- 

 tion has therefore been somewhat difficult, yet it is believed to be free from serious error, aud is 

 submitted to the charitable judgment of the reader. The publication first of Bering's report 

 and now of the summary of Chaplin's journal puts before those who read English the only original 

 documents hitherto printed, which have not, up to the preseut time, been accessible to students. 



In brief it may be said that the expedition crossed northern Asia with wagons, barges, boats, 

 sledges, or pack horses, observing latitude and variation of the compass when possible, and work- 

 ing out their longitude by the computation of directions and distances. They built a vessel at 

 Okhotsk and transported themselves across the Okhotsk Sea to the western shore of Kamchatka; 



"National Geographic Magazine, vol. ii, No. 2, pp. 111-169, with a map ; May, 1890. 



t First Sea Voyages of the Russians, undertaken for tbe settlement of this geographical problem — Are Asia aud 

 America united ?— and performed in 1827-'2S-'29, under the command of fleet captain of tbe first rank, Vitus Bering. 

 To which is added a short biographical account of Captain Bering and some of his officers. St. Petersburg, at the 

 Imperial Academy of Sciences, 1823. 



8°, 3 prel. 1., IV, 126 pp., 1 table, 1 map. 



This book was printed at the Academical printing office and issued there, as many private books are, but was 

 not a publication of the Academy. 



t Since this was written the Imperial Academy of Sciences at St. Petersburg has generously loaned a second copy 

 for examination. 



