i 4 Captain Burney on the geography of the 
Deschnew, is one which was made by a person named 
Nikiphor Malgin, who stated that “ a merchant named 
65 Taras Staduchin, did many years before relate to him, the 
“ deponent, that he had sailed with ninety men in a Kotsche 
“ from the river Kolyma towards the great cape of the 
“ Tschuktzki : that not being able to double it, they had crossed 
“ over on foot to the other side, where they built other vessels. 
“ The small breadth of the isthmus at the part where they 
“ crossed, is noticed as the most remarkable circumstance in 
“ this deposition/’ They afterwards proceeded along the coast 
round the Kamtschatka Peninsula, till they came to the Pen- 
schinska gulf ; and, in the short account which is given of this 
navigation, is found, expressed in an obscure manner, the 
first notice obtained by the Russians of the Kurilski islands. 
This is a clearly described passage. Besides the expedition 
of Deschnew, and this of Taras Staduchin, only one other 
instance is mentioned of any vessel having gone by sea from 
the Kolyma round the Tschuktzki coast; and this last men- 
tioned case rests on the authority of an unauthenticated tra- 
dition, purporting that some man had gone in a vessel not 
larger than a skiff, from the Kolyma to Kamtschatka ; and 
no other particular is spoken of in the report. 
This was the state of the information obtained concerning 
the north-eastern extremity of Asia, at the time of Captain 
Bering’s voyage. The Asiatic side only of Bering’s Strait 
was discovered in that voyage, and the coast of Asia being 
there found to take a western direction, it had' the effect of 
giving an impression, equal to demonstration, of a total sepa- 
ration of Asia and America. And after that time, and not 
