XTiL] SUPPOSED CONNECTION OF AMERICA WITH ASIA. 177 
From what I have stated it follows that, thanks to the 
fondness of the hunters and Cossacks for adventurous explor¬ 
atory expeditions, the current ideas regarding the distribution 
of the land and the courses of the rivers in north-eastern Asia 
were in the main correct. But, in consequence of want of 
knowledge of, or of doubts regarding, Deschnev’s discoveries. 
MAP OF ASIA. 
From an Atlas pnblislied by the Russian Academy of Sciences in 1T37. 
there prevailed an uncertainty whether Asia at its north-east 
extremity was connected with America by a small neck of land, 
in the same way as it is with Africa, or as North and South 
America are connected with each other, a view which, in 
consequence of the unscientific necessity of generalising 
inherent in man, and the wish to have an exjilanation of 
VOL. II. 
N 
