22 
Captain Burney on the geography of the 
season proved a severe one; the cold was extreme, and the 
whole party had already been so much fatigued and harassed 
with their journey from the bay of St. Lawrence, that they 
were unable to pursue the coast farther northward. They 
afterwards, in their route westward towards the Kolyma, 
crossed a river, which, according to information from the 
Tschuktzki people, discharged itself into the sea seventy 
versts more north than the bay of Klutchenie. 
In all this uncertainty respecting the north-east termination 
of Asia, the particular most worthy notice is, that the 
Tschuktzki people themselves do not appear, from any of the 
accounts which have been published, to know the extent of 
their country to the north, or to be able to give any satisfac- 
tory information concerning it, though it is known that some 
of their nation have travelled from the continent to islands in 
the Icy sea. The charts of the present century, which have 
assumed to give a limitation to Asia, differ a degree in the 
latitude of their northernmost cape. 
It does not in the smallest degree detract from the merit 
or fame of the first discoverers, to question their having 
navigated round the north-east of Asia. Whether they 
sailed round a promontory, or crossed an isthmus, they 
are equally entitled to the honour of having first discovered 
for their countrymen the sea east of Kamtschatka. The most 
probable chance of completing the discovery, or of arriving 
at any certainty concerning a north-eastern boundary of 
Asia, is doubtless that which was recommended by the 
Russian admiralty to Commodore Billings; i. e. to trace the 
coast in sledges when the sea is frozen. 
The principal argument, and it is not a weak one, against 
