15 
north-eastern part of Asia, &c. 
before, Deschnew was believed to have performed the whole 
of his voyage from the Kolyma to the Anadir by sea. 
Many reports had circulated in Siberia of the existence of 
northern lands in the Icy sea ; but persons sent purposely 
to examine, had not found land, which much discredited the 
reports. A chart in which a northern land was mar ked was 
however published at Petersburgh, about the year 1626 , by 
a Colonel Schestakow, of the Jakutzk Kossaks, a man of 
great ability as well as enterprise. Neither Schestakow nor 
his chart, however, are favourably noticed by Mr. Muller, 
who was in general a candid historian. On Schestakow's 
chart, the north land was marked with the name of the 
Large Country. M. de Lisle gave credit to Schestakow’s 
map for the Large Country, which he makes appear on his 
own chart as a part of America, extending westward beyond 
the Kolyma. 
Between the years 1734 and 1739, three expeditions were 
undertaken to ascertain the limits of Asia to the north and 
north-east, from which no advantage was reaped, and they 
were attended with circumstances of extraordinary distress 
and misery. These undertakings show that the boundary of 
Asia was not then regarded as ascertained. In 1 764, a chart 
was sent from Siberia to Petersburgh, which again showed 
a continuation of the American continent stretching far to the 
west, and opposite to the Siberian coast of the Icy sea. 
Between the years 1760 and 1765, no less than four at- 
tempts were made by one and the same individual, a Russian 
merchant, named Shalaurof, to sail from the Icy sea round 
the north-east of Asia. In the last of these attempts this en- 
