178 Arctic and Antarctic Exploration [part i 
Lieutenant Chirikof. George Wilhelm Steller was with 
Bering as a naturalist. The Aleutian Islands were explored 
and the grand peak of Mount St Elias was discovered and 
named. Scurvy broke out among the crew and the com- 
modore himself was attacked by it. In November the St 
Peter was wrecked on the island which afterwards received 
the name of the ill-fated discoverer. Bering was very ill. 
He was carried on shore and placed in a trench dug in 
the side of a sand-hill. Here he was almost buried alive, 
for the sand kept continually rolling down, and he 
requested that it might not be moved as it kept him 
Bering's Voyage from Kamschatka to North America. 
(From a chart of 1741 drawn by a member of Bering's expedition; it contains 
one of the few original drawings of the extinct sea-cow,) 
warm. In this miserable condition Bering died on 
December 8th, 1741. Steller, who was the ship's surgeon, 
as well as naturalist, was very anxious to procure fresh 
food for his patients. He attributed the cure of those who 
recovered from the scurvy to the flesh of the sea-otter. 
Nine hundred skins of these were collected, for which the 
Chinese at Kiakta, on the Russian frontier, would pay 
at the rate of £30 a piece. Thirty of the crew died on 
the island, and the rest made their way to Kamschatka 
in a boat built from the wreck of the St Peter. Steller 
discovered a rare and previously unknown species of 
