130 DISCOVERIES OF SPANGBERG AND KRUPISCHEF. [1740. 



Martin Spangberg and William Walton, from Ochotsk, through the 

 passages between the Kurile Islands, to Japan. Within the same 

 period, also, the connection of the Pacific with the Atlantic, by the 

 Arctic Sea, north of Europe and Asia, had been ascertained by 

 means of expeditions, partly on land and partly on sea, along the 

 northernmost shores of the continents ; though all the attempts 

 made then, and since, to pass, in one vessel, around those coasts, 

 from Europe to the Pacific, have proved abortive. Moreover, a 

 Russian commander, named Krupischef, had sailed, in 1732, from 

 Kamtchatka, northward, as far as the extreme point of Asia, which 

 had been reached by Bering in his first voyage ; and he had thence 

 been driven, by storms, eastward, upon the coast of an extensive 

 mountainous territory, which was supposed to be, and doubtless 

 was, a part of America. Thus the great geographical fact of the 

 entire separation of Asia and America was supposed to be deter- 

 mined ; and all doubts as to the practicability of navigating between 

 the Russian dominions, in the former continent, and those of Spain, 

 in the latter, were dissipated. 



These discoveries encouraged the empress Anne, who had suc- 

 ceeded to the throne of Russia in 1730, to persevere in endeavoring 

 to extend her authority farther eastward ; and she accordingly 

 commissioned Bering, in 1740, to make another expedition from 

 Kamtchatka, in search of America. For this purpose, two vessels 

 were built in the Bay of Avatscha, on the south-east side of Kamt- 

 chatka, which had been selected for the establishment of a marine 

 depot ; and scientific men were engaged, in France and Germany, 

 to accompany Bering, in order that precise information might be 

 obtained on all points connected with the seas and territories to be 

 explored. 



Before the preparations were completed, the empress Anne died ; 

 but her successor, Elizabeth, the daughter of Peter the Great, 

 immediately declared her determination to prosecute the enterprise ; 

 and, no delays being experienced, the vessels sailed together from 

 the Bay of Avatscha, on the 4th of June, 1741. The larger vessel, 

 called the St. Peter, was commanded by Bering ; the other, the St. 

 Paul, by Tchirikof, who had accompanied the Dane in his previous 

 voyages. On leaving the harbor, they took an eastern course, and 

 continued together until the 21st of the month, when they were 

 separated during a violent gale, after which they never met again. 



Of Bering's voyage, after his separation from Tchirikof, the only 

 definite accounts are contained in the journal of Steller, the surgeon 



