XIIJ.] 
BEHRlNG^S FIRST VOYAGE. 
179 
man, and perhaps above all for the purpose of forming new 
commercial treaties and of discovering new commercial routes, 
Peter the Great during the latest years of his life arranged one 
of the greatest geographical expeditions which the history of 
the world can show. It was not until after his death, however, 
that it was carried out, and then it went on for a series of years 
on so large a scale that whole tribes are said to have been 
impoverished through the severe exactions of transport that 
were on its account imposed on the inhabitants of the Siberian 
deserts. Its many different divisions are now comprehended 
under the name —the Great Northern Expeditio^i. Through the 
writings of Behring, Miiller, Gmelin, Steller, Krascheninnikov 
and others, this exjDedition has acquired an important place for 
all time in the history not only of geography but also of 
ethnography, zoology, and botany; and even now tlie inquirer, 
when the natural conditions of North Asia are in question, 
must return to these works. I shall therefore, before drawing 
this chapter to a close, give a brief account of its princqaal 
features. 
The Great Northern Expedition was ushered in by “ the first 
expedition to Kamchatka.” The commander of this expedition 
was the Dane ViTUS Behring, who was accompanied by 
Lieutenant Morton Spangberg, also a Dane by birth, and 
Alexei Chirikov. They left St. Petersburg in February 1725, 
and took the land route across Siberia, carrying with them the 
necessary materials with which in Kamchatka to build and 
equip the vessel with which they should make their vo^^age of 
exploration. More than three years were required for this 
voyage, or rather for this geographico-scientific campaign ; in 
which for the transport of the stores and the shipbuilding material 
that had to be taken from Europe the rivers Irtisch, Ob, Ket, 
Yenisej, Tunguska, Him, Aldan, Maja, Yudoma, and Urak were 
taken advantage of. It was not until the jth April that a be¬ 
ginning could be made at Nischni Kamchatskoj Ostrog of the 
