INTRODUCTION. 
25 
Kolyma to Cape Great Baranov, where further advance was pre¬ 
vented by drift ice on the 26th September. 'After having 
returned to the Kolyma, and wintered at Nischni Kolymsk, he 
attempted, the following year, again to make his way eastwards 
in some large boats built during winter, but, on account of 
fog, contrary winds, and ice, without success. In judging of the 
results these voyages yielded, we must take into consideration 
the utterly unsuitable vessels in which they were undertaken^—- 
at first in a double sloop, built at Yakoutsk, in 1785, afterwards 
in two large boats built at Nischni Kolymsk. If we may judge 
of the nature of these craft from those now used on the Siberian 
rivers, we ought rather to be surprised that any of them could 
venture out on a real sea, than consider the unsuccessful 
voyages just described as proofs that there is no probability of 
being able to force a passage herewith a vessel of modern build, 
and provided with steam power. 
It remains, finally, for me to give an account of the at¬ 
tempts that have been made to penetrate westward from 
Behring’s Straits. 
Deschnev’s voyage, from the Lena, through Behring’s Straits 
to the mouth of the Anadir, in 1648, became completely forgotten 
in the course of about a century, until Muller, by searches in 
the Siberian archives, recovered the details of these and various 
other voyages along the north coast of Siberia. That the 
memory of these remarkable voyages has been preserved to 
after-times, however, depends, as has been already stated, upon 
accidental circumstances, lawsuits, and such like, which led to 
correspondence with the authorities. Of other similar under¬ 
takings we have certainly no knowledge, although now and then 
we find it noted that the Polar Sea had in former times often 
been traversed. In accounts of the expeditions fitted out by 
the authorities, it, for instance, often happens that mention is 
made of meeting with hunters and traders, who were sailing 
along the coast in the prosecution of private enterprise. Little 
attention was, however, given to these voyages, and, eighty-one 
years after Deschnev’s voyage, the existence of straits between 
the north-eastern extremity of Asia and the north-western ex¬ 
tremity of America was quite unknown, or at least doubted. 
Finally, in 1729, Behring anew sailed through the Sound, and 
attached his name to it. He did not sail, however, very far (to 
172° W. Long.) along the north coast of Asia, although he does 
not appear to have met with any obstacle from ice. Nearly fifty 
years afterwards Cook concluded in these waters the series of 
splendid discoveries with which he enriched geographical 
