134 VOYAGE OF TCHIRIKOF. [1741. 



coast without learning what had befallen any of them. In the 

 mean time, the scurvy had broken out among his crew ; and as the 

 stormy season was approaching, he resolved to hasten back to Kamt- 

 chatka. His voyage thither was attended with great difficulties, 

 and before the 8th of October, when he reached Avatscha, he had 

 lost twenty-one men by sickness, including the distinguished French 

 naturalist Delile de Croyere, in addition to the sixteen whose fate 

 was undetermined. The land discovered by him must have been, 

 agreeably to the account given of its latitude and bearings, the 

 western side of one lS the islands, named, on English maps, the 

 Prince of Wales's Archipelago , the inhabitants of which are remark- 

 able for their fierceness and hatred to strangers. It is, therefore, 

 most probable that the men sent ashore by Tchirikof were murdered 

 as soon as they landed. 



These discoveries of the Russians excited some attention in 

 Europe, where they were made known, first, by the periodical pub- 

 lications of France, England, and Germany, and afterwards more 

 fully, by the scientific men and historians of those countries. In 

 1750, a long memoir on the subject was read by the French geog- 

 rapher Delisle, before the Academy of Sciences of Paris,* wherein 

 he gives the highest praise to the Russian navigators, and pro- 

 nounces, as proved by their expeditions, " that the eastern portion 

 of Asia extends under the polar circle, towards the western part of 

 America, from which it is separated by a strait about thirty leagues 

 wide ; this strait is often frozen over, but, when free from ice, it 

 affords communication for vessels into the Frozen Ocean." 



The Russian government did not, however, consider the dis- 

 coveries of its subjects as sufficiently important to justify the imme- 

 diate despatch of other vessels in the same direction ; and no 

 further attempts to explore the North Pacific were made by its 

 authority until 1766. In the mean time, accidental circumstances, 

 connected with Bering's last voyage, had drawn the attention of 

 individuals in Eastern Asia to the islands seen by that navigator, 

 on his return towards Kamtchatka ; and the part of the ocean in 

 which those islands lie had been thoroughly searched. 



It has been mentioned, that the crew of Bering's vessel, during 

 the period passed by them in the island, near Kamtchatka, had sub- 

 sisted chiefly on the flesh of the sea and land animals found there. 

 The skins of these animals, particularly of the black foxes and sea 

 otters, were preserved by the men, and carried with them to Kamt- 



* Histoire de l'Academie Royale des Sciences, for 1750, p. 142. 



